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Trivializing the down side of fracking by only memtioning the impact on ground water ignores the total carbon footprint left by hydraulic fracturing operations - not to mention seismic implication. A case can be made that fracked natural gas is worse than coal.
It's fascinating, but the more I read about global warming, the more I come to the realization that there is no one truth. It's not a debate on whether it exists or not - though that certainly is a part - it's becoming far more nuanced. The PressReader platform expresses this exceptionally well http://www.pressreader.com/pro... though even this doesn't settle the question. what worries me about this whole thing is when we start dealing with policy: when there is no established causality (ex driving habits to globe-scale warming), it is very difficult to implement any sort of meaningful policy. As fun as the debates are to follow, a solid answer would go a long way.
Rolling Stone has got to be the most over-the-top, far-left and even anti-American magazine of all time. To be honest I feel like I'm reading satire and not politics at times.
The story of Anthropogenic Global Warming (man-made global-warming) is a story of science fiction conjured up to scare the gullible and the ignorant.
From his man-made global warming altar, Al Gore conjures a false narrative against those opposing his superstitions: http://youtu.be/S3gbDoW5I8Q?t=...
Shocking that Bill Clinton is all for the Keystone pipeline, but more shocking is this story. Reading Tim Dickinson's article is the same as reading about mass extinction, as Elizabeth Kolbert explained in her new book The Sixth Extinction - only the Sixth is brought on by human greedy insanely stupid evil leaders like Obama and Hillary Clinton. Republicans have always been owned by the fossil fuel industry--that's nothing new, but to learn that Obama has also been an oil man from the get-go, the difference between Obama and the Republicans is that he LIES so well to the Democrats. Well this is one Democrat that isn't playing the game any more. Will NOT vote for Hillary Clinton, I don't give a darn what monster they run against her, Hillary, as Tim wrote "supports dirty energy exports even more than Obama." If Gov Jerry Brown ran for President 2016 I'd vote for him, but I REFUSE to vote for Ms Oil & Weapons Queen, Hillary Clinton.
How I wish China and those Asian markets that are buying this carbon mass extinction product, which is what we should ALL start calling it now: a MASS EXTINCTION PRODUCT, how I wish China would tell Obama and the US oil industry, "You know what? stick your filthy cheap, dirty carbon polluting tar sands oil up your a***es. We're going to keep building solar and wind turbines to meet our energy demands."
Wishful thinking, I know. But would love to see them tell Obama to stick the petcoke up his a** where it belongs.
The story of Anthropogenic Global Warming (man-made global-warming) is a story of science fiction conjured up to fool the gullible and the ignorant.
Seems like the developed world is like a coal train headed down a mountain with no brakes - sooner or later a crash is inevitable ... things could get really ugly in the next few decades as world populations continue to explode and natural resources peter out ...
What a silly article. Why are you all on the left so obsessed with a circumstance you can't change? We have no affect over developing nations and will not be able to stop their choices. Yet you all want to cripple America. Why?
I'm not a liberal or a conservative - I'm a free thinking libertarian who staunchly believes in free enterprise - with that said I think this is a very thoughtful article - reckless rape of America's natural resources can not be tolerated ... nor can corporate poisoning of our environment in the name of fat cat profit margins - this is 2014, not the late 1800s ...
im not so good with this politic stuff, can anyone summerize it simple stupid for me???
need help for english class, no study group!
In the end only by reducing demand and not supply will resource be kept into the ground. As long as there is a demand for a product, a market in which to sell it, and a means with which to deliver it to the market, producers will meet that demand as that is what they are there for.
As for third world countries, they will get their oil from whoever sells it be it Canada, Nigeria, Venezuela, etc etc. To forbid a domestic company from selling their product to the open market will have serious economic consequences for the country.
As for solar and wind power, despite the growth (remember 100% of 1 = 2 leading to 1000% being 10. Don't be fooled by percentages people throw at you
All our waterways should be clean enough to drink from, fish from and
swim in without risk of pollution--from our local rivers and streams, to
iconic waters like the Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes.
