Climate: LNG in B.C. vs Alberta tarsands

[agentaqua]

http://www.treehugger.com/corporate...fund-because-arkansas-oil-spill-isnt-oil.html

Exxon won't pay into cleanup fund because oil spilled in Arkansas isn't "oil"

Chris Tackett (@ChrisTackett)
Business / Corporate Responsibility
April 3, 2013
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© KARK

Despite spilling tens, if not hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil and chemicals into an Arkansas neighborhood, thanks to a loophole in a law from 1980, ExxonMobil will not be paying into a federal oil spill cleanup fund because the oil they spilled is not the right type of oil. It is a twisted example of the legal technicalities and lax regulations that all too often favor oil companies, but a coalition of environmental groups are working to close the loophole.

According to Congress and the IRS, diluted bitumen or dilbit, which is the type of oil that has spilled in Arkansas, is not classified as oil and companies shipping it are not required to pay an 8-cents-per-barrel excise tax into the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, as companies shipping conventional oil do.

Think Progress reported on this loophole and importance of this fund:

Other conventional crude producers pay 8 cents a barrel to ensure the fund has resources to help clean up some of the 54,000 barrels of pipeline oil that spilled 364 times last year.

As Oil Change International said in a statement today:

“The great irony of this tragic spill in Arkansas is that the transport of tar sands oil through pipelines in the US is exempt from payments into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. Exxon, like all companies shipping toxic tar sands, doesn’t have to pay into the fund that will cover most of the clean up costs for the pipeline’s inevitable spills.”

In July of last year, Lisa Song at Inside Climate News noted that both Congress and the IRS acknowledge this distinction:

Dilbit is exempt from the tax, because the 1980 legislation that created the tax states that "the term crude oil does not include synthetic petroleum, e.g., shale oil, liquids from coal, tar sands, or biomass..."

The Internal Revenue Service cited that 1980 text in a 2011 memo that confirmed the exemption for at least one company.

While these substances are different, the ways the government does and does not recognize these differences seems be the exact opposite of how it should be.

According to the oil industry, tar sands oil is oil when the oil industry needs oil spill cleanup funds, but it isn't oil when it comes to paying for that cleanup fund. The industry also opposes changes to how tar sands oil pipelines are regulated. So again, they consider tar sands oil just like conventional oil when it comes to their pipelines, but not when it comes to cleaning the spills those pipelines create.

It's unbelievable.

Whether it is tar sands oil, dilbit or conventional crude, oil spills are a mess to clean up and the oil industry should pay a cleanup fee for a barrel of one type of oil as it does for another. But when it comes to the safety regulations for how these oils are transported via pipeline, they should be regulated differently, considering that tar sands oil is more corrosive and harder to cleanup.

In a series of updates to my initial post on the Arkansas spill, I highlighted the differences in dilbit from conventional oil and what it meant for the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline and communities at risk from future spills.

First, for background, InsideClimate News produced a good primer on the differences between dilbit and conventional oil:

Bitumen is a kind of crude oil found in natural oil sands deposits—it's the heaviest crude oil used today. The oil sands, also known as tar sands, contain a mixture of sand, water and oily bitumen.
...
Conventional crude oil is a liquid that can be pumped from underground deposits. It is then shipped by pipeline to refineries where it's processed into gasoline, diesel and other fuels.
Bitumen is too thick to be pumped from the ground or through pipelines. Instead, the heavy tar-like substance must be mined or extracted by injecting steam into the ground. The extracted bitumen has the consistency of peanut butter and requires extra processing before it can be delivered to a refinery.

To make the thick bitumen flow through a pipeline, chemicals and water are added to dilute it. Benzene, a known carcinogen, is often part of the diluents mixture.

Because this oil is so different from conventional crude, a coalition led by the National Wildlife Federation is demanding a moratorium on building new tar sands pipelines—including the Keystone XL—until regulators update the rules regarding this type of oil.

Lisa Song at InsideClimate News reports:

Filed on behalf of 29 environmental and community groups and 36 individuals, the petition includes a list of nine policy recommendations for the safe transport of dilbit, a type of crude oil produced from Canada's oil sands region.

"Simply put, diluted bitumen and conventional crude oil are not the same substance," the petitioners wrote. "There is increasing evidence that the transport of diluted bitumen is putting America's public safety at risk. Current regulations fail to protect the public against those risks. Instead, regulations ... treat diluted bitumen and conventional crude the same."

