Resisting The Consensus: A Climate Change Thread

Cuttooth wrote:

Cal wrote:Anyway, it's very good to see someone actually bothering to riposte in this thread. I'd hate to have it all my own way, after all.

strawberry floating hell.

Cal wrote:AGW is of course a real, recorded, verifiable phenomenon. We have the data on that: only a fool would deny it.

Cal wrote:My position remains thus: MMCC is NOT 'settled' or 'proven' despite what any government minister claims, any scientists claims.

Cal wrote:HERE are the 100 reasons, released in a dossier issued by the European Foundation, why climate change is natural and not man-made:

Cal wrote:As a MMCC heretic (and f*cking proud of it)

Cal wrote:...funnelled into the pockets of those pimping MMCC and all its deceptions.

Cal wrote: imagined 'man-made' climate change

Cal wrote:The BBC discovers that not everyone shares their illogical, if politically correct, enthusiasm for pro-AGW propaganda.

Cal wrote:show me the proof that the climate change we are currently experiencing (and nobody doubts that it is happening) is attributable to man's activities.

Cal wrote:AGW - and unproven theory?

All reliable sources seem to point to a number of things;

CO2 levels are rising.
CO2 is a principle greenhouse gas.
Global temperatures are rising.
Human output has created a sustained increase in CO2 levels across the last century.

Therefore, as the theory goes (yes, a theory, but a scientific one, please understand the definition (unless you want this to descend into a debate over Popperian terminology which, at this point, would actually be a far more interesting read than another ten pages of point-rebuttal-denial-initial point again)) increased human CO2 output has led to change in global climate.

I can't help you. You stopped listening a long time ago to anything that doesn't chime with your propaganda.

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:If I were gay, I'd be gay for Skarjo.

Fracking drives pronghorn herds out of Wyoming habitat

Meet the latest player in the fractious debate over "fracking" for natural gas: the pronghorn. Disturbance from drilling is causing the fleet-footed ungulates to vacate their prime wintering grounds in Wyoming.

In winter, pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) migrate from higher ground to the Upper Green River basin – which in recent years has experienced a boom in gas drilling.

To study the effects of this development, a team led by Jon Beckmann, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, based in Bozeman, Montana, put GPS collars on 125 female pronghorn and tracked their movement.

Between 2005 and 2009 the researchers documented a five-fold decline in the use of habitat patches predicted to be of the highest quality, as the animals avoided areas disturbed by drilling. "We are seeing the abandonment of crucial winter range," says Beckmann.

Pronghorn populations haven't yet begun to fall, but a parallel study of the area's mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), a more sedentary species, doesn't bode well: its numbers declined by 50 per cent over the same period.

By 2009 more than 3300 wells had been drilled in the Upper Green River basin, many of which are fracked, and thousands more are expected to follow. The researchers want the federal Bureau of Land Management, which must approve drilling operations, to minimise wildlife disturbance. That could be done by concentrating wells onto fewer drill pads, and using "directional drilling" techniques to extend the wells horizontally.

Hexx wrote:Where's Albear when you need him

Cal wrote:

Hexx wrote:

Cal wrote:The BBC now has a policy of all-but refusing climate sceptics serious air-time, as it has publicly stated it considers the 'scientific consensus settled' in favour of CAGW

Find this statement. With the exact quote given.

Climate change sceptics will get less of a hearing on the BBC because they are at odds with the majority view among scientists, a report reveals.

The corporation’s governing body is set to change the way the BBC covers the issue by urging it to focus less on those who disagree with the majority ‘consensus’. The BBC Trust report, out today, is in part based on an independent review of the broadcaster’s coverage by Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University College London. He is understood to find no evidence of bias in the corporation’s output, but suggests that on issues where there is a ‘scientific consensus’ – also including the MMR jab and genetically modified crops – there should be no need for the BBC to find opponents of the mainstream view. Critics of the BBC fear it may use the report as cover to ‘promote a green agenda’. In the past, the BBC has been accused of acting like a cheerleader for the theory that climate change is a man-made phenomenon.