Unfortunately, loopholes in the Clean Water Act have left many of our
smaller waters unprotected, including those that feed and filter the
drinking
water for 117 million Americans. PUT A PRICE ON CARBON, NOW; It makes
sense that pollution in streams and wetlands affects larger waterways
downstream. Please move forward to protect our environment and our
health by restoring Clean Water Act protections to all America's
waterways, including all our streams and wetlands.
Because of the
increase in Birth Defects & Miscarriages, besides Color flag
warnings of un-breathable air around the power plants Springdale,
Cheswick, New Florence, Indiana, Homer City Pennsylvannia ---> Hunger
Underserved Pockets in Pennsylvania! One in five children in need of
food! cleanwateraction.org
If those who want clean energy were both willing and able to outbid those who want energy regardless of how dirty it is, they could buy the remaining fossil fuel reserves as mineral rights--that is pay the owners to keep the **** fossil fuel under the ground where it is now.
Perhaps the liberals could pool their fortunes and buy lots from the energy companies?
I wish I could afford to buy some fossil fuel as mineral rights to keep in the ground for thousands of years and knew how. I wonder if 350.org could be persuaded to get some propaganda in favor of replacing fossil fuel with renewable energy done by art student volunteers at easy reader I can read it myself reading level as bouncing dot singalongs and bundle the propaganda with about $20 worth of fossil fuel as mineral rights to sell to doting grandparents for $25 for gifts to young children. The propaganda could be entertaining and distributed over the internet. The children could enjoy it. Any decrease in global warming would benefit the children.
I wish I owned all the mineral rights so I could extract the stuff and burn it. Long live the Koch brothers!
So you are a capitalist at heart; and I am a liberal at heart but also enough of a realist to know I can't do much of anything myself and wish someone could figure out some way to solicit donations for buying fossil fuel as mineral rights to keep it underground, maybe by bundling it with some propaganda mixed with entertainment for children that would also help the kids learn to read. I am unwilling to spend money on straight politics even when I agree with the cause.
That's what we need in this world - more liberal propaganda. Sheesh. When will you people grow up?
Once a child learns how to read, he or she can read everything he or she can get hold of. Literacy is a big obstacle to messing with people's minds.
Our world is having grave problems:We are pumping the electric companys' so much they are putting heavy metal contaminants: lead, mercury, CO2 emissions in the Pittsburgh region air; We are told not to go outside: !!!! Helicopters were flying around everywhere monitoring!
AIR QUALITY ALERT IS IN EFFECT FOR WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 12...
THE PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION HAS ISSUED A CODE ORANGE AIR QUALITY ALERT WEDNESDAY FOR PITTSBURGH.
A CODE ORANGE AIR QUALITY ALERT MEANS THAT AIR POLLUTION CONCENTRATIONS WITHIN THE REGION MAY BECOME UNHEALTHY FOR SENSITIVE GROUPS. SENSITIVE GROUPS INCLUDE CHILDREN... PEOPLE SUFFERING FROM ASTHMA... HEART DISEASE OR OTHER LUNG DISEASES... AND THE ELDERLY. THE EFFECTS OF AIR POLLUTION CAN BE MINIMIZED BY AVOIDING STRENUOUS ACTIVITY OR EXERCISE OUTDOORS.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON GROUND-LEVEL OZONE AND FINE PARTICLES...
this is so "dam scarey" and causing pneumonia-like symptoms and COPD!
EPA need to move faster on pollution fines, President Obama needs to
Stop XL Keystone Pipeline, I am against the Chinese pipeline, nothin
Keystone about it! Now, that the" Out-of-water-west" drought has caused
water shortages in Phoenix Arizona, a water line makes more common sense
...imagine that enormous dams to be built; then just pipeline
water...engineers need to get on this idea!...waste is that waste...just
sayin...:) <(") Remember: 20-50% of multiple species by 2050 will be
extinct.....that's tomorrow, that's fast timing, that's inevitable!
