Obama Blocks Offshore Drilling In Atlantic, Arctic Areas (npr.org) 338
Before the new administration takes over next month, President Obama took new action Wednesday to place large sections of the Arctic and the Atlantic Oceans off limits to oil drilling. NPR reports: The Arctic protections are a joint partnership with Canada. "These actions, and Canada's parallel actions, protect a sensitive and unique ecosystem that is unlike any other region on earth," the White House said in a statement. "They reflect the scientific assessment that, even with the high safety standards that both our countries have put in place, the risks of an oil spill in this region are significant and our ability to clean up from a spill in the region's harsh conditions is limited," the White House added. "By contrast, it would take decades to fully develop the production infrastructure necessary for any large-scale oil and gas leasing production in the region -- at a time when we need to continue to move decisively away from fossil fuels." Obama's action designates 31 Atlantic canyons "off limits to oil and gas exploration and development activity," totaling 3.8 million acres, according to the administration. It provides the same protections to much of the Arctic's waters, covering the "vast majority of U.S. waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas," totaling 115 million acres. Canada is doing the same to "all Arctic Canadian waters," the joint statement adds. Obama took these actions by invoking a law called the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which gives the president the authority to withdraw lands from oil and gas leases.
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why didn't he bother doing this before now?
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Perhaps he was sitting ready to veto any attempt at getting started, but wanted to believe that the good of human beings would do the job.
Then Trump got elected. .
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
Why didn't he bother doing this before now?
He did.
if you had been paying attention mr ac, you'd have noticed he's been steadily protecting many areas over the past 8 years, typically naming a new one every 4-6 months or so. he has now protected more natural areas than any president ever before.
Mass Bribery? [Re:So...] (Score:5, Insightful)
Honest question. Do you actually believe that more than 90% of climatologists have somehow been bribed to lie?
If "yes", wouldn't "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" imply that one should find clear evidence of mass bribery before dismissing the climatologists' conclusions?
It would also mean that within a typical sample of scientist, that 90%+ are bribe-able. I also find that an extraordinary claim. It's never before happened on any other topic.
Re: Mass Bribery? [Re:So...] (Score:2)
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That's a possibility: him and his friends all take bribes and thus think it's normal.
However, I would still expect that by now somebody would actually catch a fair amount in the act. If 90% are taking bribes, then all you have to do is carefully monitor a dozen or so, and eventually you'll catch many in the act. Study their house, vacations, and daily habits and see if their material goods exceed their official annual salary. Fox has resources for that.
One may argue they are favoring the preferences of thei
Re: Mass Bribery? [Re:So...] (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course the fact that the anti-climate change bloggers, writers and thinktanks DO take bribes and HAVE been REPEATEDLY caught in the act doesn't harm their credibility. But the unproven alegation that scientists do does.
Of course they soften that ridiculousness up a bit. It's not "bribes" its "grant money" and then they claim the whole system of science funding is so corrupt it's impossible to get grant money unless you support climate change.
The only problem with that narative is that there is such a thing as private grants - and those trillionaire fossil fuel companies that fund the bloggers, writers and thinktanks will be very happy to give a massive grant to any scientist who can disprove the theory. It would be a much better use of the billions their spending trying to discredit it. Right now they are already paying quite large sums to any scientist who is willing to use deliberate deception and misleading arguments to try and pretend he's disproven climate science (the terrible job these people do just shows how little they have to work with).
A scientist who could actually show strong evidence the theory is wrong - would have a billion dollar grant tomorrow, and a nobel prize next year.
Re: Mass Bribery? [Re:So...] (Score:5, Insightful)
As a PhD researcher who works with soft (research) money, I'd say you have no idea how grant funding and annual salaries work in the slightest. In addition, if we were to show conclusively tomorrow that human beings have absolutely zero effect on climate, the only people who might be out of work would be those in the direct employ of the fossil fuel industry who are paid to FUD and obfuscate. Real researchers with the math and physics and model expertise to work on climate can work on a wide variety of subjects.
Re: Mass Bribery? [Re:So...] (Score:4, Informative)
As a PhD researcher who works with soft (research) money, I'd say you have no idea how grant funding and annual salaries work in the slightest.
As a PhD researcher who has worked under research funding for 25 years and continues to do so, I'd say I have a very good knowledge of how the system works.
In addition, if we were to show conclusively tomorrow that human beings have absolutely zero effect on climate, the only people who might be out of work
When did I say people would be out of work? Do you understand what tenure is? Or how research faculty can transition to teaching faculty when their grants don't get funded? I think I already pointed out that research scientists who lose grants will have to transition, which is a very different job with very different peer recognition. You don't write papers anymore, you don't have grad students to do research because you can't pay them. I said all of this already.
Real researchers with the math and physics and model expertise to work on climate can work on a wide variety of subjects.
