Month: January 2014

Most climate denial comes from simple ignorance – people who are genuinely alarmed, embarrassed, and actually pissed, when they find out how they’ve been lied to and for how long.

Then, there’s the sociopaths. People for whom climate denial, science denial, and paranoia politics, are evidence of emotional or organic dysfunction.
This is part 2 of the discussion Chris Hayes convened on thursday night to  discuss the willful ignorance of climate deniers stretching to bend a snowstorm into a refutation of 200 years of physics.

My own theory, based on long observation of the infantile, paranoid, “you are not the boss of me”  strain of libertarianism often expressed by these folks, is that we need to review the way we toilet train children in this country. Something’s gone terribly wrong.

I’m a big believer in free discussion, but if you are having a free discussion and you notice the other guy is throwing up on your shoes, generally you make some adjustments.
Recent threads on this forum are causing me to review my policy on trolling. Stay tuned.

NYTimes:

The companies that once operated the wells have all but vanished into the prairie, many seeking bankruptcy protection and unable to pay the cost of reclaiming the land they leased. Recent estimates have put the number of abandoned drilling operations in Wyoming at more than 1,200, and state officials said several thousand more might soon be orphaned by their operators.

Wyoming officials are now trying to address the problem amid concerns from landowners that the wells could contaminate groundwater and are a blight on the land.

Continue reading “Fracking Wells Abandoned in Boom/Bust Cycle. Who Will Pay to Cap Them?”

It’s time again.

There’s snow, so there can’t be global warming. I guess I’ll have to update my video on this, yet again. This one is from 2009, a period of extreme winter weather in the US, just before the drought and heat events of 2010-2012 –  but still applies.

Chris Mooney in MotherJones:

All of this is all wrong in ways that have all been explained before. So just a few brief observations:

1. Statements about climate trends must be based on, er, trends. Not individual events or occurrences. Weather is not climate, and anecdotes are not statistics.

2. Global warming is actually expected to increase “heavy precipitation in winter storms,” and for the northern hemisphere, there is evidence that these storms are already more frequent and intense, according to the draft US National Climate Assessment.

3. Antarctica is a very cold place. But global warming is affecting it as predicted: Antarctica is losing ice overall, according to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. However, sea ice is a different matter than land-based or glacial ice. Antarctic sea ice is increasing, and moreover, the reason for this may be climate change! (For more, read here.)

Finally, just one last thing. When it’s winter on Earth, it’s also summer on Earth…somewhere else. Thus, allow us to counter anecdotal evidence about cold weather with more anecdotal evidence: It’s blazing hot in Australia, with temperatures, in some regions, set to possibly soar above 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the coming days.

UPDATE:
SFGate:

On the shoreline at Lake Tahoe, where snow should be piled high by now, Valerie Chownand her family this week stumbled across a most unusual winter phenomenon.

There, on the beach, was a nude sunbather.

“It was crazy,” said Chown, 59, of Los Altos Hills, about the encounter at Secret Cove, where a few too many secrets were revealed, at least for this time of year.

High-country vacationers have been enjoying brilliant blue skies and 50-plus-degree temperatures throughout the holidays at Tahoe, where only patches of snow can be seen and ski conditions are simply atrocious. The Sierra sun has been so persistent that skiers and snowboarders are resorting to such summer activities as mountain biking, hiking, beach walking and, yes, sunbathing in the buff.

“It’s still beautiful,” said Chown as she watched her husband, son and daughter-in-law skip rocks on the lake, where the surrounding mountains reflected off the glassy blue surface. “You make the best of what you’ve got.”

Tahoe’s best soon won’t be good enough if it doesn’t hurry up and snow, according to experts. The mountains are mostly brown, ski resorts are only partially open and businesses are beginning to feel the pain of what, so far, has been an exceedingly dry winter.

The dismal snowpack is a statewide concern, especially after what was, in many areas including San Francisco, the driest calendar year in recorded history.

The state’s frozen water supply, as snow is known to water-resources officials, is 19 percent of normal for this time of year, according to electronic measurements taken across the Sierra. This is the water that is going to be used to irrigate millions of acres of farmland and quench the thirst of many of California’s 38 million people when it melts in the spring.