Link

That Jones was invited to report on the BBC's traditional policy of impartiality was relevant. The corporation has decided it isn't bound by the requirement, which is part of its charter, for environmental stories - a peace-time first. Jones views on the climate "debate" are unambiguous: there isn't one, he says, despite "a drizzle" of activity from a handful of outside journalists who, he says, "have taken it upon themselves to keep disbelief alive". Because the BBC is annoying everyone, it must be doing something right, he reasons. Jones then dons a shrink's hat, and attempts to seek the psychology of the BBC's critics with some generalisations. He compares climate critics to 9/11 conspiracy theorists and pro-smoking campaigners who all "practise denialism", he says. "Purity of belief makes it easy for denialists to attract the attention of news organisations, but hard for them to balance their ideas against those of the majority. This can lead to undue publicity for views supported by no factual information at all. There have been many computer models of what may happen in future," Jones says, adding, "almost every climatologist predicts a period of rising temperature. Truth is not defined by opinion polls," writes Jones, quoting six opinion poll surveys, "... but it is difficult to deny the consensus," he suggests.

Link

Hexx wrote:
Yes, I'm sure you've read them but neither of those links actually prove your point in any way at all.

I, for one, was terribly surprised. Especially since it's pretty much exactly what you did last time when you completely missreprensented the BBC Trusts concerns to advance your message


viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7258&p=2112408&hilit=+BBC+Trust+#p2112408

and the time before that

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7258&p=2111953&hilit=+BBC+Trust+#p2111953

and the time before that

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7258&p=1076282&hilit=+BBC+Trust+#p1076282

and then time...then I got bored of looking.

Perhaps you could just go and read old posts in the thread rather than continually reposting the same tired, debunked, rebuked and discredited bullshit?

Remeber:

Do not POST in a manner designed to wear down a USER passive-aggressively ("STEALTH-TROLLING").

Heartland Institute compares belief in global warming to mass murder

US thinktank launches poster campaign comparing Unabomber and Osama Bin Laden to those concerned about global warming



It really is hard to know where to begin with this one. But let's start with: "What on earth were they thinking?" The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based rightwing thinktank notorious for promoting climate scepticism, has launched quite possibly one of the most ill-judged poster campaigns in the history of ill-judged poster campaigns. It tries to morally justify its posters - the first of which appeared over the Eisenhower Expressway yesterday - by saying that, due to ""Climategate" and the recent incident in which a US scientist called Peter Gleick admitted to obtaining and releasing internal documents (one of which Heartland claims was faked) detailing Heartland's funding and policy strategies, that "the leaders of the global warming movement are willing to break the law and the rules of ethics to shut down scientific debate and implement their left-wing agendas".

The bigger question, beyond trying to analyse the collective mentality of an organisation that would sign off a poster campaign like this, is whether it will now lead any of the speakers, attendees and sponsors to pull out of the conference and dissociate themselves from this thinktank?

As a result of the embarrassment caused by the release earlier this year of its internal funding documents, the US car giant GM pulled the plug on its funding for Heartland. Will Microsoft, Pfizer or GlaxoSmithKline, for example, now also choose to cut their funding to this organisation?

You also have to wonder if any of the scheduled conference speakers are now having doubts about whether they want to be associated with Heartland. One person who is on the list to speak is Roger Helmer, a British politician who has attended previous conferences. Having recently left the Conservative party as an MEP, the prominent climate sceptic is now the UK Independence Party's spokesperson on industry and energy.

Skarjo wrote:*stuff*.

U.S. proposes new rules for fracking on federal lands
The Obama administration unveiled long-awaited rules on Friday to bolster oversight on public lands of oil and natural gas drilling using fracking technology that has ushered in a boom in drilling but also triggered environmental protests.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration unveiled long-awaited rules on Friday to bolster oversight on public lands of oil and natural gas drilling using fracking technology that has ushered in a boom in drilling but also triggered environmental protests.

Interior's proposal would update its decades-old fracking regulations with new reporting standards and a requirement that companies get approval before using the drilling technique. The proposal also would require companies to reveal chemicals they use in hydraulic fracturing after they complete the process.

