Also, RIP Larsen B Ice Shelf. Neither I, nor soulfly had ever heard of you until today, but we are going to miss you and all that you've done for us.
We better not catch any of you Florida posters posting in here. You will be reported to Rick Scott for talking about climate change.
Like I told Joe_Pesci some time ago, this has the opportunity to be at once the best and worst thread at TMB.
Have you heard of Campi Fiegrei? I mean, you probably haven't nor has about 99% of the population. But it is a supervolcano and if it goes off it basically fucks up the entire continent of Europe and likely throws the world into a small nuclear winter. But of course, since you didn't hear of it that obviously means that it is
If Mt. Baker doesn't get any snow next year i'm officially joining the tree huggers though, goddammit
Oklahoma oil billionaire demanded university fire scientists studying dangers of fracking A billionaire oil tycoon, who is a major donor to the University of Oklahoma, approached a dean at the school demanding that the university fire scientists who were studying the link between fracking and the increase of earthquakes in the oil-rich state. According to Bloomberg Business, Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm met with Larry Grillot, dean of the university’s Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy, in 2014 and expressed his dismay with work being done on the school’s Oklahoma Geological Survey. “Mr. Hamm is very upset at some of the earthquake reporting to the point that he would like to see select OGS staff dismissed,” Grillot wrote to Dammy Hilliard, University Vice President for External Relations and Planning. In the email, Grillot noted that Hamm had made a veiled threat to the university, telling the dean, “he would be visiting with Governor [Mary] Fallin on the topic of moving the OGS out of the University of Oklahoma.” In a later email to Grillot, Hamm expressed an interest in volunteering to serve on the search committee seeking new members of the OGS, saying the committee should include a member from the oil and gas industry. Asked about the series of emails by Energy wire, Hamm dismissed the notion he was putting pressure on the university, saying, “I’m very approachable, and don’t think I’m intimidating. I don’t try to push anybody around.” Hamm’s meeting with Grillot resulted in no apparent changes with the OGS, with the dean stating that the university politely declined his offer of help in overseeing the scientists working on the survey. In 2012 Hamm served as an adviser on energy policy on Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/okl...fire-scientists-studying-dangers-of-fracking/
Only fair that O&G be proportionally represented in an O&G Study. What's the problem? Fire those scientists and get some industry people who understand business in there!
Well, I'm not a scientist, but I know that shooting a bunch of shit into the ground to break it up isn't helping the Earth.
Is fracking a cause of humans tho? I don't think God would let us destroy our own water and atmosphere
serious question. Aren't there updated techniques that have drastically decreased the environmental impact?
I know you're joking, but that is a horrifying reality. NASA is supposed to be off the table when it comes to political battles.
I'm pretty sure if we ever find a way to prevent earthquakes, it will be by shooting a bunch of shit in the ground to lubricate the movement of the faults. Still, I'd say we should study the shit out of anything that is causing a million tiny earthquakes when there were none before.
I'm sure, I think it's irresponsible to not study everything about the process though is my main point.
I had head otherwise, which is why I was asking a serious question on the subject. I think * J Y * had commented on that in the previous global warming thread. Maybe it was the gas land thread.
It isn't the technique thats the problem its the disposal of the frac water. Also people in the industry are very nervous about these quakes according to my engineer buddy. Says its clear its due to all of the new disposal wells that are in proximity to fault lines/underground mountains.