Yes, they can. They can teach, or if they can find another topic that is as well funded they have a reasonable chance of getting a grant in a new area of research approved. If they are suddenly writing grants for topics in which they have little expertise or status they will likely find their grants don't get funded, and then they become teachers. The stories about huge grants to study trivial things like the mating habits of grubs are mostly apocryphal, even though they were the fodder for Proxmire's Golden Fleece awards. Money is getting tighter unless you are trying to solve a crisis; global climate change is one such. When it stops being a crisis, or someone wants to prove it is not one, money dries up. You can't keep the same number of people researching climate change when the money is cut in half and allocated to another more critical area of research. Even a grade school student should be able to understand that.
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http://arstechnica.com/science... [arstechnica.com]
http://arstechnica.com/science... [arstechnica.com]
Re: Mass Bribery? [Re:So...] (Score:5, Insightful)
Why doesn't this phenomenon inflict OTHER fields? How come 90% astronomers don't claim bunches of asteroids are headed our way soon, or 90% of solar experts claiming the sun will go nova soon, or 90% of geologists claiming the Earth's core will stop spinning, ending our magnetic field, and frying us with space radiation; or 90% of SETI claiming fanged ET's are coming to kidnap all the women and mass cloning Justin Beibers with long hair to replace them?
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Why doesn't this phenomenon inflict OTHER fields?
Who says it doesn't?
How come 90% astronomers don't claim bunches of asteroids are headed our way soon, or 90% of solar experts claiming the sun will go nova soon,
Yada yada yada. Because none of those fields are trying at attribute causes to directly observable phenomena without a pure experimental basis to show causality, perhaps. Sorry, did you think you were making a serious argument?
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Oh, it does happen in other fields. The popular podcaster/vlogger Stefan Molyneux discusses this often.
https://www.youtube.com/user/s... [youtube.com]
He's done a few videos on how corrupting the global warming theory has been. He's also done a few videos recently on how the fields of biology and medicine are coming into conflict with the social sciences. If someone does a study on how ethnicity can affect things like intelligence, athletic ability, disease resistance, or affect much of anything really then that person
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It's never before happened on any other topi
It's happened to evolution and vaccines... Duh.
(sarcasm added)
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"Pssst, I'll give you $100 if you tell your students they are a monkey's uncle."
Re:Mass Bribery? [Re:So...] (Score:5, Funny)
New plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environment crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires and oil companies.
**shamelessley stolen from a bunch of places online**
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New plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environment crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires and oil companies.
New plot idea: Scientists declare "demon rum" a threat to public health and morality. The size of government balloons, corruption becomes the norm. Constitutional rights become more "malleable", cities turn into war zones. Black markets thrive, smuggling becomes too much for law enforcement. The government uses new laws to poison known supplies of black market alcohol, dozens of people die and hundreds sickened. Only after years of public outcry does the government relent and lift the ban on alcoholic
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Are you serious?
New plot idea: Scientists declare "demon rum" a threat to public health and morality.
Yup - was true then, is still true now. Just because getting drunk is legal and socially acceptable doesn't mean it's not a problem.
The size of government balloons, corruption becomes the norm.
Sounds like government as usual - pork barrel spending, lobbyists for every cause. Nothing specific to climate change here.
Constitutional rights become more "malleable", cities turn into war zones.
Well, we can thank the drug war for that, and Homeland Security, and the telecom companies, and paramiltary law enforcement - wait, what were we talking about again? How did we get here from climate change?
Black markets thrive, smuggling becomes too much for law enforcement.
Yup - totally see Joe Sixpack slow-
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Honest question. Do you actually believe that more than 90% of climatologists have somehow been bribed to lie?
Bribed? No.
It's much simpler than that. It's selection bias. One does not become a respected 'climatologist' unless one prostrates oneself at the altar of CAGW. As soon as one questions CAGW, one suddenly goes from 'respected' to 'nutjob/whacko'. It's also a handy club to beat down those who would question the theories; "Shut up! You're not a climatologist!".
Strat
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outfits like Greenpeace are after China and other developing nations. As well as corporations that exploit those nations. The problem with 'Globalization' is that it is intended to strip away environmental, health, safety, and labor laws; which is why it must be stopped. BTW, do you have any citations for Russian and Chinese governments funding free activist organizations?
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The problem with 'Globalization' is that it is intended to strip away environmental, health, safety, and labor laws; which is why it must be stopped.
Wouldn't the TPP count as Globalization, and doesn't it have a lot of environmental, health, safety and labor laws which override the signatory countries local laws?
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You're right. According to NASA (http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/), it is actually more than 97% of actively publishing climate scientists.
Strong scientific consensus (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Strong scientific consensus (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Strong scientific consensus (Score:4, Insightful)
I am arguing SPECIFICALLY with OPs claim that "90% of climatologists" believe in AGW. That is based on a flawed study which found that 97% of peer reviewed scientific papers supported AGW (the flaw was that if the paper did not specifically say that AGW was false it was counted as supporting AGW...even when AGW was irrelevant to the topic of the paper).
