Open Choke

Transocean Horizon Spill... "Obama's Katrina"?

Panic time, folks.  News stories about impending environmental disasters.  A couple of senators calling for hearings.  The media calling it "Obama's Katrina".  Time for that rarest of things, perspective.  (Updated with retrospective info on August 2... nothing deleted)

1.  Chance that a US operated Gulf of Mexico rig sinks and spills?  A. 0.025% or 1 in 4000.

2.  How much oil will this spill (worst case scenario)?  A. 150,000 barrels. (So much for my worst case estimate.  Current estimates were that between 3 million and 5.25 million barrels were released.  This represents between 1 part in 5,027,758,230 and 1 part in 2,932,858,967, or 2 to 3 parts in 10 trillion on a volume basis for the Gulf of Mexico)

3.  How much is it leaking now?  A. 5,000 barrels per day, although it sounds so much bigger when you multiply by 42 and put it into gallons. (Ex Post Facto analysis indicates daily rates as high as 60,000 barrels per day).

4.  How much natural oil seepage is there in the Gulf of Mexico?  A.  5,000 barrels per day, although it is widely distributed and not point sourced. (No Change, nearly 2 million barrels of oil per year naturally seep into the Gulf of Mexico)

5.  Where will this rank?  A. 37th in the world's top 71 man-made oil spills. (Substantively wrong here as well. Should read "Since WWII". 56 ships carrying an estimated 4.38 million barrels (600,000 tons) of oil were sunk during WWII in the Gulf of Mexico and 42 tankers carrying an estimated 460,000 tons (3.36 million barrels) were sunk of the US East Coast during WWII)  (2nd to 5th, next to the Gulf War Spill (largest) and the Aegean Captain in modern times and WWII sunk tankers since the late 1930s).

6.  What happened to the 121,000 barrels spilled by the Mega Borg (the second largest spill in the GOM)?  A. They burned it.  1800 barrels recovered, 270 barrels left after burning, so, in essence, via burning and wind and wave action biodegradation, 121,000 barrels turned into a little over 2000 barrels.  The Prudhoe Bay incident was magnified because it had little wind or wave action... it was a closed system. (No Change).

7.  How does this compare to, say, wildfires?  A. Wildfires fully devastate the areas they cover, and typically take 5-30 years to fully recover from a ground fire and up to 150 years to recover from a crown fire.  Full recovery from an oil spill is typically a year or less.

8.  OK, but how about the carbon footprint between them?  A.  In fully protected fire areas (a small amount of total forest), there are typically 10,000 to 30,000 forest fires per year world wide.  These consume 16,000,000 hectares per year, and release 1.6 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year (mind you, this is just a small subset of fires, the subset we are most able to fight and protect).  This spill will release, at most a little over 52,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent.  That is, 0.0033% of fully protected fightable wildfires.  (Significantly wrong here as well.  200,000 to 350,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, although still less than 0.05% of fully protected fightable wildfires.  This means that this is meaningless from a carbon footprint point of view).

9.  But, but... the poor birds?  A.  Fires fully incinerate the animals they touch.  Oily animals make fine, heart-rending posters and cover shots for Time. (Flippancy aside, over 4,000 dead birds and sea animals have been found to date and over 1500 birds and sea animals have been cleaned and released.  So far, no biologist is claiming more than a nominal impact on any population, although this could change).

So now lets look at the number of these spills...

Now, let's look at the charts.  First, how will this rank in terms of Gulf of Mexico spills?

Worst case, a very distant second.  Interestingly, only 3 came from drilling or production platforms. (Now, first or second)

How does this rate from a global perspective?

Pretty low, actually.  Lets look at this ordered by volume.  By the way, this chart really illustrates how much better industry practices have become in both shipping and drilling.  (Second to fifth)

Pretty weak from a Global Disaster point of view.  

In essence, one could fit the environmental consequences of every spill in the history of the hydrocarbon era into one small forest fire, out of the 10,000 we have every year. (No Change)

In fact, those that are trying to label this as a "Katrina" episode, either motivated to hate the oil industry for whatever reason or hate Obama for whatever reason (imagine THAT combination of folks, a lot of whiskey and beer, with maybe Alex Jones thrown in for good measure, at a party!  What a fine party that would be!), are just propagandizing, as usual.

So those are the facts.  Make of them what you will.  Without perspective, you are bound to make poor decisions.

Whoops!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1250813/MAIL-ON-SUNDAY-COMMENT-The-professors-amazing-climate-change-retreat.html

Simple error.  Wow.

Global Warming Claims Melting Away...

