Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[LibertyBell]

Hey I have a novel idea-- why doesn't the rest of the world boycott America and American products.  America needs to be treated like Iran and be forced to change, or make the American economy crash......

[LibertyBell]

2 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

A new document concerning oil and gas lease sale 257 is just the latest evidence that the tyranny of the status quo in favor of fossil fuels still prevails in Washington, D.C.. Page 7 declares that the recent IPCC report “does not present sufficient cause” to block the sale of new oil and gas leases.

The IPCC had declared, “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.” Unfortunately, despite all its bold talk, “unequivocal” evidence is insufficient cause for this Administration to suspend the expansion of the nation’s fossil fuel footprint. Something close to business-as-usual is its energy policy business. 

And, in the best tradition of punting concrete action into the future while seeking credit for that punt, the document suggests, that the report and “additional analysis of climate change may be a significant consideration” in the future. No credit is merited. Instead, the Administration will have steepened the slope for achieving net zero emissions by 2050. 

Given this pathetic embrace of fossil fuel expansion, it is becoming increasingly likely that the United States will come to the COP26 conference without something big and concrete like a clean electricity standard. Instead it may well make promises that are short of concrete policy outcomes. There will be no enforcement mechanisms. And the actual actions will be left to the future. Again.

Other countries will take note. The U.S. Republican Party and pro-fossil fuel Democrats such as Joe Mancin will be emboldened. U.S. policy action will fizzle.

Another opportunity to finally begin to tackle climate change will be squandered. Another generation of political leaders will bequeath the growing mess of climate change to the nation’s youth—youth who made the current Administration’s victory possible in the first place.

Being marginally better than the historically bad Trump Administration is of little consolation. Much more needs to be done over an increasingly short and shortening timeframe.

Will the President intervene to overturn this decision to increase the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions? In other words, will he provide leadership or leadership failure. Well, for an Administration that asked OPEC to increase oil production just after the IPCC released its report, the odds seem against such action.

I hope my worries are misplaced. Whether the U.S. announces concrete, binding policies or merely offers promises at COP26 will be revealing.

 

 

If he doesn't do anything this will be a one term presidency and he should know that.  I will not vote in the next presidential election and I dont care if Satan itself is running the country, let it all burn to hell.  The faster humanity gets destroyed the better and I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

[LibertyBell]

2 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

A new document concerning oil and gas lease sale 257 is just the latest evidence that the tyranny of the status quo in favor of fossil fuels still prevails in Washington, D.C.. Page 7 declares that the recent IPCC report “does not present sufficient cause” to block the sale of new oil and gas leases.

The IPCC had declared, “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.” Unfortunately, despite all its bold talk, “unequivocal” evidence is insufficient cause for this Administration to suspend the expansion of the nation’s fossil fuel footprint. Something close to business-as-usual is its energy policy business. 

And, in the best tradition of punting concrete action into the future while seeking credit for that punt, the document suggests, that the report and “additional analysis of climate change may be a significant consideration” in the future. No credit is merited. Instead, the Administration will have steepened the slope for achieving net zero emissions by 2050. 

Given this pathetic embrace of fossil fuel expansion, it is becoming increasingly likely that the United States will come to the COP26 conference without something big and concrete like a clean electricity standard. Instead it may well make promises that are short of concrete policy outcomes. There will be no enforcement mechanisms. And the actual actions will be left to the future. Again.

Other countries will take note. The U.S. Republican Party and pro-fossil fuel Democrats such as Joe Mancin will be emboldened. U.S. policy action will fizzle.

Another opportunity to finally begin to tackle climate change will be squandered. Another generation of political leaders will bequeath the growing mess of climate change to the nation’s youth—youth who made the current Administration’s victory possible in the first place.

Being marginally better than the historically bad Trump Administration is of little consolation. Much more needs to be done over an increasingly short and shortening timeframe.

Will the President intervene to overturn this decision to increase the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions? In other words, will he provide leadership or leadership failure. Well, for an Administration that asked OPEC to increase oil production just after the IPCC released its report, the odds seem against such action.

I hope my worries are misplaced. Whether the U.S. announces concrete, binding policies or merely offers promises at COP26 will be revealing.

 

 

alright so this is a bunch of hogwash but I'm interested in this legal case, what was this about?

On August 9, 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new report detailing observations of a rapidly changing climate in every region globally. This report does not present sufficient cause to supplement the EIS, at this time. See Stand Up for California! v. United States Dep’t of the Interior, 994 F.3d 616, 628 (D.C. Cir. 2021). The report as well as additional analysis of climate change may be a significant consideration in the Department’s decisions regarding oil and gas leasing programs in the future. The decision to hold Lease Sale 257 recognizes the role that GOM oil and gas resources play in addressing the Nation’s demand for domestic energy sources and fosters economic benefits, including employment, labor income, and tax revenues, which are highest in Gulf Coast States and also distributed widely across the United States. Revenues from offshore oil and gas lease 1 Mitigations for Alternative A include seismic airgun survey protocol (NTL 2016-BOEM-G02), guidance for vessel strike avoidance, guidance for marine debris awareness, avoidance of sensitive benthic resources, guidance for avoidance of historic and prehistoric sites, guidance for shallow hazards surveying and reporting, consultation in or near National Marine Sanctuaries, guidance for military coordination, and guidance for ancillary activities (Oil and Gas Program only). 8 sales support national conservation programs and coastal resiliency for applicable coastal states and political subdivisions under the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006.