I think either you or your sources are getting their wires crossed. The study did no such thing. The study in question broke down papers into pro, anti and no discernable position (in the abstract of the paper). The authors of the study tried to contact the authors in this third group. They then put authors who responded pro or anti into those those categories. This still left a large group of papers which were then ignored, the next step would have been to read the papers in full but with over 10,000 papers I understand why they didn't do that. 98% is a reasonable number but should have error bars on it. Since not all research in the field needs to list a position WRT global warming I would be very suprised indeed if the actual number is lower than 90%. Some people have pointed out that if you limit the papers to those published in the last 20 years the number is higher than 98%.
Having reviewed your linked articles, the studies they refer to ALL suffer from selection bias. They rely on surveys of climate scientists who are studying climate change and who published a large number of articles. Yet we know that there have been numerous, at least partially successful, efforts to prevent those who disagreed with AGW from getting published. I am sorry, there is no reliable evidence that 90% of climatologists agree with AGW and it is unlikely to be possible to get such evidence.
If you can produce scientific papers which were rejected by peer review that shouldn't have been then I am all ears. The only thing I am aware that is remotely like this was in the hacked emails where a group of scientists talked about possibly trying to veeto a paper then not actually veetoing that paper.
It was published then very quickly critised for using faulty methodology.
More importantly, such efforts are a waste of time because science is not done by consensus. Science is done by developing a theory and making predictions. If those predictions come true, the theory has value and may be considered true until such a time as studies show it to make predictions that are not true. The proponents of AGW have REPEATEDLY made predictions which have failed to come true.
Science kind of is done by consensus, In that the predictions are made the observations made and the experts come to a consensus on what the data means. For us who are not expert in the particular field knowing that the people who live and breath the stuff all agree about particular details is a valuable hueristic. We can get a better picture by cross referencing what the experts are saying but past that point you really have to become an expert yourself.
Now as for failed predictions I am willing to wager a small amount of money that you don't know what the actual predictions made my mainstream climate scientists are. The media doesn't do a really good job of explaining these (either on the pro or anti side), partly because as you know this stuff is more complicated than one can fit into a 5 minute news segment or a soundbite.
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More importantly, such efforts are a waste of time because science is not done by consensus
No, it isn't. But neither is the statement that "the earth is warming because of human alteration of the carbon cycle" untrue simply because they suck at telling you what the polar climate is going to do. Certainly a man as bright as you can see that.
You're doing worse than throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You're telling me the sky isn't even blue, and that rayleigh scattering doesn't exist, because I misjudged the color of tonight's sunset.
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So all I have to do to get something declared as "science" is get enough people to agree with me?
No. All you need is for your theory to survive 150 years of attempts to disprove it. The consilience of diverse evidence for that theory should converge to a strong conclusion. At that point most people will agree with you and you will have a consensus.
CONSENSUS IS NOT AN ARGUMENT!!!
No. It is the consequence of 150 years of being proven right.
Re:Mass Bribery? [Re:So...] (Score:4, Informative)
I do not know what the percentage is, and neither do you, because no one has done a study that would give the answer (which is what it would take). I do know that the study which is used for the basis for saying that 97% of climatologists support AGW was utter garbage. Furthermore, how many scientists believe a theory is not the test of whether it is a good theory. The test is how accurately it predicts the results of experiments. So far, most of the predictions made based on AGW have proven wrong.
Ehhhh.
The model(s) are certainly piles of horse shit. But really- how could anyone expect otherwise? The systems being modeled are more complicated than our understanding of all of astrophysics.
Trying to model local effects when dealing with something that's planetary scale is a fucking daunting task. Maybe they're silly for even trying. Don't know. But the the warming of the earth is a fact. Period. The fact that it is anthropogenic is also a fact, based simply upon core principals. Whether they can measure how the hell it affects the weather of Seattle, WA or not, our alteration of the carbon cycle can only lead to this planet warming. I'm not on either side of the debate regarding what should be done about it, but saying the "theory" (seriously, what the fuck are you talking about) of AGW is bupkis because their models suck is a bunch of bologna.
There is one core prediction of "Teh Theory of AGW" (whatever the fuck that is), and that is: if you continue to add carbon to the gaseous stage of the Earth's extant carbon cycle, the motherfucker will get warmer. Because thermodynamics. Because QED. Because fucking reality.
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So, in another words, the theory of AGW does not provide a basis for making useful predictions about the future, but we should implement economically crippling regulations in order to prevent unknown bad things from happening any way, even though we have no idea if those bad things will really happen.
I didn't say that. Some people are certainly saying that. Maybe they're right. Maybe they're not. I don't know. Not my department.
I can say with certainty that the final outcome (as far as civilization is concerned), if not stopped, can only be bad. I can't begin to speculate on the time scale required for it, though.
But denying the science itself because you disagree with the actions championed in its name is lunacy. And frankly, stupid and dangerous.
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>I do know that the study which is used for the basis for saying that 97% of climatologists support AGW was utter garbage
There wasn't "a" study that showed that. You've been lied to. There have been DOZENS - perhaps hundreds by now - and they all used different methodologies, nearly all the ones after the first one were started with the purpose of testing whether the first one wasn't perhaps wrong. They all found the same thing with very little deviation.