In yet another stinging rebuke to the United Nations IPCC committee, claims made in a phone interview with an Indian scientist that made up a conclusion about Himalayan glacial melt out of whole cloth, with no data, or even study, showed up in the IPCC report as a principal prediction of the dangers of Climate Change.  

The interviewee admitted this week that he had no specialty in glaciation, had no evidence to support his claim (that a Himalayan glacier would melt entirely by 2035), had not done any research on the subject, and had merely stated a hypothetical in a phone interview that somehow found its way into the IPCC report.

In fact, Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC Chairman, has previously characterized criticism of this baseless speculation as "voodoo science".  

It is a shame that scientists in search of grant money can so thoroughly corrupt science.  Politics and science are rotten bedfellows.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991177.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1

Hot Under The Climate Collar...

With a hat tip to Gene Ames III...

CLIMATE THINGS WE KNOW (with citations)

 

The warmest year in the U.S. in the last century was 1934, not 1998.

Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2000; Taylor, J. M., GISS,Hansen caught doctoring more data, Environment and Climate News, Feb. 1, 2009.

 

Carbon dioxide concentration has been continually rising for nearly a hundred years. It continues to rise.

Keeling, C.D., and T.P. Whorf. 1996. Atmospheric CO2 records from sites in the SIO air sampling network. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.

 

Carbon dioxide concentrations at present are near the lowest in geologic history.

Berner, Robert A. “3Geocarb II: A Revised Model of Atmospheric CO₂ over Phanerozic Time”. American Journal of Science. Vol. 294: 56-91. (January 1994).

 

Global temperature peaked in 1998 on this cycle, and has been episodically declining ever since.

U.S. Temperatures 2008:Back to the Future?World Climate Report Januaary 7, 2009.

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/01/07/us-temperatures-2008-back-to-the-future/

 

Declining Earth temperature in the face of rising carbon dioxide concentration is proof that natural climate change drivers are significantly more important than carbon dioxide.

Logical statement, incontrovertible.

 

During the last 100 years temperature has both risen and fallen, including the current decline.

 http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/01/07/us-temperatures-2008-back-to-the-future/

 

All the changes in temperature of the last hundred years are in normal historic ranges, both in absolute value and rate of change.

http://nsidc.org/data/gisp_grip/index.html

Lamb, H. H., 1995, Climate, History, and the Modern World: 2nd Ed., Routledge, NY, 433 p.

 

There has been a tremendous reduction in sunspots coincident with the temperature decline.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm

 

Effects of temperature change are absolutely independent of the cause of the temperature change.

Lamb, H. H., 1995, Climate, History, and the Modern World: 2nd Ed., Routledge, NY, 433 p.

 

There is a statistically significant correlation between solar activity and temperature over the last 300 years, which represents the entire historical record for solar activity. 

Hoyt, D. V., and K.H. Schatten, 1997, The Role of the Sun in Climate Change: Oxford University Press, New York, 279 p.

 

The temperature correlation with carbon dioxide levels is not significant.

Hoyt, D. V., and K.H. Schatten, 1997, The Role of the Sun in Climate Change: Oxford University Press, New York, 279 p.

CO2 overlay from Keeling, C.D., and T.P. Whorf. 1996

 

There are no data that definitively relates carbon dioxide levels to temperature changes.

There is no reference because there are no data.

 

The greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide is logarithmically muted with increasing concentration.

Svante Arrhenius, 1906, Die vermutliche Ursache der Klimaschwankungen, Meddelanden från K. Vetenskapsakademiens Nobelinstitut, Vol 1 No 2, pages 1–10.

 

Voluminous historic records demonstrate the Medieval Climate Optimum was real and that the “hockey stick” graphic that attempted to deny that fact was at best bad science.

Lamb, H. H., 1995, Climate, History, and the Modern World: 2nd Ed., Routledge, NY, 433 p.

McIntyre, Stephen and Ross McKitrick, 2003. Corrections to the Mann et. al. (1998) Proxy Data Base and  Northern Hemispheric Average Temperature Series. Energy & Environment Vol. 14, No 6, pp. 751-771, October 26, 2003

 

Global hurricane, cyclonic and major storm activity is near 30 year lows.

Starkel, L., 2002, Change in the Frequency of Extreme Events as the Indicator of Climatic Change in the Holocene (in Fluvial Systems).  Quaternary International 91:25-32.

 

Any increase in cost of damages by storms is a product of increasing population density and property value inflation, not due to any increase in frequency or severity of storms.