[LibertyBell]

so this is the person we need to go after?
 

_______________________________________ _______________ Laura Daniel-Davis Date Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Land and Minerals Management

 

cool so let's dig up dirt on her and completely ruin her life and get her canned.....I'm game!

[LibertyBell]

OTHER ALTERNATIVES ANALYZED IN THE 2018 GOM SUPPLEMENTAL EIS Alternative B in the 2018 GOM Supplemental EIS would have offered for lease all available, unleased blocks within the CPA and EPA portions of the proposed lease sale area for oil and gas operations, with the following exceptions: whole and portions of blocks deferred by the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006, and blocks that are adjacent to or beyond the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone in the area known as the northern portion of the Eastern Gap. Available blocks within the WPA would not be offered for lease under this alternative. Additionally, the following blocks would also be excluded: depth-restricted, segregated portions of Block 299, Main Pass Area, South and East Addition (Louisiana Leasing Map LA10A); blocks where the lease status is currently under appeal; and whole or partial blocks that received bids in previous lease sales, where the bidder has sought reconsideration of BOEM’s rejection of their bid, unless the reconsideration request is fully resolved at least 30 days prior to publication of the Final Notice of Sale. BOEM considered the oil and gas resource potential in the CPA and EPA and the likelihood of industry to develop those oil and gas resources in the context of social, economic, and environmental values, impacts, and concerns. Alternative B could potentially result in a slightly smaller amount of activity than forecasted for Alternative A (1.0-3.6% of the forecasted cumulative OCS oil and gas activity in the GOM). Approximately 53 million ac of the proposed lease sale area would have been available for lease under Alternative B. This alternative was not selected because it does not provide a timely opportunity for bidding on rejected, relinquished, or expired OCS lease blocks from the WPA as is provided in the chosen alternative, i.e., holding a region-wide lease sale. Further, the incremental contribution of the possible negative impacts of the selected alternative is expected to be only slightly greater than those of Alternative B. For these reasons, I did not choose Alternative B. Alternative C would have offered for lease all available, unleased blocks within the WPA portion of the proposed lease sale area for oil and gas operations, except for whole and partial blocks within the boundary of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary as of the July 2008 Memorandum on Withdrawal of Certain Areas of US OCS from Leasing Disposition. Available blocks within the CPA and EPA would not be offered for lease under this alternative. Additionally, due to their lease status, the following blocks would also be excluded: blocks where the lease status is currently under appeal and whole or partial blocks that received bids in previous lease sales, where the bidder has sought reconsideration of BOEM’s rejection of their 9 bid, unless the reconsideration request is fully resolved at least 30 days prior to publication of the Final Notice of Sale. BOEM considered the oil and gas resource potential in the WPA and the likelihood of industry to develop those oil and gas resources in the context of social, economic, and environmental values, impacts, and concerns. Alternative C could potentially result in only 0.2-0.6% of the forecasted cumulative OCS oil- and gas-related activity in the GOM, which is much smaller than either Alternative A or B. Approximately 26.9 million ac of the proposed lease sale area would have been available for lease under Alternative C. This alternative was not selected because it does not provide as prompt an opportunity for bidding on rejected, relinquished, or expired OCS lease blocks from the CPA and EPA as is provided in the chosen alternative, i.e., holding a regionwide lease sale. Moreover, because those planning areas likely would be considered separately for potential leasing under the current program, Alternative C is not certain to result in meaningfully different levels of oil and gas-related activity. For these reasons, I did not choose Alternative C. Alternative D would have offered for lease all available, unleased blocks under either Alternative A (the chosen region-wide Lease Sale 257 decision), B, or C, but would have excluded from the lease sale all blocks in Alternative A subject to either the Topographic Features, Live Bottom (Pinnacle Trend), and/or Blocks South of Baldwin County, Alabama, Stipulations, precluding economic benefits of oil and gas that could be developed in these blocks. Other than these block exclusions, all other aspects of Alternative D, including potential mitigation measures and estimates of resource production, are the same as for the chosen GOM Lease Sale 257 decision. Alternative D was not selected. Its impacts are expected to be nearly the same as those for the selected alternative. Compared to Alternative D, the incremental contribution of possible negative impacts attributable to the selected alternative is expected to be slight, and these negative impacts should be largely mitigated by the adoption of the Topographic Features Stipulation, Live Bottom Stipulation, the Blocks South of Baldwin County, Alabama, Stipulation (refer to Section 5), and site-specific mitigation measures that may be imposed at the plan or permit stages. Therefore, the minimal decrease in impacts that might be avoided did not outweigh the benefits of the oil and gas resources that could be produced by holding a regionwide lease sale that did not exclude these blocks. For these reasons, I did not choose Alternative D. GOM Lease Sale 257 would not be held under Alternative E, which is the No Action Alternative analyzed in the 2018 GOM Supplemental EIS. Alternative E was not selected because if it were, revenue would not be collected by the Federal Government nor subsequently disbursed to the States. If the proposed GOM region-wide lease sale were not held, the overall near-term level of OCS oil and gas-related activity in the region would be reduced. However, not holding a single lease sale would not significantly change the overall activity levels in the GOM (i.e., on blocks leased in previous lease sales) and the associated environmental impacts in the near term. 10 4. ENVIRONMENTALLY PREFERABLE ALTERNATIVE BOEM identified Alternative E, defined as the No Action Alternative, as environmentally preferable in the 2018 GOM Supplemental EIS. The No Action Alternative is considered environmentally preferable because not holding the lease sale would preclude OCS oil- and gas related activities related to new leases from occurring, along with the resulting environmental effects in the Gulf of Mexico. However, significant OCS oil- and gas-related activity would be expected to continue under existing leases and, with only forty-eight percent of leases with approved exploration plans or development plans, the majority of currently leased blocks are still in the early exploration phase. Therefore, a no action alternative will not have immediate environmental benefits. It is also possible that in the short term, assuming OCS oil- and gasrelated activities remain confined to acreage currently leased, OCS operators would likely reevaluate their exploration, delineation, and development strategies across their existing portfolio and reallocate resources accordingly. This could also lead to small increases in the intensity of the activities in already leased areas and attendant small increases in impacts in those areas.