Wait, what? It's actually the disposal of the byproduct of the process that could be problematic? That seems somehow worse
"This is all part of a broader legislative and judicial effort, backed by the oil industry, to limit local governments’ ability to regulate drilling." Texas Prohibits Local Fracking Bans Newly signed law is one of several across the U.S. to curtail municipal governments’ power Spoiler A natural gas-fueled drilling rig is shown earlier this year in Mentone, Texas. Texas, which has benefited from fracking, has tripled its production of oil in the past five years. PHOTO: SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES By RUSSELL GOLD Updated May 18, 2015 4:51 p.m. ET 81 COMMENTS AUSTIN, Texas—Last year, a city in North Texas banned fracking. State lawmakers want to make sure that never happens again. On Monday, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law that prohibits bans of hydraulic fracturing altogether and makes it much harder for municipal and county governments to control where oil and gas wells can be drilled. Similar efforts are cropping up in states including New Mexico, Ohio, Colorado and Oklahoma, where both chambers of the legislature have passed a bill that limits local governments to “reasonable” restrictions on oil and gas activities. This is all part of a broader legislative and judicial effort, backed by the oil industry, to limit local governments’ ability to regulate drilling. Backers say that both the Oklahoma and Texas bills were proposed in response to a voter-approved ban on fracking in Denton, Texas, in November. One of the authors of the Texas bill said his motivation was to protect an economically important industry. “Oil is a huge job driver for the state of Texas,” said state Sen. Troy Fraser, a Republican from the central part of the state. Anti-fracking activists hold a campaign sign outside city hall in Denton, Texas, last summer, before residents in November approved the first ban in the state. The new law eliminates a “patchwork of local ordinances creating more and more regulation, some of which is intentionally onerous and intended to stop or limit oil and gas development,” said Ed Longanecker, president of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association. The law has angered officials in Denton, about 50 miles northwest of Dallas, where residents approved the first ban in the state. Officials there said they supported it only after failed efforts to resolve quality-of-life problems including a well explosion and noisy drilling near homes and schools. “It’s a bad situation when city leaders’ hands are tied,” said Councilman Kevin Roden. “There seems to be an attitude that big state government knows better than the citizens of a city. I just think—conservative or liberal—that is something you don’t do in Texas.” Other critics of the bill said the balance of power between cities and the energy industry had been tilted toward drillers. “The bill guts 100 years of traditional municipal authority to regulate oil and gas operations,” said A. Scott Anderson, a senior policy director for the Environmental Defense Fund, which advocates robustly regulating fracking. Other environmental groups say fracking, which involves injecting water and chemicals deep into shale rock formations, should be banned. In the past decade, new technologies launched an energy boom in the U.S., sending oil and gas production soaring. But intense drilling and fracking activity triggered a backlash in some communities, which by zoning and ballot initiatives have tried to keep the drilling rigs either outside the city limits or far from housing. Supporters of drilling say that local limits are driven by environmental ideology, not practical problems, and deprive landowners of their rights. Across the country, the issue of the role of cities in deciding where drilling can occur “is still very much up in the air,” said Hannah Wiseman, a law professor at Florida State University. “There is plenty of work for legislators and lawyers.” State governments are also taking the local bans to court, and winning. Earlier this year, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that state rules regulating energy development trump local laws. In January, a federal judge overruled a ban on oil and gas drilling in Mora County, N.M., northeast of Santa Fe. One of the few places where local governments have prevailed is Pennsylvania. Lawmakers attempted to rein in cities’ ability to limit oil and gas activity, but the state Supreme Court overturned that law in late 2013. In Colorado, after voters in several cities approved fracking bans and were sued by industry groups, the governor convened a task force to find middle ground. The group wrapped up its work earlier this year but failed to resolve the thorny issue of the appropriate role for cities. Peter Dea, a member of the task force and chief executive of Cirque Resources LP, a Denver oil and gas exploration company, said he hopes companies and communities can reach a compromise. “Maybe this low oil price has a silver lining,” he said. “Half as many wells will be drilled this year as last year. It’s a natural cooling-off period.”
I would have thought the Pope damning climate change deniers would have made this thread (this was posted in/stolen from The Left thread): http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/13/1384442/-Pope-God-Will-Judge-Climate-Denialists "Pope Francis has warned “the powerful of the Earth” they will answer to God if they fail to protect the environment to ensure the world can feed its population." Here is a small list of those whom Pope Francis implies risk being cast into Hell at the time of the Last Judgment: Charles and David Koch James Inhofe Marco Rubio The entire Fox News organization Rick Scott Rick Perry Rick Santorum Mike Pence Ted Cruz
We don't even know what chemicals they use in it because they won't release the info due to it being a "trade secret".