Logical statement, reflecting  inflation of property values and  increasing construction on coasts.

 

Polar Bears have survived and thrived over periods of extreme cold and extreme warm over hundreds of thousands of years, extremes far in excess of temperature modern changes.

Mayewski, P.A.; Meeker, L.D.; Whitlow, S.; Twickler, M.S.; Morrison, M.C.; Bloomfield, P.; Bond, G. C.; Alley, R.B.; Gow, A.J.; Grootes, P.M.; Meese, D.A.; Ram, M.; Taylor, K.C.; Wumkes, W. “Changes in Atmospheric Circulation and Ocean Ice Cover over the North Atlantic During the Last 41,000 Years”. Science, Vol. 363. (March 1994).

 

The 2009 minimum Arctic ice extent was significantly larger than the previous 2 years.

National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, CO, 2009.

 

The 2009 Antarctic maximum ice extent was significantly above the 30 year average.

<http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/10/06/antarctic-ice-melt-at-lowest-levels-in-satellite-era/>

 

Ice caps have only been present on earth for 20-25% of geologic time.

Any historical geology text book.

 

Rate and magnitude of sea level changes observed during the last 100 years have fallen within normal historical ranges.

http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

 

Global temperature changes naturally all of the time, in both directions and at many scales of intensity.

Any historical geology text book.

 

The word “ever“ is misused by media and in public pronouncements alike in climate-related pronouncements.  It does not mean “in the last twenty years,“ or “ the last seventy years.” It means the last 4.5 billion years.

Any historical geology text book.

 

The word “unprecedented” cannot be legitimately used to describe any climate change in the last eight thousand years.

Davis, John C., and Geoffrey Bohling, 2001, The Search for Patterns in Ice-Core Temperature Curves: in Gerhard, Lee C., William E. Harrison, and Bernold M. Hanson, eds.,2001, Geological Perspectives of Global Climate Change: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Studies in Geology #47, Tulsa, OK, p. 213-230.

 

The release of e-mails and files from Hadley has demonstrated scientific malfeasance, at best.

Benny Peiser, CCNet 177: CRU Data Affair Rocks Britain

Consensual Adults

What do you figure the consensus is about the leaked documents hacked from a prominent Climate Research Institute associated with East Anglia University?  Apparently the "anthropogenics" wouldn't let the "non-anthropogenics" play in any Climate Research Reindeer Games.

 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125883405294859215.html

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2188feb3-802a-23ad-4de4-3fbc0a92e126&Issue_id

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/24/hiding-evidence-of-global-cooling/

And the community wonders why it isn't held in high regard anymore?

More Proof They Think You're A Moron...

Among the significant and mounting evidence that the United Nations and the flying monkeys that work for that august institution believe that we are complete and utter morons, comes this newsflash:

 http://www.gmanews.tv/story/177346/climate-change-pushes-poor-women-to-prostitution-dangerous-work

Clearly, mo' billions should now be spent towards researching this.  Especially the more esoteric aspects of this laughably unscientific train of thought beyond just storm displacement of the poor.  For instance, what about the important questions surrounding "changing" air pressure from our horribly "changing" climate on the human limbic system and potential driving mechanisms that could make women from ALL  political and social classes whores, red-headed men juvenile pederasts, and partially explain the curious phenomenon that is Lady Gaga?

Or maybe we should just throw a bucket of water on that increasingly useless and dangerous institution and melt it away.  "Melting, I'm melting!!!!"

Ecosystem Collapse...

I am reading a book called "Panic in Level 4" by author Richard Preston, who also authored "Hot Zone", about the ebola virus.  One of his chapters focuses on an exotic tree parasite, the woolly adelgid, that is wiping out Eastern Hemlock.  The stories pose an interesting issue about how humans affect the ecosystem merely by our advancements in travel and international commerce.  One reviewer called it "a sobering reminder of the delicacy of our ecosystem".

 I do not subscribe to the "delicacy" point of view or the "man is evil" point of view that many take as a default position on this.  I look at it more as "humans are an interesting and powerful natural agents of change".

In any case, Mr. Preston describes lovingly the few hundred year old ecosystem supported by these majestic trees and the "ecoystem collapse" that is currently taking place via these exotic fauna that feast on the tree needles.  Do you know what happens during and after an "ecosystem collapse"?

Another beautiful and "delicate" ecosystem takes its place. 

I love descriptions and phrases that are meant solely to manipulate my emotions.

Fraud By Any Other Name...