[LibertyBell]

This lady needs to be sent to the bottom of the GOM.  I'd actually rather have a series of Cat 5's in the GOM completely wreck the fossil fuel cartels.....one can only dream

[donsutherland1]

6 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

This is why I dont blame activists using whatever means necessary to end the fossil fuel cartels.  No one else has the guts to do it.

 

But one question, who is the moron who wrote this:

 Page 7 declares that the recent IPCC report “does not present sufficient cause” to block the sale of new oil and gas leases

 

Do they not see what's happening on the planet right now?

Also aren't fossil fuel cartel heads being forced to testify before Congress right now because of what Greenpeace uncovered about them using underhanded techniques in lobbying?

It’s from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (part of the Department of Interior).

[donsutherland1]

5 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

so this is the person we need to go after?
 

_______________________________________ _______________ Laura Daniel-Davis Date Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Land and Minerals Management

 

cool so let's dig up dirt on her and completely ruin her life and get her canned.....I'm game!

My concern is that she is merely carrying out the Administration’s policy. That policy is inconsistent with its rhetoric and even more inconsistent with what’s needed to begin to address climate change.

[rclab]

18 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Hey I have a novel idea-- why doesn't the rest of the world boycott America and American products.  America needs to be treated like Iran and be forced to change, or make the American economy crash......

 

18 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

If he doesn't do anything this will be a one term presidency and he should know that.  I will not vote in the next presidential election and I dont care if Satan itself is running the country, let it all burn to hell.  The faster humanity gets destroyed the better and I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

 

18 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

so this is the person we need to go after?
 

_______________________________________ _______________ Laura Daniel-Davis Date Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Land and Minerals Management

 

cool so let's dig up dirt on her and completely ruin her life and get her canned.....I'm game!

 

18 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

This lady needs to be sent to the bottom of the GOM.  I'd actually rather have a series of Cat 5's in the GOM completely wreck the fossil fuel cartels.....one can only dream

 

12 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

My concern is that she is merely carrying out the Administration’s policy. That policy is inconsistent with its rhetoric and even more inconsistent with what’s needed to begin to address climate change.

Good morning Don, Liberty. Well it was until I read this series of posts. The passion, as written, is extreme yet understandable. The idea of the world joining forces to bring this nation to its knees is indeed novel but also paradoxical. If that much of the planet could work together the outlook would be brighter. Sadly too many of our sibling nations are as bad or worse, conserving the environment, than we are. Fingering one individual also will be of brief satisfaction. Similar to ‘killing the messenger’. Our present leader may seem overwhelmed and incompetent. He is the product of a political party/process. He tries to balance all factions and prays for survival. Would he be different if he was elected without being beholden to a Democrat/Republican standard/factions? That, as  it is my own bias, I would like to try. Your comment on voting, Liberty, I don’t agree with, even though I feel your statement rings true. If Satan is running, perhaps that is who we must vote for. That is who we must deal with to save our home. The ($$$) power is the control. We must resolve the ‘What’s in it for me crowd’ to accelerate movement. As simplistic as it sounds, while our genius captains of industry are trying to create outer space playgrounds for the Uber rich, I would bring these devils to the table and say the one T$+ that it takes to get to, terraform and settle Mars is yours if you deliver to me (instead) a way to generate energy cleanly for world wide use. Once Gaia is in self sustaining order we will start thinking about visiting our beyond atmosphere neighbors. The brokers have no National allegiance. Their God is profit and their religion is their own continuance. Yet they are who we must deal with in order to save ourselves so we can eventually move beyond them and their credo. I apologize, Don, Liberty, for the idealistically laced diatribe. As always …