But, of course, somebody somewhere dug out one whe
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No it comes down to this:
The opponents of AGW has repeatedly lied about what scientists predicted so they could falsely claim the predictions didn't come true (they all have- with greater accuracy than the scientists themselves ever expected) - and you're stupid enough to still believe them.
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>Furthermore, how many scientists believe a theory is not the test of whether it is a good theory. The test is how accurately it predicts the results of experiments. So far, most of the predictions made based on AGW have proven wrong.
Actually - you've been lied to - again. The models have been extraordinarily accurate in predicting current events, far moreso actually than their creators would have predicted (scientists tend to be a careful and conservative bunch who always hedge their bets since even the
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And it was not another scientist promoting AGW who said that the Arctic would be ice free by 2013?
Perhaps they have improved the models, but the last time I checked the models failed to predict the behavior of the climate which had already happened.
My final point is this: None of these scientists live as if they believe the theory to be correct.
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*yawn*
Yeah - those things. Lies. Lies you were dumb enough to believe. Including subtly pretending "could" or "might" are synonyms for "will".
Here's what happens in the REAL world:
In the 1980's scientists studying the glaciers were warning that melting would acelerate. They got some ranges of when from their studies - and published the least alarming, most conservative estimates - that we'd see something noticeable around 2050.
In 2007 National Geographic held interviews with a bunch of them - and they all r
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Because it is a political stunt to get the Republicans to overturn it when Trump gets in
There is no political mechanism to reverse the decision. Congress could vote to reverse it, but that would be subjected to court challenges questioning the validity of the reversal. But even a congressional vote would be difficult, since it would need 60 votes in the Senate. Not even all Republican senators could be counted on. Why should a senator from Texas, Oklahoma, or North Dakota vote for more oil drilling in the arctic, to compete with oil from their own states? It is possible that there won't be much opposition from oil companies either, since big offshore projects don't compete well against shale oil. Shell recently cancelled a big offshore project in Alaska.
Deepwater Horizon showed that there is no guarantee of no spills, and an accident of that size would have devastating environmental effects in the Arctic Sea.
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Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Because this isn't just an executive action: It's a power that was specifically granted to the president by act of congress. It'll take an act of congress to reverse, and that is going to be politically troublesome. It could be done, but it won't be fast.
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
how can the President pass an executive action that could not be reversed by another executive action ?
TFA explains that Obama is using the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. Presidents from both parties have used the Act in the past.
Trump can't just take office and reverse it. In fact, it's not clear just how he could, because there is no legal precedent. The Act contains no prevision for reversals, so presumably Trump would have to go to court. And that could take years to play out.
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I'm presuming the route in that case would be a legislative reversal. That will, of course, invite filibusters from the Democrats, which probably means it won't happen any time soon. I guess that's the point, in a way, to make it a big pain in the ass, so until the price of oil is over $150 a barrel (2016 prices), it's probably not worth anyone's while. Seeing as no even thinks the current marginal bump in oil prices has legs, I can sort of see the logic in what Obama's done.
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There is no political mechanism to reverse the decision. Congress could vote to reverse it, but that would be subjected to court challenges questioning the validity of the reversal. But even a congressional vote would be difficult, since it would need 60 votes in the Senate. Not even all Republican senators could be counted on. Why should a senator from Texas, Oklahoma, or North Dakota vote for more oil drilling in the arctic, to compete with oil from their own states? It is possible that there won't be much opposition from oil companies either, since big offshore projects don't compete well against shale oil. Shell recently cancelled a big offshore project in Alaska. Deepwater Horizon showed that there is no guarantee of no spills, and an accident of that size would have devastating environmental effects in the Arctic Sea.
how can the President pass an executive action that could not be reversed by another executive action ?
TFA explains that Obama is using the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. Presidents from both parties have used the Act in the past.
Trump can't just take office and reverse it. In fact, it's not clear just how he could, because there is no legal precedent. The Act contains no prevision for reversals, so presumably Trump would have to go to court. And that could take years to play out.
If that analysis holds then it sounds then like Obama cleverly exploited the partisan divide, not only between Dems. and Reps. but also a partisan divide within the Reps. own ranks. It's nice to see the Reps. get get royally screwed over for a change.
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Because it is a political stunt to get the Republicans to overturn it when Trump gets in
There is no political mechanism to reverse the decision. Congress could vote to reverse it, but that would be subjected to court challenges questioning the validity of the reversal. .
Congress gets the honor of doing this, given The Peoples' preference for a high valuation of environmental values is expressed through legislation passed by Congress.
A congress could, tomorrow, erase all environmental regulations and laws, for whatever reason, and the courts could not un-erase them.
They wouldn't, but they could.
Congress could blow away Social Security if they wanted to, leaving retirees high and dry (even an implied contract is invalid as it is legally a welfare program, a transfer from cur
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
1)Revoke the law thus eliminating all such previous actions(and possibly opening up the government to lawsuits)
2)Rule that the law gives the President the implied authority to reverse such a decision.
If the courts decide that Congress did not have the constitutional authority to give the President they will probably choose option 2 (which is similar to a recent ruling concerning the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau).
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There is no political mechanism to reverse the decision.