In the past, drilling companies had resisted calls to fully disclose the chemicals they use in fracking, which they regarded as proprietary information. The industry also believes it should be regulated by states instead of the federal government.

But critics, who say fracking has polluted drinking water, want the federal government to tighten regulations, and say drillers should reveal their chemicals before they inject them underground along with water and sand in the fracking process.

Fracking has unlocked vast new reserves for the United States but has provoked an intense backlash from some environmental groups and some neighbors of drilling sites.

"As we continue to offer millions of acres of America's public lands for oil and gas development, it is critical that the public have full confidence that the right safety and environmental protections are in place," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement.

The rules would not affect drilling on private land, where the bulk of shale exploration takes place. Still, the administration has said it hopes the rules could be used as a template for state regulators.

"Most shale plays are out of the reach of Interior," said Whitney Stanco, an analyst with the Guggenheim Washington Research Group.

A Guggenheim analysis found that only about 5 percent of shale wells drilling in the United States in the past decade were located on federal lands.

The Obama administration has walked a fine line on natural gas drilling, promoting the potential of the country's huge shale gas reserves, while stressing the need to ensure drilling is safe.

Interior estimated that its regulations would cost an annual average of about $11,833 per well to implement. The department will collect public input on the rules for 60 days, with plans to finalize the rules by the end of the year.

As proposed, the rules "will undoubtedly insert an unnecessary layer of rigidity into the permitting and development process," Independent Petroleum Association of America head Barry Russell said.

But not all producers greeted the rules with apprehension. Chris Faulkner, chief executive of Breitling Oil & Gas, said that regulations mandating more transparency for fracking have been a long time coming.

"Those of us in the industry who have upheld high standards and maintained clean track records will collectively breathe a sigh of relief today, as after 40 years of fracking in the US, there is now an industry standard," Faulkner said.

DISCLOSE WHEN?

Environmentalists and some lawmakers said the rules didn't go far enough.

Interior's proposal on disclosure differs from a draft of the rules that leaked to the media earlier this year, by mandating disclosure after fracking is completed.

"Requiring the information before the fracking occurred would have caused in our view delays that were not necessary," Salazar said on a conference call.

Democratic Congresswoman Diana DeGette, a vocal proponent of expanding fracking regulation, called the measure "seriously inadequate."

"We're all seeking common-sense solutions to ensure the safety of natural gas production, but with all due respect, requiring disclosure after fracking has already occurred seems less common-sense and more closing the door after the horse has left the barn,'" DeGette said in statement.

Some environmentalists said communities need to know what chemicals may be pumped into the ground before drilling happens, so water supplies can be monitored in real time, however.

"Unfortunately, these proposed rules from the Department of the Interior fall far short of what's needed to protect public health," said Jessica Ennis of Earthjustice.

Separately, the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday laid out a draft framework for companies to get permits when they use diesel in fracking, a practice many environmentalists would like to see banned.

Fracking is exempt from Safe Drinking Water Act, except in cases where diesel is used as a fracking fluid.

(Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson and Timothy Gardner in Washington and Edward McAllister in New York; Editing by Dale Hudson, Gerald E. McCormick, Eric Beech and Sofina Mirza-Reid)

Grumpy David wrote:Dinosaurs passing wind may have caused climate change

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/dino ... hange.html

''Indeed, our calculations suggest that these dinosaurs could have produced more methane than all modern sources - both natural and man-made - put together.'' Smelly dinosaurs.

Australasia has hottest 60 years in a millennium, scientists find

Study of tree rings, corals and ice cores finds unnatural spike in temperatures that lines up with manmade climate change

Red dust blown in from Australia's parched interior blankets Sydney in 2009. Australia and its region are experiencing the hottest 60 years in a millennium, scientists have determined. Photograph: Greg Wood/AFP/Getty

The last 60 years have been the hottest in Australasia for a millennium and cannot be explained by natural causes, according to a new report by scientists that supports the case for a reduction in manmade carbon emissions.