An interesting read by an Australian climatologist.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24036736-7583,00.html

There is within it an idea we should expand upon... he suggests that the Australian Labour Party should tread lightly here because the consequences of their being wrong, which is looking more and more likely every day, would lead to their being non-electable in the future.

Hmmmm.  Having been a bit of a student of class action lawsuits against evil corporations brought to their knees for fraud and deception, often times for nothing at all, ala Dow Corning, it seems like dangerous territory.  Could a class-action tort be brought to bear on Al Gore, so many of the non-profit anti-capitalist propogandists, and legislators who vote on the basis of this sleight of hand to defraud us all? 

Of course, government exempts itself from fraud liability... with the attendant standards towards veracity for those in government reflecting this clemency. In fact, it is unlikely that any agency head or legislator would last more than 4 weeks in the private sector because what is standard operating procedure WITHIN the Borg itranslates into prison time and shareholder lawsuit fodder in corporate America. 

But Al Gore, his corporations, the Friends of the Earth, and all the rest... massive damages?  Biggest ever, in fact?  $50 billion spent in the last 18 years and the conclusions are more and more suspect...

Consider that Nobel Laureate Gore in front of that impressive image in "inconvenient truth" showing us how global temperatures and CO2 concentrations mimic one another.  Causality, he showed and said.  Zooming in on the graph, though, the CO2 lags temperature by 800 years across the board... but he DIDN'T zoom on the graph.  He, how to best put this... Lied. Not in a GW Bush "I really think and hope these are WMD plants, because the CIA said they might be", or "Al Qaida has some folks in Iraq, so they are in cahoots" kinda lie.  No, Al laid a Billy Sol Estes fertilizer tank misdirect kinda LIE on all of us.  Temperature drives carbon uptake, not the other way around.  Mr. Gore is an expert.  He has won a Nobel Prize for his propog... I mean, expertise. Did he not know?  Was it an honest mistake?  C'mon.  Inconceivable. 

Had Mr. Gore been, say, a Tobacco Executive, and had he intentionally lied as clearly and distinctly about his product as he did in that movie in that one particular instance (soon to be an opera, I am told), he would be in jail, and his company or industry would be paying out, say, 250 billion in damages.  

Mr. Gore, with a lifetime of public service, believes, like most long-time public servants I encounter, that you and I are stupid and because of that, lying to us is alright, because we don't know any better.  We would be much happier if we just didn't question them so much.  As a marketing guy and a senate aide told me over beers one night in DC... there are two rules of (marketing) (politics).  The first is that the People Are Stupid.  The second is "See Rule Number One".  I am not kidding about this.

The damages of this particular lie are easy to quantify... 2% of the GDP.  That is what it is calculated to institute our useless cure to a unsolvable "problem". In fact, a lawsuit, or idea of one is not without precedence.  Several have been quoted, a young Kennedy representative a recent example (Patrick, perhaps? His generation of the bloodline is particularly unsuccessful), that Americans who voice their skepticism towards the, ahem, "purity" of massively funded research by those with an endgame agenda, and no, I don't mean the oil companies, should be sued or arrested.  For doubting!  This seems extreme to me.  Kind of Fascist.  Or National Socialist, if you get my drift.

This should interest a clever plaintiff attorney...

An Excellent Talk On Global Warming...

The Alabama State Climatologist presenting to a class at Auburn.  The questions at the end attempting to disparage him via his funding sources and not his dataare telling.

The Business of Global Warming...

Every time a climate expert comes out saying that maybe, just maybe, global warming isn't this huge human existential deal, there is a pile on about the poor slob having "industry funding" with the strong inference that such an opinion is moot because he or she is beholden to "dirty money" that would thus necessarily sway the results. It seems to me that this argument is a double-edged sword.

A little Memorial Day googling indicated that U.S. taxpayers spend $4 billion dollars a year in Global Warming research.  It is not clear how much more private money ala Al Gore etc. is added to that funding... at least $350 million in PR as per their press release.

Also controversial and difficult to find is the number of climatologists in the world.  One source claims 31,000, but, as another pointed out, this means that every climate program on earth churns out 10 per year that stay in the profession.  The 31,000 number is touted by its progenitor as "vetted scientists and engineers".

So at least 4 billion dollars going to as many as 31,000 S&E's "researching" Global Warming.  That is a funding rate of a little more than $130,000 per year per S&E researcher that is actually de facto contingent on the existence of a Warming Crisis. 

Makes ExxonMobil's $181,000 contribution that invalidated a research group's conclusions seem pretty paltry, doesn't it?  Following the money is a handy tool.  Make no mistake, Global Warming Alarmism is a huge industry, whether it is true or not.