Not true. Similar actions have been reversed before [ajc.com].
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Because it is a political stunt to get the Republicans to overturn it when Trump gets in so the Libtards can further perpetuate the climate hoax and point their widdle fingers at the bad, meany, conservatives...
Meh. I'm totally okay with leaving those oil fields alone for now. I consider it a strategic reserve of sorts. The price of oil is fairly low right now, so it's not like there's a current energy crisis we're facing. Let's keep reducing our oil dependence for the time being, though.
I'm certainly not some nut who protests big oil in plastic canoes and kayaks (made from oil), but I also don't see a real urgency to drill in those areas right now. I'm also not of the opinion that we can just shut off our oi
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The way I figure it, even if AGW were a total fabrication (not that I believe that), it's still in our best strategic interest to become energy independent, and the only way to do that long term is with sustainable energy. That seems like an argument anyone can get behind, so long as we don't kill our economy in the process.
Wow, look at that, an actual reasonable stance I can agree with. On Slashdot even.
Oh, wait... Do you include nuclear power in the set of energy options defined as "sustainable energy"? If so then I'll still consider you reasonable. If not then we have a problem.
Nuclear power is known to be "carbon neutral" as much as wind or solar are. It's the safest energy source we know of. It's plentiful. If the government would actually issue licenses then the price would go from infinite to being competitive wi
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I completely agree. Opposition to nuclear means we'll probably just stick with the status quo, which is currently coal or natural gas, for the bulk of our base load power. I think it's a good idea to move forward with all technologies, though.
Many people are just not rational about nuclear power, unfortunately.
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fucking science class
That would be Psych 210 at the University of Washington.
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Just beware he may start humping your furniture and/or daughters.
Then I'll smack him on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
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They don't need stunts to make trump look like an evil fascist tyrant in the mold of Musolini - he is perfectly capable of doing that himself. It's not like it's hard, all he has to do is be himself.
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To most of here that follows the state of the nuclear arsenal this is old news. Trump is just tweeting back what has been going on under Obama. When he takes office in 2017 he will be inheriting a program to modernize what we already have.
What I find interesting is people, like you are, reading this tweet and coming to the conclusion that Trump wants to nuke us all. They stop at "expand its nuclear capability." Nobody mentions the rest of the tweet. "until such time as the world comes to its s
Darn it! (Score:2)
I was planning on putting in a fleet of oil wells there next week! /sarcasm
Re: Darn it! (Score:2)
Costs $150 per bbl to drill in Arctic (Score:4, Insightful)
FYI, it costs $150 to drill, process, and ship a barrel of oil from the Arctic. If you want to cover costs. Labor isn't cheap either.
So, putting it off for at least five years makes sense. Increases short term price for all oil, which helps Norway, Scotland, Canada, and the US (and that rogue state Russia), and when the time elapses the demand may be at prices where it makes sense, if we need it for lubricants or some other need.
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FYI, it costs $150 to drill, process, and ship a barrel of oil from the Arctic. If you want to cover costs.
Unless, of course, it costs less. Things like this obstruction don't happen because the powers-that-be think oil production will stay that costly.
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The prices actually drop over the long term, though there can be spikes that last years or evn a decade or more before coming down.
As long as people are free to innovate, without government control or rationing [juliansimon.com], they will keep ahead of the curve in the long run.
This means higher hanging fruit will become lower than lower hanging fruit used to be, in terms of resource cost on the market. The idea of a fixed amount we will suddenly run out of, causing skyrocketting prices, or even economic collapse, is not b
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You understand that the oil industry and the energy lobby are trying to do the opposite of keeping the price of energy low?
With the CEO of Exxon as a Secretary of State and Russia being an exporter of oil and gas, do you really think it's a priority of the incoming administration to keep oil below $50/barrel?
Re:Costs $150 per bbl to drill in Arctic (Score:5, Insightful)
The key to keeping the price of energy low is to always be ready to increase production. Putting it off for five years would put us five years behind the curve. Look for Obama's order to be replaced by late 2017.
The key to keeping the perceived price of energy low is to externalise a large part of the cost - e.g. the health costs of particulate emissions from burning coal and petrol, the cost of nuclear wast processing and insurance against nuclear accidents, the cost of military intervention to keep oil-rich regions under control, and yes, the cost of climate change. We should really find a way to internalise these costs, so that the consumer price of energy reflects the real cost to society, and we avoid a tragedy of the commons [wikipedia.org].
Well-operating markets are great tools for optimisation. But in order for them to serve the community, we must set them up to work appropriately. Otherwise the market will gladly optimise the destruction of "free" shared resources.
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that number is the internal PL cost for retail delivery from the regulatory agency that supervises such extraction, adjusting for total cost of labor, pension, fees, lease, operation, etc.
If you want a standard return.
I'm sorry your failed ideology didn't go to business school
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Even without environmental concerns (Score:3, Insightful)
can we maybe slow down our use for business reasons? I'd rather have moderate-speed sustainable growth, at slightly higher fuel prices that help drive commercial advances in solar and wind, than find out in fifty years that we've drilled out all the easy-to-get wells and don't have nearly enough commercial investment in other fuel sources to keep up our demand for energy.