One very important new wrinkle in the climate conversation that has emerged in the last decade, is the understanding of “a new normal”, related to the loss of arctic sea ice, that may in fact may blizzard events like the current one MORE common in the future. I’ve interviewed Rutger’s Jennifer Francis and Weather Underground’s Jeff Masters on this one.

Continue reading “It’s That Time Again. The Willful Ignorance of Right Wing Snow Trolling.”

The Atlantic Cities:

Still looking for a New Year’s resolution for your city? For inspiration, look to this short from Clarence Eckerson at Streetfilms. It shows the remarkable before-and-after transformation of several streets and intersections in New York City over the last several years.

Eckerson has been documenting conditions on the city’s streets since the 1990s, and he has a huge archive of footage. Here, he juxtaposes images of key New York locations before, during, and after radical redesigns that took place under the jurisdiction of the Bloomberg administration’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan. Eckerson shows the transformation of Times Square, Herald Square, the Brooklyn waterfront, the Queensboro Bridge, and several other formerly car-choked areas that are now havens for human beings on foot and on bicycles.

If you’ve been walking or riding a bike in these places over the years, you know how profound the changes wrought by Sadik-Khan’s policies have been. But now that New Yorkers have begun to get used to more humane streets in many parts of the city, it’s startling to see just how stark the contrast is. It makes you wonder, how did people accept the previous status quo?

Bill de Blasio’s new transportation commissioner, Polly Trottenberg, has a tough act to follow. Yesterday, before de Blasio’s inauguration, she was outside City Hall meeting with members of Make Queens Safer, Make Brooklyn Safer, and other street safety advocates, who were rallyingin support of the new mayor’s ambitious “Vision Zero” plan to eliminate traffic fatalities in the city by 2024. It was an early indication that we won’t be going back to these “before” pictures of New York streets any time soon.

I’ve reported before on so-called conservatives, including the crack sniffing mayor of Toronto, waging war against bicyclists.
The Tea Party  is particularly suspicious of bikers – because bikers are Bolsheviks, right?  I mean, you start opening streets to foot traffic, pretty soon you’ll be legalizing marijuana and coming after our white women.
It’s a little more nuanced than that, but not much.

SFGate:

But the likely Republican candidate for governor of the state, Tea Party darling Dan Maes, thinks the bike sharing program is the first step to a sinister U.N. takeover, according to comments reported in the Denver Post.

Continue reading “New York City: Putting People Traffic Over Auto Traffic”

Greentechmedia:

At first glance, a new chart from the U.S. Energy Information Administrationsuggests that coal is not just king in the Midwest’s electricity mix, but still reigns with an iron grip.

Look a little closer, however, and there is change in the works, as shown in a growing green strip on the top of the first graph.

About a decade ago, coal supplied nearly 80 percent of electricity in the central United States. The figure is now dipping closer to 60 percent. That is still far higher than the national average, where coal accounts for slightly less than half of all generation.

Like other regions of the U.S., cheap natural gas generation is mostly taking the place of coal. But non-hydro renewables, primarily wind, are also making a significant dent. The low cost of wind and natural gas has begun to make a dent in coal’s dominance and driven down wholesale power prices in the middle of the country, according to the EIA. Coal producers are also seeing smaller dark spreads, which is the difference between the payment coal-fired power plants get for their electricity and the cost of coal.

Continue reading “In the Midwest: Wind Up. Coal Down.”

More evidence that the trend I’ve been reporting for years is not slowing down.

Associated Press:

NEW YORK (AP) — The average amount of electricity consumed in U.S. homes has fallen to levels last seen more than a decade ago, back when the smartest device in people’s pockets was a Palm pilot and anyone talking about a tablet was probably an archaeologist or a preacher.

Because of more energy-efficient housing, appliances and gadgets, power usage is on track to decline in 2013 for the third year in a row, to 10,819 kilowatt-hours per household, according to the Energy Information Administration.

That’s the lowest level since 2001, when households averaged 10,535 kwh. And the drop has occurred even though our lives are more electrified.

Here’s a look at what has changed since the last time consumption was so low.

BETTER HOMES

In the early 2000s, as energy prices rose, more states adopted or toughened building codes to force builders to better seal homes so heat or air-conditioned air doesn’t seep out so fast. That means newer homes waste less energy.

Also, insulated windows and other building technologies have dropped in price, making retrofits of existing homes more affordable. In the wake of the financial crisis, billions of dollars in Recovery Act funding was directed toward home-efficiency programs.