[donsutherland1]

3 hours ago, rclab said:

 

 

 

 

Good morning Don, Liberty. Well it was until I read this series of posts. The passion, as written, is extreme yet understandable. The idea of the world joining forces to bring this nation to its knees is indeed novel but also paradoxical. If that much of the planet could work together the outlook would be brighter. Sadly too many of our sibling nations are as bad or worse, conserving the environment, than we are. Fingering one individual also will be of brief satisfaction. Similar to ‘killing the messenger’. Our present leader may seem overwhelmed and incompetent. He is the product of a political party/process. He tries balance all factions and prays for survival. Would he be different if he was elected without being beholden to a Democrat/Republican standard/factions? That, as my own bias, I would like to try. Your comment on voting, Liberty, I don’t agree with, even though I feel your statement rings true. If Satan is running, perhaps that is who we must vote for. That is who we must deal with to save our home. The ($$$) power is the control. We must resolve the ‘What’s in it fo me crowd’ to accelerate movement. As simplistic as it sounds, while our genius captains of industry are trying to create outer space playgrounds for the Uber rich, I would bring these devils to the table and say the one T$+ that it takes to get to, terraform and settle Mars is yours if you deliver to me (instead) a way to generate energy cleanly for world wide use. Once Gaia is in self sustaining order we will start thinking about visiting our beyond atmosphere neighbors. The brokers have no National allegiance. Their God is profit and their religion is their own continuance. Yet they are who we must deal with in order to save ourselves so we can eventually move beyond them and their credo. I apologize, Don, Liberty, for the idealistically laced diatribe. As always …

My guess is that with some exceptions, human society has an almost iron-clad commitment to the status quo, even one that is unsustainable, because it has fear of change that exceeds fear of the consequences of inaction. Thus, there is a bias for inaction and rhetoric outruns substantive action. Denial of the reality that a status quo can’t be preserved is explicit (denial of climate change) or implicit (belief that one can finance and approve expanded fossil fuel production and magically make progress toward net zero emissions). Far more effort and investment are devoted to saving the status quo than toward an early transition during which time is sufficient to avert significant disruption or avoid the much higher cost from allowing things to worsen. The leadership and action undertaken to address the ozone hole and acid rain are exceptions to the rule.

My concern is that the disasters of this summer will be largely forgotten in the policy and business world. In terms of concrete policy and energy production, things will go on little changed. The gap between rhetoric and action will continue to widen. That gap will only be resolved when a crisis of a much larger magnitude imposes a new order. Then, of course, the shift will be more disruptive and the economic and human costs much higher than would otherwise have been the case.

There are plausible candidates for such crises, but they still lie in the future. One would entail a series of years where widespread crop failures lead to an appreciable shortage of food. Another would entail a massive marine heatwave that results in an appreciable decline in the population of sea life, including seafood.  Still another would entail reaching an irreversible tipping point that dooms the Greenland ice sheet and a significant part of the Antarctic ice sheet, and subsequently, much of the world’s coastlines and coastal cities to the rising sea.

I don’t currently think humanity will get that far, but am concerned that humanity will approach such a situation due to insufficient policy measures. Unfortunately, because humans aren’t prescient, it will be uncertain precisely where the boundary that separates a severe crisis from a truly catastrophic one lies. With continued delay, there will be danger that humanity could wait too long to avert the latter.

[Typhoon Tip]

It's all about momentum ... op ed as we will, opine and whine... but in the end, you have an industrialized world with 7+billion on board -

I made this metaphor several weeks ago in a diatribe - it's hard to turn a fully loaded sea-tanker around inside 1.5 mi, when we only have .75 miles before the edge of the world.  

That's basically it ... that symbolism means, there is too much ballast going in the direction of FF for energy.   This denial and those asshat "conditional sociopaths" all of it is just part of that momentum.  Oh, it'll abate eventually ... in lieu of the new world order. Whether that is by force or choice remains to be seen, but in either case, ...it'll take time.

[etudiant]

54 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

It's all about momentum ... op ed as we will, opine and whine... but in the end, you have an industrialized world with 7+billion on board -

I made this metaphor several weeks ago in a diatribe - it's hard to turn a fully loaded sea-tanker around inside 1.5 mi, when we only have .75 miles before the edge of the world.  

That's basically it ... that symbolism means, there is too much ballast going in the direction of FF for energy.   This denial and those asshat "conditional sociopaths" all of it is just part of that momentum.  Oh, it'll abate eventually ... in lieu of the new world order. Whether that is by force or choice remains to be seen, but in either case, ...it'll take time.

The frenzy about a small incremental oil lease sale is just laughably disconnected from reality.