Besides, petroleum has some pretty nifty properties besides energy production that I'd really love to keep having easy access to. Like, cheap plastics. Burning it for energy is kinda like using our limited helium reserves for toy balloons.
I don't think there's going to be any kind of peak oil civilization-ending disaster...just that prices will go up. But if they go up a little right now, they won't have to go up by a lot later.
Oh yeah...and from a foreign policy standpoint. We have a ton of oil here in the USA. Energy independence is nice, but it's not critical right now. Wait until Russia closes its borders, the Middle East falls apart and turns off their spigots, and Europe is begging for fuel at any price...can we maybe use our massive national reserves then instead of now? (needing to have the infrastructure in place ahead of time does complicate things I'll admit)
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petroleum has some pretty nifty properties besides energy production that I'd really love to keep having easy access to. Like, cheap plastics.
Unfortunately, petroleum based plastics do not degrade fast enough, they just break into smaller pieces and eventually end up in the ecosystem. The pacific plastic soup is proof of this. A much better plan is to switch over completely to bioplastics which actually do degrade.
Burning it for energy is kinda like using our limited helium reserves for toy balloons.
It should be noted that less than 0.001% of helium used is actually used for recreation and it can be re-harvested from the atmosphere if we really wanted to get it back.
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and it can be re-harvested from the atmosphere if we really wanted to get it back.
Wait- can it? My understanding is that atmospheric helium is simply a flux between radioactive decay in the Earth, and Space. And a fast-moving one at that. I think toy balloon helium is probably 100% unrecoverable. As in "forever lost to humanity."
Fortunately... The Earth is constantly making more of the stuff.
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Petroleum and wind/solar solve two different problems and have nothing to do with one another. Wind and solar will replace nature gas and coal, not petroleum.
What you really want is advances in batteries so that electric cars can take off. Mind you the only thing really keeping them back is mindset. They are perfectly fine for everyday driving for the majority of people. When people want to go on vacation or a longer trip which doesn't happen that often then for the shorter term they should be able to r
Re:Even without environmental concerns (Score:4, Interesting)
What you really want is advances in batteries so that electric cars can take off. Mind you the only thing really keeping them back is mindset.
I disagree. Around here what is keeping them back is this thing we call "winter". Cold weather is bad for battery car range, if it isn't the capacity loss to the batteries getting cold then it's the range lost to the energy needed to heat the cabin. When the snow gets deep one needs four wheel drive to get around. I've mentioned this to people before and some smartypants will say, "What's the point of four wheel drive? It doesn't make you stop on the ice any better." Well, you see there is this issue of getting moving. Anti-lock brakes, traction control, and all those electronic gizmos are really nice when it snows but if you don't have power to all the wheels then you are not going to enjoy the winter. I can call into work about being snowed in only so many times before it looks bad on my yearly review. If everyone else is at their desk because they have a four wheel drive car or truck then I'm at a disadvantage with my Chevy Bolt.
Winter storms also have a habit of causing power outages. Things have been getting better but they are still common and can last hours, or even days. An electric car leaves one with a problem there too. Oh, and solar panels on the roof to charge the car? Oh, please.
It's going to take more than just better batteries to solve this problem. I know people that have bought old oil drums to keep a reserve of gasoline for when storms strike. If you can make a battery that can compete with gasoline like that then you'll be a megaquadzillionaire. Put those batteries in four wheel drive F-150 to sell and you'll make more money than... I don't know, I think you'll have ALL the money.
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And all those people who complain about windfarms never ask themselves "Would I rather have black lung ?"
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Not the ones I know. They are more into their grandchildren than lake front property.
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I have a different understanding of the problems of expensive heat in New England. I know this because we run into the same problem in many other parts of the USA. The problem is running the pipes. If there isn't enough topsoil to bury pipes then you'll have to dig through bedrock to bury the pipes, and that costs too much to bother. My brother lived in Indiana and they had a heat pump for his house while the people on the other side of the river had natural gas. They couldn't bury the lines in his nei
You want the next door. This is News for Nerds (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot: News For Angry Partisan Echo Chamber Recitation Practice
Meanwhile, in the Chinese Arctic Seas . . . (Score:5, Funny)
. . . China is building yet even more artificial military base islands in the Arctic waters, to add more weight to their claim that the Arctic is part of China's territorial waters. This claim is not recognized by any other nations . . . yet.
The Chinese navy also announced that they have captured a US Navy drone in their waters. It is very large and coated with a blubbery black skin, that is probably "stealth" technology. The drone appears to be armed with a water jet weapon, that sporadically spews from the top of the drone. It is powered by bottom dwelling sea crustacean critters that it scoops up with a toothed dredging device at the front of the drone. Chinese scientists plan to disassemble the drone to discover how the crustacean critters are converted into energy.
Chinese navy crew members have claimed to have seen a "white" version of the drone, but the Chinese Admiralty brushes this off as sailors who have been out to sea too long, with too much rice wine, and too little women folk around.
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Those aren't reclaimed islands, those are dirt aircraft carriers.