Dilbit isn't just potentially more corrosive and dangerous inside the pipeline, we should also be concerned with how dilbit behaves when it is spilled into water.

The problem, as I lay out in Update X here, is that dilbit sinks, making boom ineffective in containing and cleaning up spills.

So while the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund will be tapped to clean up spills of tar sands oil, like the Arkansas spill, because of this loophole, ExxonMobil and other oil companies dealing in tar sands dilbit are not helping replenish these funds.

If the oil industry wants to pipe these dangerous tar sands oils over our water sheds and aquifers, putting our drinking supply and neighborhoods at risk, they should not only be required to pay into the cleanup fund, they should be paying far more than the 8 cents per barrel they pay for conventional oil since these tar sands oils are not just worse for the environment, but potentially pose a greater risk of spills and are even harder to clean up.

UPDATE: I'm seeing more and more press reports covering Exxon's statement that they will "pay all costs for the Arkansas oil spill cleanup." Exxon is parsing words and sidestepping the issue I and other journalists have raised about the technicality over how tar sands oil is classified.

Exxon may indeed end up paying for all of the oil spill cleanup in Mayflower, but they are not paying the 8-cents-per-barrel fee for the tar sands oil, as they would if they were transporting conventional oil. While I think there is legitimate cause for concern as to whether Exxon really will pay for the damage they have caused (Ben Jervey has a good post on this point), the broader concern is that this 1980 law is currently allowing oil companies shipping tar sands oil to get away without contributing to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. With so much of this oil crossing the United States via pipeline and rail, there is considerable risk of spills and it is not right that they are able to avoid these oil spill liability trust fund fees.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/oil-price-slide-doesn-t-change-need-for-pipelines-capp-1.2921530
Oil price slide doesn't change need for pipelines: CAPP
Even though oil prices are down and producers are cutting spending, Canada needs to get its oil to market by any means possible, says the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150120142807.htm
Warming climate likely will change the composition of northern forests, study shows
Date: January 20, 2015
Source: University of Minnesota
Summary: Visitors to northern forests in coming decades probably will see a very different set of trees as the climate warms, a new study shows. The study used a unique long-term outdoor experiment to examine the effects of climate change on trees in the boreal forest along the U.S.-Canadian border.

Journal Reference: Peter B. Reich, Kerrie M. Sendall, Karen Rice, Roy L. Rich, Artur Stefanski, Sarah E. Hobbie, Rebecca A. Montgomery. Geographic range predicts photosynthetic and growth response to warming in co-occurring tree species. Nature Climate Change, 2015; DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2497 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2497

 

[agentaqua]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150120151221.htm

Greenland Ice: The warmer it gets the faster it melts
Date: January 20, 2015
Source: Penn State
Summary: Melting of glacial ice will probably raise sea level around the globe, but how fast this melting will happen is uncertain. In the case of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the more temperatures increase, the faster the ice will melt, according to computer model experiments by geoscientists.

Meting of glacial ice will probably raise sea level around the globe, but how fast this melting will happen is uncertain. In the case of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the more temperatures increase, the faster the ice will melt, according to computer model experiments by Penn State geoscientists.

"Although lots of people have thought about sea level rise from the ice sheets, we don't really know how fast that will happen," said Patrick Applegate, research associate, Penn State's Earth and Environmental Systems Institute.

If all the ice in the Greenland Ice Sheet melts, global sea level would rise by about 24 feet. In the last 100 years, sea level in the New York City area has only increased by about one foot. However, storm surges from hurricanes stack on top of this long-term increase, so sea level rise will allow future hurricanes to flood places where people are not ready for or used to flooding. A vivid example occurred during Hurricane Sandy when parts of the New York City subway tunnel system flooded.

Greenland might be especially vulnerable to melting because that area of Earth sees about 50 percent more warming than the global average. Arctic sea ice, when it exists, reflects the sun's energy back through the atmosphere, but when the sea ice melts and there is open water, the water absorbs the sun's energy and reradiates it back into the air as heat. Arctic sea ice coverage has decreased over the last few decades, and that decrease will probably continue in the future, leading to accelerated temperature rise over Greenland. Floating ice does not add to sea level, but the Greenland Ice Sheet rests on bedrock that is above sea level.

Feedbacks in the climate system cause accelerated temperature rise over the Arctic. Other feedbacks in the Greenland Ice Sheet that contribute to melting include height-melting feedback. A warm year in Greenland causes more melt around the edges of the ice sheet, lowering the surface. The atmosphere is warmer at lower altitudes, so the now lower surface experiences even more melting. This process can lead to accelerated ice melt and sea level rise.