Added the ugly dirty CO2 emissions to the atmosphere to help speed
momentum of the ending of humanity is "Stinkin C02 Carbon Polluter
Thinkin!"
GASP: Green Alll Sacred Places, so much is at stake--> safeguard Planet Earth! Water First! cleanwateraction.org
The upcoming EPA regulations on existing coal plants will reduce emissions by, at best, just 10 15%. Worse, they will rely on State's to develop and enforce, which is a fatal flaw. And NRDC's proposed plan won't work either because it can not legally fit within the Clean Air Act.
The proposed rule for new plants will have no effect on emissions at all because it does not apply to any plant and no one is building new coal plants.
Obama is s huge sham, just a disgusting corporate sham.
Bill McKibben finally called him out on that in a piece in December, but that perspective seems to have fallen off the radar.
No state that depends on cheap coal power could possibly dare defy their big business interests and implement any regulations on coal plant emissions. It would make more sense to impose user fees on the national level and give both fossil fuel firms and utilities a chance to pay the tax by spending money to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions--whether by fixing leaks or by investing in renewable energy to replace fossil fuel.
And how would TPP affect the use of Petcoke as power plant fuel in the US? If we hurt someone global hyper-congloerates profits by regulating it out of use, will we be sued in the court of Corporate Plutocracy? This si fascism gone mad,turned on its head. We are letting the most foolish, avaricious, and protected amongst us rain death down upon us and regulate us out of any ability to care for ourselves. They can feel and burn pet coke, but I have to use a catalytic converter to burn oak in a wood stove. WORLD GONE BUG-SNOT CRAZY!
Whoever they pay for disinformation are having a field day with this. Fortunately most of us are beyond their simple "there used to be a glacier in California and it's gone now and it's normal" kinds of thoughts and propaganda.
after becoming inspired by bill nye in the debate over evolution v. creationism...i have formulated my owe sciene experiment. I call it the pepsi challenge and if that is taken well, how about the climate change challenge. Here it is, drive your car into the garage shut the door and keep the motor running. This mimics the closed system that it our atmosphere and what happens when our system is overwhelmed with poison gas. (what it just dissappears like tricky chris chrissties poll numbers) climate change is about extreme james cameron disaster movie extreme weather. if you don't even know what it's about folks then how can you be against it. Climate change is only important if you need to eat. Because the plantet we're making isn't going to feed us all.
We need to put an emissions tax on any intestinal flatulence
based on the decibel level of the escaping gasses! Monitoring stations could be
created that would contain high amp microphones that would pinpoint any abrupt
animal discharges of methane gas. NSA could oversee the technical operations
and Homeland Defense could then arrest the miscreants and round up the animals.
Studies have shown that most of the methane flatulence comes from Washington
DC! We need to tax the government first until they cannot print anymore money
and then every living thing that breaks wind.
Look to the Native Americans experience for a form of evaluation... promises, promises, promises broken over an over again from all parties to their clientele.
LOLOL!!! News flash for you, Tim. It's been getting cooler. But, that's ok. You can still proclaim all this via "Climate Change". Only problem with that is, the climate never stays the same. It's always in a state of change.
What does past change tell us about global warming?
not a valid blog..too biased (this is based on the blogger's own admittance)
then read in the scientific litareature. its not geting colder . the global average SAT is stil rising, and global warming is still happening, take a look at the OHC for example.
You may want to visit the web site for the Goddard Space Flight Center where you can find graphs that clearlt depict a cooling in the 5-year running mean from 2000 onwards:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gist...
The northern hemisphere is clearly cooling while the southern hemisphere is continuing to climb
so? as i said, in the SAT yes, but nothing to see of cooling in the OHC.
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3...
especially in the 0-2000m graph.
and we had NH cooling 60's-80's more cooling thatn now.
so what is your point?