We buy a half trillion dollars worth of Chinese goods every year, so much that China is short of power for its factories and hence is massively expanding its coal fired generating capacity. Sadly China too has discovered that nuclear, although excellent in terms of the CO2 footprint, is totally uncompetitive in terms of cost and time to build.

A solution might be a 200% tariff on Chinese imports, which would crush these planned coal fired generation projects. Does anyone advocate that?

[donsutherland1]

The reason why expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure despite promises of addressing climate change needs to be called out:

[SnoSki14]

29 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

The reason why expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure despite promises of addressing climate change needs to be called out:

Things won't change until some devastating consequences are realized. 

Humans are reactionary not proactive. Additionally once companies' bottom lines get hit via catastrophic climate change effects is when they'll make changes. 

[donsutherland1]

7 hours ago, etudiant said:

The frenzy about a small incremental oil lease sale is just laughably disconnected from reality.

We buy a half trillion dollars worth of Chinese goods every year, so much that China is short of power for its factories and hence is massively expanding its coal fired generating capacity. Sadly China too has discovered that nuclear, although excellent in terms of the CO2 footprint, is totally uncompetitive in terms of cost and time to build.

A solution might be a 200% tariff on Chinese imports, which would crush these planned coal fired generation projects. Does anyone advocate that?

One isn’t dealing with trivial amounts of oil and gas, and therefore future greenhouse gas emissions. From the BOEM:

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) proposes to offer approximately 78.2 million acres for a region-wide Gulf of Mexico lease sale scheduled for March 2021. Lease Sale 257, scheduled to be livestreamed from New Orleans, will be the eighth offshore sale under the 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program.  The sale will include approximately 14,594 unleased blocks – all of the available unleased areas in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico...

The Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), covering about 160 million acres, is estimated to contain about 48 billion barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and 141 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered technically recoverable gas.  

https://www.boem.gov/boem-proposes-first-gulf-oil-and-gas-lease-sale-2021

Nearly 49% of an area with enormous fossil fuel reserves is very substantial. This is why climate scientists, environmentalists, and members of the public who want to address climate change are objecting. Geopolitically, a country that is expanding its own fossil fuel footprint lacks the standing to tell others, including India and China, to do more, even as more is urgently needed if the 1.5C or 2.0C goals are to be met. All in all, it provides a damaging example.

[LibertyBell]

20 hours ago, rclab said:

 

 

 

 

Good morning Don, Liberty. Well it was until I read this series of posts. The passion, as written, is extreme yet understandable. The idea of the world joining forces to bring this nation to its knees is indeed novel but also paradoxical. If that much of the planet could work together the outlook would be brighter. Sadly too many of our sibling nations are as bad or worse, conserving the environment, than we are. Fingering one individual also will be of brief satisfaction. Similar to ‘killing the messenger’. Our present leader may seem overwhelmed and incompetent. He is the product of a political party/process. He tries to balance all factions and prays for survival. Would he be different if he was elected without being beholden to a Democrat/Republican standard/factions? That, as  it is my own bias, I would like to try. Your comment on voting, Liberty, I don’t agree with, even though I feel your statement rings true. If Satan is running, perhaps that is who we must vote for. That is who we must deal with to save our home. The ($$$) power is the control. We must resolve the ‘What’s in it for me crowd’ to accelerate movement. As simplistic as it sounds, while our genius captains of industry are trying to create outer space playgrounds for the Uber rich, I would bring these devils to the table and say the one T$+ that it takes to get to, terraform and settle Mars is yours if you deliver to me (instead) a way to generate energy cleanly for world wide use. Once Gaia is in self sustaining order we will start thinking about visiting our beyond atmosphere neighbors. The brokers have no National allegiance. Their God is profit and their religion is their own continuance. Yet they are who we must deal with in order to save ourselves so we can eventually move beyond them and their credo. I apologize, Don, Liberty, for the idealistically laced diatribe. As always …

Yes the main problem are these companies who pollute, but their enablers who are policymakers seem like they are either completely dumb or completely corrupt.  This woman who probably isn't even a scientist let alone a climate scientist, had the gall to downplay an IPCC report.  I'm not even sure she has enough brain cells to understand the report.

We put these mediocre policymakers in charge and achieve mediocre results.  Unfortunately mediocre doesn't cut it anymore.  On top of that, what I find deeply disturbing is we have another mediocre policymaker, Vilsap who is in charge of AG who is completely corrupt at best and at worst an out and out racist.  People like that have such a conflict of interest that one wonders if the whole system "works" via bribery.

[LibertyBell]

7 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

One isn’t dealing with trivial amounts of oil and gas, and therefore future greenhouse gas emissions. From the BOEM:

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) proposes to offer approximately 78.2 million acres for a region-wide Gulf of Mexico lease sale scheduled for March 2021. Lease Sale 257, scheduled to be livestreamed from New Orleans, will be the eighth offshore sale under the 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program.  The sale will include approximately 14,594 unleased blocks – all of the available unleased areas in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico...

The Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), covering about 160 million acres, is estimated to contain about 48 billion barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and 141 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered technically recoverable gas.  

https://www.boem.gov/boem-proposes-first-gulf-oil-and-gas-lease-sale-2021

Nearly 49% of an area with enormous fossil fuel reserves is very substantial. This is why climate scientists, environmentalists, and members of the public who want to address climate change are objecting. Geopolitically, a country that is expanding its own fossil fuel footprint lacks the standing to tell others, including India and China, to do more, even as more is urgently needed if the 1.5C or 2.0C goals are to be met. All in all, it provides a damaging example.

Hey Don I asked about that court case because it looked from what I saw that the state of California actually sued the federal govt?  Is a lawsuit also possible in this case?

I suspect a lot of these so-called fossil fuel workers (which are low quality bad health and low paying jobs anyway) live on the Gulf coast so how are they going to explain to their families that they have to move because the work they are doing caused the sea level to rise and drowned entire towns in the process?

 

[LibertyBell]

7 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

One isn’t dealing with trivial amounts of oil and gas, and therefore future greenhouse gas emissions. From the BOEM:

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) proposes to offer approximately 78.2 million acres for a region-wide Gulf of Mexico lease sale scheduled for March 2021. Lease Sale 257, scheduled to be livestreamed from New Orleans, will be the eighth offshore sale under the 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program.  The sale will include approximately 14,594 unleased blocks – all of the available unleased areas in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico...

The Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), covering about 160 million acres, is estimated to contain about 48 billion barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and 141 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered technically recoverable gas.  

https://www.boem.gov/boem-proposes-first-gulf-oil-and-gas-lease-sale-2021

Nearly 49% of an area with enormous fossil fuel reserves is very substantial. This is why climate scientists, environmentalists, and members of the public who want to address climate change are objecting. Geopolitically, a country that is expanding its own fossil fuel footprint lacks the standing to tell others, including India and China, to do more, even as more is urgently needed if the 1.5C or 2.0C goals are to be met. All in all, it provides a damaging example.

Best thing that could ever happen is another giant asteroid hits the Gulf of Mexico and entirely annihilates any dirty energy sources in the region.

Team human or team asteroid.....I'm full on team asteroid lol.

 

[LibertyBell]

7 hours ago, SnoSki14 said:

Things won't change until some devastating consequences are realized. 

Humans are reactionary not proactive. Additionally once companies' bottom lines get hit via catastrophic climate change effects is when they'll make changes. 

whats been happening in Louisiana for the past 2 years is I would say devastating consequences....

 

[LibertyBell]

8 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

The reason why expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure despite promises of addressing climate change needs to be called out:

These kinds of charts need to have more real life panic and fear injected into them.  For example we need to include what cities will be underwater at what temperature levels and how many millions will die at each temperature level.  Graphs like these are fine for their purpose but to really scare people into action there needs to be an association made with these and real life results.  People can't see 1.5 C or 2 C but they can see at x C temperatures we will lose y millions of people and cities a, b and c will be underwater, etc.

 

[LibertyBell]

14 hours ago, etudiant said:

The frenzy about a small incremental oil lease sale is just laughably disconnected from reality.

We buy a half trillion dollars worth of Chinese goods every year, so much that China is short of power for its factories and hence is massively expanding its coal fired generating capacity. Sadly China too has discovered that nuclear, although excellent in terms of the CO2 footprint, is totally uncompetitive in terms of cost and time to build.

A solution might be a 200% tariff on Chinese imports, which would crush these planned coal fired generation projects. Does anyone advocate that?

Hey I want to embargo China AND India AND Brazil

[LibertyBell]

15 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

It's all about momentum ... op ed as we will, opine and whine... but in the end, you have an industrialized world with 7+billion on board -

I made this metaphor several weeks ago in a diatribe - it's hard to turn a fully loaded sea-tanker around inside 1.5 mi, when we only have .75 miles before the edge of the world.  

That's basically it ... that symbolism means, there is too much ballast going in the direction of FF for energy.   This denial and those asshat "conditional sociopaths" all of it is just part of that momentum.  Oh, it'll abate eventually ... in lieu of the new world order. Whether that is by force or choice remains to be seen, but in either case, ...it'll take time.

Looks like you're Team Asteroid too ha

[LibertyBell]

17 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

My guess is that with some exceptions, human society has an almost iron-clad commitment to the status quo, even one that is unsustainable, because it has fear of change that exceeds fear of the consequences of inaction. Thus, there is a bias for inaction and rhetoric outruns substantive action. Denial of the reality that a status quo can’t be preserved is explicit (denial of climate change) or implicit (belief that one can finance and approve expanded fossil fuel production and magically make progress toward net zero emissions). Far more effort and investment are devoted to saving the status quo than toward an early transition during which time is sufficient to avert significant disruption or avoid the much higher cost from allowing things to worsen. The leadership and action undertaken to address the ozone hole and acid rain are exceptions to the rule.