Another form of feedback occurs because ice sheets are large masses that want to spread. This spreading can either help preserve the ice sheet by allowing it to adjust to increased temperature or accelerate ice melting by moving ice to lower, warmer, places.

"Many studies of sea level rise don't take into account feedbacks that could cause rapid sea level rise," said Applegate. "We wanted to look at the effects of those feedbacks."

The researchers looked at two models of the Greenland ice sheet that include some of the important feedbacks. The first model is a three-dimensional ice sheet model. The second model looks at a transect across the island and was developed by Byron Parizek, associate professor of geosciences and mathematics, Penn State Dubois. To run both models, Robert Nicholas, research associate, EESI, estimated how much warming might take place over Greenland using results from global climate models.

Both the three-dimensional and transect models showed that the time necessary for ice mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet decreases steeply with increases in temperature. Shorter time scales -- faster melting -- imply faster sea level rise. The interplay between the height-melting feedback and ice flow causes this acceleration.

"Our analysis suggests that the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in terms of avoided sea level rise from the Greenland Ice Sheet, may be greatest if emissions reductions begin before large temperature increases have been realized," the researchers state in a recent issue of Climate Dynamics.

Currently, about a billion people -- 1 percent of the world population -- live in areas that would be flooded by a three-foot sea level rise.

"If we are going to do something to mitigate sea-level rise, we need to do it earlier rather than later," said Applegate. "The longer we wait, the more rapidly the changes will take place and the more difficult it will be to change."

Story Source: The above story is based on materials provided by Penn State. The original article was written by A'ndrea Elyse Messer. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference: Patrick J. Applegate, Byron R. Parizek, Robert E. Nicholas, Richard B. Alley, Klaus Keller. Increasing temperature forcing reduces the Greenland Ice Sheet’s response time scale. Climate Dynamics, 2014; DOI: 10.1007/s00382-014-2451-7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2451-7

 

[Califbill]

The oil company is still liable for cleanup. Just not putting it on a government fund. Which probaly means if it was a government fund, the taxpayers would be responsible for any overuns of cost. The Keystone Pipeline has to be safer than what is now done. 8-10 mile long trains of tank cars. How many leaks on the Alaska Pipeline cam pared to train crashes?

 

[GLG]

New report from American Petroleum Institute.
I was expecting climate change denial but there was none.
It's a good read but I do disagree with them on certain points.
Yes they still push for O&G and old king Coal but I think it's starting to sink in that this problem is not going away no matter how much money they pump into the climate denial AstroTurf groups setup and funded by the Koch Brothers.
http://www.api.org/~/media/files/policy/soae-2015/api-2015-soae-report.pdf

 

[agentaqua]

The oil company is still liable for cleanup. Just not putting it on a government fund. Which probaly means if it was a government fund, the taxpayers would be responsible for any overuns of cost. The Keystone Pipeline has to be safer than what is now done. 8-10 mile long trains of tank cars. How many leaks on the Alaska Pipeline cam pared to train crashes?

Liability - thanks for bringing-up these details and discussion Califbill. Is a pipeline "safer" than a train car? Hard to say. Good question, though. Each have their own risks, that are dependent upon a number of so-called "local" factors - as far as I understand it.

On the side of the train car - each car is an independent vessel. In the case of a derailment - the size of any spills depends upon how many tanker cars ruptured. The consequence of the spill depends upon where it happens. The closer to water - the worse it is.

On the side of the pipeline - specifically dealing with dilbit - as the story above describes - there are a number of issues that further complicate the issue over conventional oil transport - as I understand it. The "dil" part of dilbit stands for "diluted" - bitumen diluted with ~20% volatile hydrocarbons. Volatile means it evaporates when exposed to air. So when it is spilled - the volatile component evaporates. If it is on water - it evaporates until it reaches equal density to the water - then it sinks as silt particles attach themselves to the tar component. You can't recover it using convential oil booms because of this. Then it forms tar balls on the bottom of rivers and rolls around into spawning habitat. The PAH component leaches for a very long time. The PAH component is highly carcinogenic and causes deformities in larvae and fry, and lowers the immune systems of chronically-exposed fish that don't immediately die.