When temperatures cease to rise at the same rate as it did before it is an indicator of cooling; when you add the effect of both atmospheric temperatures and the rise in ocean temperature the net effect is a flattening off of the 5-year mean temperature characterized by a observed albeit small down slope from 2000 onwards
My point is that the air temperatures have been cooling off since 2000 and the 5-year mean temperature exhibits a distinct downward slope which does indicate it is getting cooler.
there is no significant cooling trend, not even in SAT. and again, SAT is not the whole planet its actually a very very thin layer of our atmosphere.
well that is not a matter of opinnion, its a matter of statistics. there simply is no statistical significant cooling trend at all. the time period is simply too short.
If you want to talk about time period, then 200 years ia way to short to define anything definitive as far as our climate is concerned - given that the major climate cycle is about 125,000 years; you cannot pick and chose. You either accept the data and what it shows over a decade or reject any other data that reflects a period of a decade.
so, in other words , you do not know what statistical significance is. how do you account for the noise in the data?
Having worked with statistics within a geological environment for most of my adult life yes I do know what statistical significance is and I do know that even if it is statistically significant, that does not provide the necessary proof that something exists int he way you think it does.
Noise is reduced by taking five, ten , or even large moving means
well then you should know that this cooling is by no means statistically significant. wich means, we cannot say if it is a trend or not.
the only thing we can say is that it is a significant deviation from the path the rise in temperatures took in the 1970's and 1980's which were attributed to rising atmospheric CO2 and that is what people are pointing out - the apparent close pattern in rising temperatures to the rise in CO2 has deviated from the relationship exhibited in the previous two decades. This on top of the fact the climate models that are being relied upon to drive public policy indicated that the temperatures should have continued to rise.
I wasn't me who said it was getting colder - what IS happening is that the during the last decade, the growth in the rise in the avg temp was significantly slower than the previous two decades - and this happened at a time when CO2 continued to accumulate in the atmosphere at rates comparable to those previous two decades. What this suggests is there is a disconnect between the rise in CO2 and trhe rise in temperature - can't wait to see what the 2014 temps come out at!!
well in the SAT (Surface air temperature) yes, but not in the OHC (Ocean heat content)
but your conclusion from this is ver simplistic. you need to take a look at the other factors. withtout that you cannot come to the conclusion you came to.
for example.in the mid 20th century we had global cooling, and this at a time where solar activity rose to its highest levels. does that somehow suggest that there is a disconect between the sun and temperatures on this planet?
Nobody was talking about the ocean temperatures - plus it is unlikely the ocean temp can rise as a result of higher atmosphere temperatures which has been the point all along - that rising CO2 in the atmosphere is trapping reflected energy and thereby raising the the air temperature - after all that is what the greenhouse theory is all about. If the oceans are warming, it is because it is absorbing energy from the sun.
I do not believe my view is simplistic - sometimes in science that is all what is needed to come to a conclusion - much better than over massaging and manipulating data under the guise of science in order to make your case.
As for the cooling in the 20th century, it in no way suggests there is a disconnect between the sun and the earth's temperatures. There is a lot more to the sun than simple total radiance - the solar cycle, the strength and attitude of the sun's magnetic field, the number and lenght of sunspot activity all have an impact on temperatures on this planet. The cooling you refer to which began in the 1940's and extended through to the 70's was accompanied by an increase in solar cycle. Take that relationship back to about 1890, the solar cycle dropped by over a year in length and this was accompanied by a temperature increase of nearly 1 degree C.
and what do you mean with increase in solar cycle.
sunspot / 11 year cycle are corelated with TSI.
for other incfluences you would need to provide alot of science showing this. as for magnetic field. i guess you go with Svensmark's hypothesis.
but the data does not support his hypothesis at all.
Here is an illustration of variance in solar cycle and temperatures
As for Svensmark's hypothesis, my comment in no way is related to his work which was supporting the theory that cosmic radiation can stimulate the creation of clouds which would result in a cooling of the planet.
It is basic knowledge that the earth's magnetic field serves to protect the planet from in coming radiation be it solar or cosmic; the northern lights are a testament to that. Now if that field weakens, which is has over the past 100 years or so, more radiation will reach the surface of the earth than before, all other parameters being held static.