CEO of Exxon was pushing to get fracking banned near his home. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/22/exxon-mobil-tillerson-ceo-fracking/5726603/
David Nakamura @DavidNakamura · 23m23 minutes ago Pano: Obama speaks at Coast Guard commencement. David Nakamura @DavidNakamura · 14m14 minutes ago Obama calls controlling climate change "a key pillar of American global leadership" and "a core element of our diplomacy." David Nakamura @DavidNakamura · 12m12 minutes ago Obama ties in droughts and crop damage from extreme weather to rise of Boko Haram in Nigeria and civil war in Syria.
Going to a college in New England and stressing the importance of addressing climate change? Kinda seems like a waste of time.
Updated NASA Data: Global Warming Not Causing Any Polar Ice Retreat Comment Now Updated NASA satellite data show the polar ice caps remained at approximately their 1979 extent until the middle of the last decade. Beginning in 2005, however, polar ice modestly receded for several years. By 2012, polar sea ice had receded by approximately 10 percent from 1979 measurements. (Totalpolar ice area – factoring in both sea and land ice – had receded by much less than 10 percent, but alarmists focused on the sea ice loss as “proof” of a global warming crisis.) NASA satellite measurements show the polar ice caps have not retreated at all. A 10-percent decline in polar sea ice is not very remarkable, especially considering the 1979 baseline was abnormally high anyway. Regardless, global warming activists and a compliant news media frequently and vociferously claimed the modest polar ice cap retreat was a sign of impending catastrophe.Al Gore even predicted the Arctic ice cap could completely disappear by 2014. In late 2012, however, polar ice dramatically rebounded and quickly surpassed the post-1979 average. Ever since, the polar ice caps have been at a greater average extent than the post-1979 mean. Now, in May 2015, the updated NASA data show polar sea ice is approximately 5 percent above the post-1979 average. During the modest decline in 2005 through 2012, the media presented a daily barrage of melting ice cap stories. Since the ice caps rebounded – and then some – how have the media reported the issue? http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesta...d-nasa-data-polar-ice-not-receding-after-all/
Any one care to tell me the difference between polar ice caps and the antarctic ice shelf? I honestly dont know. From the two reports NASA has released in the past 10 days it seems like the antarctic ice shelf is disappearing while the polar ice caps are steady to slightly increasing.
This is what the internet says: Ice Caps Ice caps cover less than 50,000 square kilometers and usually feed a series of glaciers around its edges. While not hemmed in by any surface features (they lie on top of mountains), they are usually centered on a highest point (called a massif). Ice flows away from this highest point toward the cap’s edges. If a glacier moves or retreats, distinctive erosional features are formed. The Great Lakes in North America were formed by glacial action. Polar ice caps are high-latitude regions covered in ice. They are not strictly an ice cap (because they are usually larger than the 50,000 square kilometer limit used to define ice caps), but most people refer to these areas as ice caps anyway. Ice Shelves An ice shelf is a thick, floating slab of ice that forms where a glacier or ice flows down a coastline. Ice shelves are found only in Antarctica, Greenland, and Canada. Thicknesses of floating ice shelves range from 100-1,000 meters. Ice shelves are formed by forces of gravity from ice along the shore. Gravity constantly pressures the movement of ice from the land to the shelf. Ice shelves lose mass when chunks break off and slide into the ocean water. Shelves gain mass by snow accumulation on the upper surface. The world’s largest ice shelves are the Ross ice shelf and the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf in Antarctica. The Larsen ice shelf in Antarctica broke up into hundreds of small fragments in 1995 and 2002. Global warming trends may have been a factor in the breakup of the ice shelf. Canadian ice shelves are attached to Ellesmere Island. The Ayles ice shelf broke up in 2005, the M’Clintock ice shelf broke from 1963 to 1966, and the Markham ice shelf broke up in 2008. The only Canadian shelves still existing are the Alfred Ernest, Milne, Ward Hunt, and Smith ice shelves. The remaining ice shelves were formed with the Ellesmere ice shelf was reduced by 90 percent during the 20th century. - See more at: http://ete.cet.edu/gcc/?/icecaps_icesheets#sthash.w4OWwdCA.dpuf