Another issue with dilbit pipelines - is the amount of product that is able to discharge before the shut-offs happen and the pipeline drains. As I understand it - bitumen is chunky. Lots of normal pressure peaks (ups and downs) when transporting through a pipeline. Shut-offs for dilbit transport happen only after an extended period of low pressure. By that time this happens - the volume of product in the pipe between shut-off valves is discharged into the nebulous term - the "environment - wherever that leak happens to be. Liquids travel downhill thanks to gravity - like rain does - into a water course. Proposed dilbit pipelines have to travel through remote mountainous country where landslides, debris torrents, avalanches and earthquakes happen.

Hard to say what is more likely - a dilbit spill or a rail car spill. I'd be convinced that a dilbit pipeline fracture would have a larger volume of spill.

Then there is the issue of liability, collecting on that liability, how much a spill costs both wrt clean-up and lost economic opportunities - and whether or not any Corporations insurance would cover that. That's a much longer conversation.

 

[GLG]

The oil company is still liable for cleanup. Just not putting it on a government fund. Which probaly means if it was a government fund, the taxpayers would be responsible for any overuns of cost. The Keystone Pipeline has to be safer than what is now done. 8-10 mile long trains of tank cars. How many leaks on the Alaska Pipeline compared to train crashes?

There is no doubt that pipelines are safer then any other mode of transportation.
One way or another the cost are passed to the costumer either by increase at the pumps or through taxes at all levels of government to pay for spills. I think part of the problem is Exxon is not showing these costs on their balance sheet and it makes them appear more attractive as an investment.

In my view keystone is all about expanding the tarsands and that is what most folks are worried about.
Locking in capital assets that may push us over the 2C temperature that most see as a no go zone.
If some how we can keep the new projects from starting we may have a chance to beat this problem.
It may well be a mute point if under $50 a barrel oil stays around much longer.

Thanks for your input.

 

[GLG]

[E1q6EGAPE8A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1q6EGAPE8A

 

[OldBlackDog]

O look, your buddy.


The Nasa climate scientists who claimed 2014 set a new record for global warmth last night admitted they were only 38 per cent sure this was true.

In a press release on Friday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) claimed its analysis of world temperatures showed ‘2014 was the warmest year on record’.

The claim made headlines around the world, but yesterday it emerged that GISS’s analysis – based on readings from more than 3,000 measuring stations worldwide – is subject to a margin of error. Nasa admits this means it is far from certain that 2014 set a record at all.

Yet the Nasa press release failed to mention this, as well as the fact that the alleged ‘record’ amounted to an increase over 2010, the previous ‘warmest year’, of just two-hundredths of a degree – or 0.02C. The margin of error is said by scientists to be approximately 0.1C – several times as much.

As a result, GISS’s director Gavin Schmidt has now admitted Nasa thinks the likelihood that 2014 was the warmest year since 1880 is just 38 per cent. However, when asked by this newspaper whether he regretted that the news release did not mention this, he did not respond. Another analysis, from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project, drawn from ten times as many measuring stations as GISS, concluded that if 2014 was a record year, it was by an even tinier amount.

I see you have been getting your science news from the Daily Mail again.
David Rose is not one you should look up to, he is known for getting his stories wrong.
Remind you of someone we know? LOL
Hint if the other Daily Mail stories are all about boobs you should look elsewhere for science news.

You should have a look at here https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin

"The denialists are denying it's the warmest year. Which makes sense if you're in denial"
Feel for you there OBD.... in denial that is. Sad really.

 

[OldBlackDog]

Lol, the Huffington Post, really good science.

[E1q6EGAPE8A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1q6EGAPE8A

 

[GLG]

Lol, the Huffington Post, really good science.

Wrong again.
1- its the TYT network
2- is about politics not science.
Pay attention if that's not asking too much.

 

[GLG]

O look, your buddy.


The Nasa climate scientists who claimed 2014 set a new record for global warmth last night admitted they were only 38 per cent sure this was true.

In a press release on Friday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) claimed its analysis of world temperatures showed ‘2014 was the warmest year on record’.

The claim made headlines around the world, but yesterday it emerged that GISS’s analysis – based on readings from more than 3,000 measuring stations worldwide – is subject to a margin of error. Nasa admits this means it is far from certain that 2014 set a record at all.

Yet the Nasa press release failed to mention this, as well as the fact that the alleged ‘record’ amounted to an increase over 2010, the previous ‘warmest year’, of just two-hundredths of a degree – or 0.02C. The margin of error is said by scientists to be approximately 0.1C – several times as much.