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Yes, and the largest will be called "Airstrip One". At the same time they'll declare war with Oceania, or rather that they've always been at war with Oceania.
(I really need to sit down and read 1984.)
What Congress gives... (Score:3)
... Congress can take away.
Obama has the authority to declare land off limits "permanently" only because Congress granted that authority. This authority can be revoked by a future Congress. Both houses of Congress will be controlled by the Republicans so I expect this "permanent" executive order to go away right quick.
What bothers me about the Democrats fanatical desire to free us from oil and coal seems to come with more words than actions. Obama only now made this declaration, only days before he is to leave office. If CAGW is a real problem then I'd think this should have been done much sooner.
We see the same with nuclear power. Obama during his debates with McCain talked about how we need to see more research and development in nuclear power to lower CO2 output. It took the Obama administration only 7 years to figure out how to issue a combined construction and operation license even though there were dozens of applicants. Don't tell me all of those applicants didn't know how to build a safe nuclear power plant. The federal government knows how to build safe nuclear power plants, they've been doing that for decades for the Navy. If the problem was a bad design, and the federal government thought nuclear power was a good idea, then the federal government had the ability to give the nuclear power industry all they needed to know on how to comply with the safety regulations in place.
What a bunch of hypocrites, they talk big about reducing CO2 output but they hold up nuclear power reactors, don't ban off shore drilling until now, what was stopping them for so long? Makes me think that CAGW is in fact a hoax. If the Democrats believed that nuclear power is a good idea, and drilling for oil is a bad idea, then they'd have made these fixes when they held the Senate, House, and Presidency.
Only when they see that the Republicans could possibly replace them all in the federal government do they do a dash to issue nuclear power licenses, and bar drilling for oil. Makes me think that they wanted to hold on to as many "fixes" for CAGW as long as they could, holding them up as "prizes" for the voting public to hand out for voting them into office, and then blame any thing holding up their fix on CAGW on the "evil" Republicans. Well, there were no Republicans to stop anything when the 112th Congress was in session. We should have seen those nuclear power plants and drilling bans then.
The Democrats have only themselves to blame for losing so badly in November.
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I don't know if anyone can be blamed. That election was not normal. Conventional politics did not apply. If the Democrats made a mistake, it was in failing to realize this.
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The Democrats have only themselves to blame for losing so badly in November.
Did we watch the same election?
They picked up seats in the House and the Senate, and if not for the citizen vote multiplier between populous states and dank shithole states, they would have won the Presidency as well... Unless by "losing so badly" you mean "didn't completely fucking destroy the Republicans," which I can almost agree is a pretty bad loss given what they were against.
It's good for what, 30 days or so? (Score:2)
Most of these new regulations and acts will have little or no meaning. True it's symbolic but under The Congressional Review Act: [wikipedia.org]
Congress is given 60 legislative days to disapprove, after which the rule will go into effect.
For the regulation to be invalidated, the Congressional resolution of disapproval either must be signed by the President, or must be passed over the President's veto by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress.
While a 2/3rds majority of both houses won't happen, a mere majority resolution of disapproval that the new POTUS signs would nullify this. I believe this mainly on the grounds to revitalize domestic production after Saudi Arabia went on it's production glut.
I'm all for nature and renewable energy but our current POTUS has had a royal feast [washingtonpost.com] of land grabbing, this included. Not i
Obama Block Drilling on the Moon (Score:3)
How is this any less reasonable than Obama's actual actions?
Solution (Score:2)
I think if we just put an end to anyone who is a climate change denier, we'd reverse climate change really quick, so much hot air coming out of that group of people.
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Why would they need to? The Republicans run the show now.
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It will probably take quite a bit longer than that. Given current oil prices, I don't think there's much demand for these leases anyway and the GOP has other more pressing priorities.
Re:This permanent ban... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's because people are short sighted. When oil prices were skyrocketing, people wanted to open ANWR, but the democratic response was that it wouldn't help because it'd take 10 years before it started producing, given not just the drilling but building a pipeline for it. My thoughts were exactly this: we were debating this freaking 10 years ago. If they'd moved then, it would have been done by now and we wouldn't be having this "crisis."
Don't get me wrong - I would like to spend resources on alternatives, too, but the demand for oil is not going to go away for some time.
Re: This permanent ban... (Score:4, Insightful)
There's zero need for additional drilling in Arctic.
Can you say with any certainty this will remain true in the next five to ten years it would take before any drilling started now would start producing? I don't believe you can.
We will be burning oil in significant quantities for at least the next 30 years. How can I say this? Because the average lifespan of a container ship, passenger jet, train, and so many other consumers of fossil fuels last about 30 years. People keep their cars for an average of about ten years, which means many of the cars sold today will quite likely still be driven 20 years from now.
The only thing that can shift us off of fossil fuels is some huge technological development that makes fossil fuels obsolete.
Electric cars won't do it, the rules of physics are against it. Wind and solar? Not a chance. Bio-fuels? Sure, if you want to see a real environmental disaster. Hydrogen? Methanol? Ammonia? Those aren't energy sources, only storage and transport technologies. Nuclear power? Now, that might work.