My concern is that the disasters of this summer will be largely forgotten in the policy and business world. In terms of concrete policy and energy production, things will go on little changed. The gap between rhetoric and action will continue to widen. That gap will only be resolved when a crisis of a much larger magnitude imposes a new order. Then, of course, the shift will be more disruptive and the economic and human costs much higher than would otherwise have been the case.

There are plausible candidates for such crises, but they still lie in the future. One would entail a series of years where widespread crop failures lead to an appreciable shortage of food. Another would entail a massive marine heatwave that results in an appreciable decline in the population of sea life, including seafood.  Still another would entail reaching an irreversible tipping point that dooms the Greenland ice sheet and a significant part of the Antarctic ice sheet, and subsequently, much of the world’s coastlines and coastal cities to the rising sea.

I don’t currently think humanity will get that far, but am concerned that humanity will approach such a situation due to insufficient policy measures. Unfortunately, because humans aren’t prescient, it will be uncertain precisely where the boundary that separates a severe crisis from a truly catastrophic one lies. With continued delay, there will be danger that humanity could wait too long to avert the latter.

But one must wonder what kind of a disaster we are talking about that would shock people into action.  Climate change has easily killed many more times as many people as this awful pandemic has.  Maybe their ultimate solution is mitigation via telling people to leave coastal areas or they think newly built sea walls will hold up?  Maybe they've decided hey we can't stop this as soon as we need to so let's look at other things like putting up walls between the oceans and the cities and let's consider making people relocate by making flood insurance prices so high they can't afford to live there?  What do you think about that kind of philosophy, Don?

 

[LibertyBell]

15 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

It's all about momentum ... op ed as we will, opine and whine... but in the end, you have an industrialized world with 7+billion on board -

I made this metaphor several weeks ago in a diatribe - it's hard to turn a fully loaded sea-tanker around inside 1.5 mi, when we only have .75 miles before the edge of the world.  

That's basically it ... that symbolism means, there is too much ballast going in the direction of FF for energy.   This denial and those asshat "conditional sociopaths" all of it is just part of that momentum.  Oh, it'll abate eventually ... in lieu of the new world order. Whether that is by force or choice remains to be seen, but in either case, ...it'll take time.

Chimps are smarter than these people

https://www.nature.com/articles/21415

 

Abstract

As an increasing number of field studies of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) have achieved long-term status across Africa, differences in the behavioural repertoires described have become apparent that suggest there is significant cultural variation^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7}. Here we present a systematic synthesis of this information from the seven most long-term studies, which together have accumulated 151 years of chimpanzee observation. This comprehensive analysis reveals patterns of variation that are far more extensive than have previously been documented for any animal species except humans^8,9,10,11. We find that 39 different behaviour patterns, including tool usage, grooming and courtship behaviours, are customary or habitual in some communities but are absent in others where ecological explanations have been discounted. Among mammalian and avian species, cultural variation has previously been identified only for single behaviour patterns, such as the local dialects of song-birds¹²,¹³. The extensive, multiple variations now documented for chimpanzees are thus without parallel. Moreover, the combined repertoire of these behaviour patterns in each chimpanzee community is itself highly distinctive, a phenomenon characteristic of human cultures¹⁴ but previously unrecognised in non-human species.

[LibertyBell]

also this one, animals might be more moral than most humans

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10892-018-9275-3

Rowlands (2011, 2012, 2017) has recently argued that some nonhuman animals (hereafter ‘animals’) may be moral creatures, understood as creatures who can behave on the basis of moral motivations. He has argued that, while animals probably lack the sorts of concepts and metacognitive capacities necessary to be held morally responsible for their behaviour, this only excludes them from the possibility of counting as moral agents. There are, however, certain moral motivations that, in his view, may be reasonably thought to fall within the reach of (at least some) animal species, namely, moral emotions such as “sympathy and compassion, kindness, tolerance, and patience, and also their negative counterparts such as anger, indignation, malice, and spite”, as well as “a sense of what is fair and what is not” (Rowlands 2012, 32). If animals do indeed behave on the basis of moral emotions, they should, he argues, be considered moral subjects, even if their lack of sophisticated cognitive capacities prevents us from holding them morally responsible.^{Footnote 1}