As a result, GISS’s director Gavin Schmidt has now admitted Nasa thinks the likelihood that 2014 was the warmest year since 1880 is just 38 per cent. However, when asked by this newspaper whether he regretted that the news release did not mention this, he did not respond. Another analysis, from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project, drawn from ten times as many measuring stations as GISS, concluded that if 2014 was a record year, it was by an even tinier amount.

Look... you have no idea what your talking about.
Why don't you spend some effort to educate yourself on the subject.
Is that asking too much?
You seem to be stuck on denial and it has clouded your judgement.
Do I need to hand hold you to understand the science?
Is that what you need .... someone to tell you the difference between science and junk-science?
Do you see a benefit to being lead around in denial.

Here is a link that explains what "hottest Year and the 38%" means.
Not that it will do any good as you can take a horse to water but you can't make them drink.
Or should I say.... You can take a denier to science but you can't make them think.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2...ters-about-climate-change/?smid=tw-share&_r=0


added this link to where the 38% came from....
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/briefings/201501.pdf

 

[GLG]

And some get their science from this.....

[5eBT6OSr1TI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI&app=desktop

 

[GLG]

[h=1]Senate votes that climate change is real[/h]
The Senate on Wednesday voted 98-1 in favor of a an amendment stating that "climate change is real and is not a hoax."
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/230316-senate-votes-98-1-that-climate-change-is-real

The provision offered by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) to put Republicans on record about climate change ahead of the 2016 election passed with near unanimous support, with only Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the chairman of the campaign committee for Senate Republicans, voting "no."
In a surprise, one of the Senate's staunchest climate change skeptics, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), voted in favor of the amendment. But he made clear he doesn't believe humans are the primary driver of climate change.

The amendment will now be attached to legislation that would approve the $8 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline — a project that environmentalists vigorously oppose.

Yup just caught up to the science from 1995.... LOL

 

[GLG]

[mtAKY0VzfS0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtAKY0VzfS0

 

[GLG]

More on OBD's 38% (less then half) a brain science site the Daily Fail and the hottest year on record story.
David Rose is a well known denier and we all know that's someone not to trust.
This link shows his techniques on how he does this.
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/01/tricks-used-by-david-rose-denier.html#comment-form

Seem's that I'm not the only one to see right through this denier.

 

[OldBlackDog]

‘Warmest year’, ‘pause’, and all that

by Judith Curry

So, was 2014 the ‘warmest year’? Drum roll . . .


NASA has just issued its press release NASA, NOAA find 2014 hottest year in record. Nothing in the way of technical details, such as warmest by ‘how much’ and ‘is it statistically significant?’

NYTimes ‘breaking news': 2014 was hottest year on record surpassing 2010 interviews Gavin Schmidt:

With the continued heating of the atmosphere and the surface of the ocean, 1998 is now being surpassed every four or five years, with 2014 being the first time that has happened in a year featuring no real El Niño pattern. Gavin A. Schmidt, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, said the next time a strong El Niño occurs, it is likely to blow away all temperature records.

No word yet from HadCRUT4, I heard we can expect their report next week. Somewhere I read that Cowtan and Way did NOT expect 2014 to be warmest in their data set?

Berkeley Earth has published a nice analysis of their 2014 data [link]. Summary of their main findings:

1. The global surface temperature average for 2014 was nominally the warmest since the global instrumental record began in 1850; however, within the margin of’error, it’s tied with 2005 and 2010 and so we can’t be certain it set a new record.

2. For the land, 2014 was nominally the 4th warmest year since 1753

3. For the sea, 2014 was the warmest year on record since 1850

4. For the contiguous United States, 2014 ranked nominally as the 38th warmest year on record since 1850.

Some other statements of interest:

Several European countries set all time records for high annual average temperature, as did the continent of Europe as a whole

The margin of uncertainty we achieved was remarkably small (0.05C with 95% confidence).This was achieved, in part, by the inclusion of data from over 30,000 temperature stations, and by the use of optimized statistical methods. Even so, the highest year could not be distinguished. That is, of course, an indication that the Earth’s average temperature for the last decade has changed very little.

Meanwhile, the ‘warmest year’ is noticeably missing in the satellite data sets of lower atmospheric temperatures. Roy Spencer reports that 2014 was third warmest year since 1979, but just barely.

Roz Pidcock has penned an article Explainer: How do scientists measure global temperature, that discusses differences among the analyses.

Capitol Weather Gang has reactions from 20 scientists [link], including a few sensible ones (such as moi).

El Nino?