We can't pour nuclear power into a fuel tank to fly a plane or drive a car but we can use nuclear power to make synthetic hydrocarbons, hydrogen, methanol, ammonia, or whatever makes a good replacement for crude oil derived fuels. It's not like there's a shortage of nuclear fuel. If we can make it safe enough for Navy submarines then we can make it safe enough for putting just about any where else. Even if "anywhere else" means building nuclear reactors in submersible containers so they are insulated from earthquakes, surrounded by coolant, protected from terrorism, shielded from emitting any radiation, and out of sight.
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Protecting nature is stupid?
Gotcha. You sound like a nice person to know.
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Well that escalated quickly. Which lives are we threatening here by not starting a dangerous construction and drilling job in an inhospitable climate?
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So you don't think fucking up nature ultimately harms humans?
Re:Annnnd on day 1 (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you know, every time you exhale, you increase the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is adding to global climate change and the decimation of the planet?
Nonsense. Unless you're consuming food obtained from far under the ground, where it was out of the carbon cycle, your net contribution to the CO2 in the atmosphere is zero. The food you eat contains carbon that was removed from the atmosphere. Now, your methane production is a somewhat different situation. It's also constructed of carbon and hydrogen that's part of the cycle, but you've converted it to a form that's a much more effective greenhouse gas than before you, er, processed it.
So, kindly recast your argument in terms of the rational value of allowing people to fart.
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Come on, you're a PhD, yes?
As I try to restrain my sarcasm, can you clearly state how a human exhaling upsets the carbon cycle?
Extra credit- what if he's a strict vegetarian?
As someone lecturing on climate science, I'm just certain you know all about carbon cycles.
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But that natural cycle is dependent on there being enough plants to convert CO2, correct?
Into more plant matter- yes.
So the natural cycle would tend to stay in balance unless there was a critical mass of people or a critical shortage of plants.
Yes.
So even without releasing CO2 outside of this natural cycle, there is a threat of imbalance, right?
Not really. Plants will basically grow to take up as much earth and atmospheric carbon as they can. We are all that really slows that process down, and it's not our eating, since we re-plant most of that biomass.
Theoretically, there could be enough plants to convert "unnaturally" released CO2
Absolutely. But they'd need to cover just about every square inch of the planet.
In the end, our breathing is a function of our metabolism. Unless we are eating ourselves into starvation, our metabolism is remaining carbon neutral. For every cow we eat, we grow anoth
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Breathing does in fact make a contribution towards the greenhouse effect.
Technically, yes. The exact same way that taking a shit contributes to weight loss.
Re:Annnnd on day 1 (Score:5, Insightful)
You demonstrate the reason why Obama did this.
Protecting nature is stupid?
There is "protecting nature" and "protecting nature." Did you know, every time you exhale, you increase the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is adding to global climate change and the decimation of the planet?
No. Because the carbon we exhale originally comes from plants and is already in the carbon cycle. If your breathing exhaled twice as much carbon it wouldn't add to carbon in the atmosphere because you'd need to compensate by taking in twice as much carbon from plants.
The former is what Obama has just done, with an expectation that anyone who dares suggest it is stupid to do it that way will have people claiming that there is no other way to "protect nature". Thus the obvious goal of anyone who rejects the extremist method of "do nothing at all that might ever have accidental negative consequences that can be fixed" being attacked for wanting to "destroy nature". This makes the issue a political football instead of a reasoned response to scientific and technological concerns.
The scientific and technological concern is that it's extremely difficult to clean up oil spills and they are extremely harmful to the environment, particularly in the Arctic.
In this scenario the economic benefits don't outweigh the environmental costs (from both increased carbon and oil spills). The reason oil companies still want to drill is they're not liable for the full cost of the environmental damage in the event of an accident. We are.
This is the game that was played with waterboarding, as an example. Those who didn't approve of torture but didn't think waterboarding was torture were accused of approving of torture because "obviously" waterboarding IS torture and thus approving of waterboarding was approving of torture in general. It makes for wonderful rants and great political grandstanding, but sheds very little light on the issue.
Waterboarding is inflicting pain and extreme discomfort for the purpose of breaking the prisoner's will and extracting information. Of course it's torture. The US has executed war criminals for waterboarding on the grounds that it is torture.
Are there more brutal and bloody forms of torture? Sure.
But waterboarding is torture.
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>Did you know, every time you exhale, you increase the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is adding to global climate change and the decimation of the planet? Under the concept of "protecting nature" we must stop you from exhaling.
No I don't. And neither do you, or anybody else. Carbon has to come from somewhere. The Carbon in the CO2 you breath out comes from the food you ate, food which (Even if it was a steak) ultimately came from plants, which got it from taking the EXACT SAME amount of CO2 out
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Trump will undo the stupidity.
Not so fast.
The act gives the President "the authority to withdraw lands from oil and gas leases.".
It doesn't give the President the authority to make withdrawn lands available again.
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You may have missed it in all the noise, but Democrats picked up seats in the House and Senate.