The empirical evidence gathered until now suggests that Rowlands may be on the right track and that some animals are indeed capable of behaving morally. Some studies, for instance, have found that animals are sometimes willing to help others when there is no direct gain involved, or even a direct loss. Such apparently altruistic behaviour has been shown by rats (Church 1959; Rice and Gainer 1962; Evans and Braud 1969; Greene 1969; Bartal et al. 2011; Sato et al. 2015), pigeons (Watanabe and Ono 1986), and several primate species (Masserman et al. 1964; Wechkin et al. 1964; Warneken and Tomasello 2006; Burkart et al. 2007; Warneken et al. 2007; Lakshminarayanan and Santos 2008; Cronin et al. 2010; Horner et al. 2011; Schmelz et al. 2017). It has further been found that some animals will offer apparent consolation to individuals in distress, a behaviour that is thought to be triggered by empathic processes and has been observed in primates (de Waal and van Roosmalen 1979; Kutsukake and Castles 2004; Cordoni et al. 2006; Fraser et al. 2008; Clay and de Waal 2013; Palagi et al. 2014), corvids (Seed et al. 2007; Fraser and Bugnyar 2010), canines (Cools et al. 2008; Palagi and Cordoni 2009; Custance and Mayer 2012), elephants (Plotnik and de Waal 2014), horses (Cozzi et al. 2010), budgerigars (Ikkatai et al. 2016), and prairie voles (Burkett et al. 2016). A few studies have also found an aversion to inequity in chimpanzees (Brosnan et al. 2005, 2010), monkeys (Brosnan and de Waal 2003; Cronin and Snowdon 2008; Massen et al. 2012), dogs (Range et al. 2008), and rats (Oberliessen et al. 2016), which suggests the presence of a sense of fairness in these species.^{Footnote 2}

[LibertyBell]

20 hours ago, rclab said:

 

 

 

 

Good morning Don, Liberty. Well it was until I read this series of posts. The passion, as written, is extreme yet understandable. The idea of the world joining forces to bring this nation to its knees is indeed novel but also paradoxical. If that much of the planet could work together the outlook would be brighter. Sadly too many of our sibling nations are as bad or worse, conserving the environment, than we are. Fingering one individual also will be of brief satisfaction. Similar to ‘killing the messenger’. Our present leader may seem overwhelmed and incompetent. He is the product of a political party/process. He tries to balance all factions and prays for survival. Would he be different if he was elected without being beholden to a Democrat/Republican standard/factions? That, as  it is my own bias, I would like to try. Your comment on voting, Liberty, I don’t agree with, even though I feel your statement rings true. If Satan is running, perhaps that is who we must vote for. That is who we must deal with to save our home. The ($$$) power is the control. We must resolve the ‘What’s in it for me crowd’ to accelerate movement. As simplistic as it sounds, while our genius captains of industry are trying to create outer space playgrounds for the Uber rich, I would bring these devils to the table and say the one T$+ that it takes to get to, terraform and settle Mars is yours if you deliver to me (instead) a way to generate energy cleanly for world wide use. Once Gaia is in self sustaining order we will start thinking about visiting our beyond atmosphere neighbors. The brokers have no National allegiance. Their God is profit and their religion is their own continuance. Yet they are who we must deal with in order to save ourselves so we can eventually move beyond them and their credo. I apologize, Don, Liberty, for the idealistically laced diatribe. As always …

One thing I did like about what Elon Musk did, he used the first real space trip by an entirely private crew to raise money for St Jude's Children's Hospital......over 200 million was raised and 50 million personally came from him.  Also one of the people on the mission was a pediatric cancer survivor and a Physician's Assistant who works at St Jude's.  And that was a real space trip- they were up there for 3 whole days and at around 600 miles up and in orbit!

 

 

[LibertyBell]

23 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

My concern is that she is merely carrying out the Administration’s policy. That policy is inconsistent with its rhetoric and even more inconsistent with what’s needed to begin to address climate change.

I wonder if the media even covers these things and questions the administration  about being hypocrites.

 

[donsutherland1]

5 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

But one must wonder what kind of a disaster we are talking about that would shock people into action.  Climate change has easily killed many more times as many people as this awful pandemic has.  Maybe their ultimate solution is mitigation via telling people to leave coastal areas or they think newly built sea walls will hold up?  Maybe they've decided hey we can't stop this as soon as we need to so let's look at other things like putting up walls between the oceans and the cities and let's consider making people relocate by making flood insurance prices so high they can't afford to live there?  What do you think about that kind of philosophy, Don?

 

I don’t know. A not insignificant slice of the population is indifferent to the terrible toll inflicted by COVID-19. There likely is a level at which the threshold would be reached.

[donsutherland1]

5 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

I wonder if the media even covers these things and questions the administration  about being hypocrites.

 

There’s some coverage, but not enough. <I>The Washington Post</i> seems to do the best job in linking extreme events to climate change and climate change to the burning of fossil fuels. That last element—who/what is responsible—is often missing in stories that cite climate change. Hence, the kind of public pressure required to begin to roll back fossil fuel production and hold fossil fuel producers liable for climate damages is lacking.

[donsutherland1]

5 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

These kinds of charts need to have more real life panic and fear injected into them.  For example we need to include what cities will be underwater at what temperature levels and how many millions will die at each temperature level.  Graphs like these are fine for their purpose but to really scare people into action there needs to be an association made with these and real life results.  People can't see 1.5 C or 2 C but they can see at x C temperatures we will lose y millions of people and cities a, b and c will be underwater, etc.

 

The problem is that those producing such charts assume reasonable information literacy. An interactive explainer about how to read such charts and the consequences for each path would add considerable value.