Continue reading “More Devices, Less Energy. The Future of Tech is Here.”

Climate denial and Evolution denial go hand in hand, and the laws being crafted to destroy the teaching of biology in states across the country, now routinely contain language designed to destroy the teaching of atmospheric science, and the physics and chemistry essential to understanding it.  Ok, the discussion above is a little sophomoric by the standards of this forum, but the sentiments expressed might fit in at a lot of polite cocktail party conversations.
That’s why there is merit in continuing the discussion of a major political party sinking  into a demon haunted world.

Rolling Stone:

..the Chamber of Commerce disclosed that it will be teaming up with Republican establishment leaders to spend $50 million in an effort to stem the tide of “fools” who have overwhelmed Republican ballots in recent seasons. Check out the language Chamber strategist Scott Reed used in announcing the new campaign:

Our No. 1 focus is to make sure, when it comes to the Senate, that we have no loser candidates… That will be our mantra: No fools on our ticket.

The blunt choice of words is no accident. All year long, as they’ve crept closer and closer to having to face the reality of a Ted Cruz presidential candidacy in 2016 (with Cruz maybe picking recently-redeemed Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson as his more moderate running mate?), the Beltway’s Republican kingmakers have drifted into ever more alarmist language about the need to change course.

Phil Robertson is a new republican icon, complete with jihadi beard, bible thumping, and good ol’ boy pedophilia.  Worth hearing if you haven’t, and you really want a clear picture of where the extreme road leads..

Continue reading ““No More Fools”, and the Decline of Science Literacy on the Right”

It’s not a complete wipeout of brain cells on the right. The video above, tho somewhat cheesy, represents a number of conservatives who are finally getting it about renewable energy. In Arizona, the figurehead for the movement is none other than Barry Goldwater Jr.
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Mark Huizenga is the Mayor of Walker, Michigan, owner of Mark Huizenga Systems Consulting, LLC and serves on the leadership council of the Michigan Conservative Energy Forum.

MLive:

In his recent column, Ken Braun repeats several myths and distortions about renewable energy that we as conservatives have heard too many times. As a free market conservative, I believe it is important to set the record straight on three key points:

• The market for electricity is not a competitive, free market. The state’s two largest utilities have a monopoly on electricity distribution. In fact, the utilities went to the legislature in 2008 and asked to be regulated in order to establish their monopoly status.

• Coal, oil and gas have been the largest beneficiaries of subsidies and incentives. Another topic that’s often muddled in misconceptions is energy subsidies and who gets them. The truth is ALL forms of energy are subsidized. The federal government has employed a variety of incentives to support research, development and deployment of energy sources for decades. Oil, gas and coal have been the largest beneficiaries by far, receiving 70% of all incentives since 1950. Incentives for renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, hydro and geothermal, account for only 9% of the total federal energy incentive spending.

On top of that, the state of Michigan also subsidizes coal generation, providing tax exemptions to coal-fired power plants on an annual basis.

• Wind-generated electricity is cheaper than all other forms of energy. Even with huge subsidies from the state and federal government, what we’re seeing is that coal just can’t compete. Over the last 5 years, wind has become globally competitive because of huge advances in technology. Just like flat screen TVs and computers, new technology has driven down the costs of producing and using renewable energy.

According to filings by the utility companies, recent wind contracts are coming in at just $43 per megawatt/hour, which is less than half the cost of coal and nuclear.

What’s even better is that much of the research and development of these cost-saving, cutting-edge technologies is being done right here in Michigan by our manufacturers, engineers and scientists. Transitioning to clean, renewable energy is putting people back to work and allows us to retool and reopen our factories.

The new digester in Fremont and another being built in Lowell are perfect examples of renewable energy innovations that are creating jobs right here in Michigan.

In his recent energy announcement, (Michigan’s Republican) Governor Rick Snyder called for a transition from coal to clean renewable energy sources. Independent research shows that we can get at least 30% of our energy from renewable sources, like wind and solar, by 2035.

It’s important to remember, Governor Snyder is a businessman who uses numbers and facts to guide his decisions. As conservatives, we need to do the same, which is why Ken Braun’s column is so unfortunate.

It’s time to dispel the myths and end the distortions. It’s time for conservatives to lead on the issue of renewable energy.