One of the key aspects of the hype about the ‘warmest year in 2014′ was that 2014 was not even an El Nino year. Well, there has been a great deal of discussion about this issue on the Tropical ListServ. Here is what I have taken away from that discussion:

A global circulation response pattern to Pacific convection with many similarities to El Niño has in fact been present since at least June. Convection to the east of New Guinea is influencing zonal winds in the upper troposphere across the Pacific and Atlantic, looking similar to an El Nino circulation response.

So, is it El Niño? Not quite, according to some conventional indices, but a broader physical definition might be needed to capture the different flavors of El Nino. A number of scientists are calling for modernizing the ENSO identification system. So I’m not sure how this event might eventually be identified, but for many practical purposes (i.e. weather forecasting), this event is behaving in many ways like an El Nino.

What does this mean for interpreting the ‘almost warmest year’? Well not much; I think it is erroneous to infer that ‘it must be AGW since 2014 wasn’t even an El Nino year’ is useful reasoning here.

That said, there is definitely some unusual events on the North Pacific, including extreme warm anomalies in the mid-high latitudes, and positive value of the PDO.

Bottom line

Berkeley Earth sums it up well with this statement:

That is, of course, an indication that the Earth’s average temperature for the last decade has changed very little.

The key issue remains the growing discrepancy between the climate model projections and the observations: 2014 just made the discrepancy larger.

Speculation about ‘warmest year’ and end of ‘pause’ implies a near term prediction of surface temperatures – that they will be warmer. I’ve made my projection – global surface temperatures will remain mostly flat for at least another decade. However, I’m not willing to place much $$ on that bet, since I suspect that Mother Nature will manage to surprise us. (I will be particularly surprised if the rate of warming in the next decade is at the levels expected by the IPCC.)

Senator Ted Cruz

Senator Ted Cruz is (R-Texas) was just named to be the chairman of the Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness. The folks at Slate are not happy: Yup, a Climate Change Denier Will Oversee NASA. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? They are particularly up in arms over this statement from Ted Cruz:

The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming. Contrary to all the theories that—that they are expounding, there should have been warming over the last 15 years. It hasn’t happened.

Here is what Slate has to say:

This is, to put it mildly, what comes out of the south end of a north-facing bull. Yes, the Earth has warmed over the past 15 years, and the science is incredibly, unequivocally clear about that. Anyone making this claim either doesn’t know what they’re talking about, or is trying to sell you something (or, to be more accurate, has been bought).

So, what is wrong with Cruz’s statement? Well, assuming that by ‘recorded warming’, he means the satellite-derived lower atmospheric temperatures his statement is absolutely correct. If he is referring to globally averaged surface temperatures since 2000, there is only a very small amount of warming; this small amount of warming is indeed contrary to the theory of AGW.

Without going into details here, I refer you to my previous post and my invited presentation given at the American Physical Society: Causes and Implications of the Pause.

Bottom line: There is nothing irrational or particularly incorrect about Senator Cruz’s statement. Phil Plait (Bad Astronomer) who wrote the Slate piece made more incorrect statements than did Cruz.
]

 

[OldBlackDog]

Look a special group for you to join so you wont have to worry any more.

There is no doubt that pipelines are safer then any other mode of transportation.
One way or another the cost are passed to the costumer either by increase at the pumps or through taxes at all levels of government to pay for spills. I think part of the problem is Exxon is not showing these costs on their balance sheet and it makes them appear more attractive as an investment.

In my view keystone is all about expanding the tarsands and that is what most folks are worried about.
Locking in capital assets that may push us over the 2C temperature that most see as a no go zone.
If some how we can keep the new projects from starting we may have a chance to beat this problem.
It may well be a mute point if under $50 a barrel oil stays around much longer.

Thanks for your input.

 

[OldBlackDog]

Look... you have no idea what your talking about.
Why don't you spend some effort to educate yourself on the subject.
Is that asking too much?
You seem to be stuck on denial and it has clouded your judgement.
Do I need to hand hold you to understand the science?
Is that what you need .... someone to tell you the difference between science and junk-science?
Do you see a benefit to being lead around in denial.

Here is a link that explains what "hottest Year and the 38%" means.
Not that it will do any good as you can take a horse to water but you can't make them drink.
Or should I say.... You can take a denier to science but you can't make them think.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2...ters-about-climate-change/?smid=tw-share&_r=0



added this link to where the 38% came from....
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/briefings/201501.pdf

Missed this again i see.