In the first major study of its kind in the region, scientists at the University of Melbourne used natural data from 27 climate indicators, including tree rings, corals and ice cores to map temperature trends over the past 1,000 years.

"Our study revealed that recent warming in a 1,000-year context is highly unusual and cannot be explained by natural factors alone, suggesting a strong influence of human-caused climate change in the Australasian region," said the study's lead researcher, Dr Joelle Gergis.

The climate reconstruction was done in 3,000 different ways and concluded with 95% accuracy that no other period in the past 1,000 years match or exceeded post-1950 warming in Australia.

The study, published in the Journal of Climate, will be part of Australia's contribution to the fifth Intergovernmetal Panel on Climate Change report, due in 2014.

As part of the study, climate modellers used the natural data to analyse the impact of both natural events, like volcanic eruptions in the pre-industrial era, and the impact of human-induced climate change such as greenhouse gasses emissions on temperatures in the last millennium.

Dr Steven Phipps, from the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, who carried out the modeling, said the study demonstrated strong human influence on the climate in the region.

"The models showed that prior to 1850 there were not any long-term trends and temperature variations were likely to be caused by natural climate variability which is a random process," he said.

"But [the modeling showed] 20th-century warming significantly exceeds the amplitude of natural climate variability and demonstrates that the recent warming experience in Australia is unprecedented within the context of the last millennium."

Annual average daily maximum temperatures in Australia have increased by 0.75C since 1910. Since the 1950s each decade has been warmer than the one before it.

Australia's peak scientific body, the CSIRO, has said temperatues will rise by between 1C and 5C by 2070 when compared with recent decades. It predicts the number of droughts in southern Australia will increase in the future and that there will be an increase in intense rainfall in many areas.

Arctic melt releasing ancient methane

Scientists have identified thousands of sites in the Arctic where methane that has been stored for many millennia is bubbling into the atmosphere.



The methane has been trapped by ice, but is able to escape as the ice melts.

Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this ancient gas could have a significant impact on climate change.

Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after CO2 and levels are rising after a few years of stability.

There are many sources of the gas around the world, some natural and some man-made, such as landfill waste disposal sites and farm animals.

Tracking methane to these various sources is not easy.

But the researchers on the new Arctic project, led by Katey Walter Anthony from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks (UAF), were able to identify long-stored gas by the ratio of different isotopes of carbon in the methane molecules.

Using aerial and ground-based surveys, the team identified about 150,000 methane seeps in Alaska and Greenland in lakes along the margins of ice cover.

Local sampling showed that some of these are releasing the ancient methane, perhaps from natural gas or coal deposits underneath the lakes, whereas others are emitting much younger gas, presumably formed through decay of plant material in the lakes.

"We observed most of these cryosphere-cap seeps in lakes along the boundaries of permafrost thaw and in moraines and fjords of retreating glaciers," they write, emphasising the point that warming in the Arctic is releasing this long-stored carbon.

"If this relationship holds true for other regions where sedimentary basins are at present capped by permafrost, glaciers and ice sheets, such as northern West Siberia, rich in natural gas and partially underlain by thin permafrost predicted to degrade substantially by 2100, a very strong increase in methane carbon cycling will result, with potential implications for climate warming feedbacks."



Quantifying methane release across the Arctic is an active area of research, with several countries despatching missions to monitor sites on land and sea.

The region stores vast quantities of the gas in different places - in and under permafrost on land, on and under the sea bed, and - as evidenced by the latest research - in geological reservoirs.

"The Arctic is the fastest warming region on the planet, and has many methane sources that will increase as the temperature rises," commented Prof Euan Nisbet from Royal Holloway, University of London, who is also involved in Arctic methane research.

"This is yet another serious concern: the warming will feed the warming."

How serious and how immediate a threat this feedback mechanism presents is a controversial area, with some scientists believing that the impacts will not be seen for many decades, and others pointing out the possibility of a rapid release that could swiftly accelerate global warming.

Grumpy David wrote:Also, apparently, with the amount of Dams in the Northern hemisphere, they've collectively helped tilt the Earth's axis due to their huge combined weight. Which would surely cause climate change? Solution is to clearly force South America and Australia to build 100 Dams to balance things out.

Wyoming Air Pollution Surpasses L.A. Due To Fracking For Natural Gas

Pinedale, Wyoming is a small town of less than 1,500 people nestled 7,100 feet high, in the foothills of the Wind River Mountains. From my earliest memories, Pinedale has been a the destination for family relaxation at my maternal grandparent’s house. Each summer my cousins and I roamed those streets and it was like a Technicolor Mayberry to me. I remember earning coins for chores and taking my cousins to the corner ice cream shop; stopping by my aunt’s flower shop for honey suckers; fleeing moose at the children’s fishing pond; observing a quiet albino fawn in the shade beneath a lilac tree; hanging humming-bird feeders; wading in glacier fed lakes; and roasting marshmallows after family barbeques. Each evening, before we’d shut the doors and not lock them, we’d take handmade chicken wire cages and place them over the flower and vegetable gardens, because deer and moose loved to eat them in the cool of the night.


Throughout my family’s history in that town, big oil has been circling. In the 1970′s there were even proposals to use nuclear explosions to loosen the tough shale that housed that gas, but the community fought those off. In the 1980′s and early 1990′s oil companies continued to be annoyed with the lack of ability to reach these pockets of natural gas. Finally, in the late 1990′s companies like Encana were able to develop fracking processes that were able to complete the violent act that was once only possible with nuclear explosives – and thus drilling for natural gas in the Green River Basin of Wyoming began. With the drill baby drill policies of the Bush administration that were continued by Barack Obama as well – the little town of Mayberry was soon overrun by the influence of big oil. High on the tax windfalls, Pinedale built a fancy swimming pool in the local school and added other amenities like a senior citizen bus route. At first, and even still today, many residents think of oil companies positively.

I cannot agree with that sentiment. When I went home last summer for the Rendezvous Parade, a ceremony celebrating the fur trade of the the late 1800s, I was shocked to see the once non-motorized traditional parade taken over by various oil company floats tossing toys, candy and pop-cycles with their logos into the crowd while towing snow mobiles, boats and four wheelers for spectators to ogle. All afternoon, I heard nothing but, “This event was brought to you by Shell Oil,” and I couldn’t help but wonder who brought that same event to us faithfully every year for the previous hundred and fifty years. I noticed that my grandfather’s garden was as beautiful as always, but that he no longer needed to put out the wire cages because the animals don’t come into town anymore. I saw that the local grocery had sold out to a big box chain, that the ice cream shop was now a fast food place, and that the prairie just outside of town was now an RV park filled with oil workers and their trashy mobile homes.

Since they started drilling in that area it has been a documented that mule deer herds in there have dropped to half their 2001 size, that there was a hundred percent increase in meth related arrests from 2004-2005, and that the once pristine wilderness has now been marred irrefutably by hundreds of well pads.

In addition to the cost of the loss of pristine wilderness and functioning migratory systems that support the indigenous wildlife, and the cost of drugs and societal pressures, we also have a cost to human health. According to the EPA folks who live near the gas fields are complaining of watery eyes, shortness of breath and bloody noses because of ozone levels that have exceeded what people in L.A. and other major cities wheeze through on their worst pollution days.

I am dismayed. Pinedale residents, including my now elderly grandfather who wears oxygen to sleep, must breathe this polluted air. They must do without their wildlife. They must settle for a diesel-powered Rendezvous. They must plan for methamphetamine addiction. They must look back on memories of Mayberry and wonder at the justice of their tradeoff. Was it really fair that they traded 10.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and something like $65 million in big oil profit for human health issues, environmental degradation, and societal unrest? It seems unjust, for a place that has a population density of around 5 people per square mile to suffer as bad or worse pollution levels than L.A. – a place that has a population density of something closer to 2,600 people per square mile – especially when you consider that even if every bit of that gas were pumped and ready all at once, it is still only enough to fulfill the United States’ need for about four months. For that, Mayberry, its mule deer, its moose, its pristine air and waters, and its close-knit community is gone forever.