General Environment Thrad
 

Because we don't have one (that I'm aware of) and we need one.

https://scontent-a-mia.xx.fbcdn.net/...18709126_n.jpg

It's only a 22,900% increase. Nothing to be concerned about.

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I'm not worried, you can't even feel the ones that are less than 3.0.

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It's not happening.

Okay, it is happening, but it isn't bad.

:lol:

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The general implication I'm seeing and hearing from sensationalist headlines and writing is that it is fracking itself that is responsible for the tremors. That isn't what the people studying this have found at all, they have found that the waste water disposal injection wells that is responsible for the quakes. These wells are ones in which waste water from oil and gas production is pumped into formations that are a lot more porous than the shale that the controversial fracking has been taking place in. The volume of fluids involved in fracking are but a tiny percentage of the produced water from oil and gas wells. Some shale oil and gas production actually has very little water, some has quite a lot. However, conventional wells in porous limestone formations produce far more water than the shale formations, brine water. Shale is not very porous. Once again, I will point out that all oil and gas wells are fracked these days, not just the shale play.

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New Study Suggests The World Is On The Brink Of The Next Great Extinction | IFLScience

On the brink? I thought it had already started

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Here's George Monbiot on the unfolding disaster that is Indonesia, that has dominated every news report you've seen and read recently, not:

http://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs.../Indonesia.jpg

Nothing to See Here | George Monbiot

Fire is raging across the 5000-kilometre length of Indonesia and producing more carbon dioxide than the US economy. Monbiot's piece has three main targets;

The Media's deafening silence

From the link

I’ve often wondered how the media would respond when eco-apocalypse struck. I pictured the news programmes producing brief, sensational reports, while failing to explain why it was happening or how it might be stopped. Then they would ask their financial correspondents how the disaster affected share prices, before turning to the sport. As you can probably tell, I don’t have an ocean of faith in the industry for which I work.

What I did not expect was that they would ignore it.

A great tract of the Earth is on fire. It looks as you might imagine hell to be. The air has turned ochre: visibility in some cities has been reduced to 30 metres. Children are being prepared for evacuation in warships; already some have choked to death. Species are going up in smoke at an untold rate. It is almost certainly the greatest environmental disaster of the 21st Century – so far.

And the media? It’s talking about the dress the Duchess of Cambridge wore to the James Bond premiere, Donald Trump’s idiocy du jour and who got eliminated from the Halloween episode of Dancing with the Stars. The great debate of the week, dominating the news across much of the world? Sausages: are they really so bad for your health?

The failure of government (lol libertarianism)

The current president, Joko Widodo, is – or wants to be – a democrat. But he presides over a nation in which fascism and corruption flourish. As Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary The Act of Killing shows, leaders of the death squads that helped murder around a million people during Suharto’s terror in the 1960s, with the approval of the West, have since prospered through other forms of organised crime, including illegal deforestation.

They are supported by a paramilitary organisation with three million members, called Pancasila Youth. With its orange camo-print uniforms, scarlet berets, sentimental gatherings and schmaltzy music, it looks like a fascist militia as imagined by JG Ballard. There has been no truth, no reconciliation; the mass killers are still greeted as heroes and feted on television. In some places, especially West Papua, the political murders continue.

Those who commit crimes against humanity don’t hesitate to commit crimes against nature. Though Joko Widodo seems to want to stop the burning, his reach is limited. His government’s policies are contradictory: among them are new subsidies for palm oil production that make further burning almost inevitable. Some plantation companies, prompted by their customers, have promised to stop destroying the rainforest. Government officials have responded angrily, arguing that such restraint impedes the country’s development. That smoke blotting out the nation, which has already cost it some $30 billion? That, apparently, is development.

Corporate America:

Some companies using palm oil have made visible efforts to reform their supply chains; but others seem to move slowly and opaquely. Starbucks, PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz and Unilever are examples. Don’t buy their products until they change.

The media again:

Governments ignore issues when the media ignores them. And the media ignores them because … well there’s a question with a thousand answers, many of which involve power. But one reason is the complete failure of perspective in a deskilled industry dominated by corporate press releases, photo ops and fashion shoots, where everyone seems to be waiting for everyone else to take a lead. The media makes a collective non-decision to treat this catastrophe as a non-issue, and we all carry on as if it’s not happening. ... Is there any other industry that serves its customers so badly?

It's safe to say that George is really pissed off. You should be too.

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Also, remember this?

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When is an award for environmental excellence not really an award for environmental excellence? When it is one granted by the Environmental Federation of Oklahoma. Here is the services they provide to members.

Seems to me that the only environment they care about is the business environment.

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Thanks Obama!

I like this part of the write up, since this is not necessarily the finale.

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The sad thing is, I don't see Obama as being at all concerned about environmental issues. I think the decision was almost entirely based on politics and economics, not environmental concerns.

Given the current price of crude oil, a lot of economists argue that it wouldn't be in the U.S.'s best economic interest to build the pipeline. When you couple that with the flak Obama would certainly get from a lot of his supporters if he approved the pipeline, I suspect that politics and economics explain his decision much better than does any [heretofore unevidenced] real concern about the environmental impact.

As such, if the price of crude goes back up, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if building the Keystone pipeline suddenly becomes a "viable option" again.



The issue is complicated by the fact that a good case can be made for the conclusion that building the pipeline might actually be the environmentally responsible thing to do. Why? Canada has made it clear that they're planning to exploit the tar sands, whether we build the pipeline or not. If the pipeline isn't built, then the alternative is shipping the oil to refineries via trucks and trains. That would a.) increase the likelihood of a spill and b.) increase the amount of CO2 generated as the oil is shipped.


Ugh. Either way, the whole situation sucks.



What's so disgusting about the whole thing is how politics so clearly trumps environmental concerns (and science).

Heck, even Dubya talked about the need to reduce CO2 emissions in order to mitigate climate change. When he was running for President, that is. As soon as he was "elected," that sort of talk went out the window in a hurry.

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The Climate is getting warmer, there is no doubt about that to any sane person, and human activity is the major cause.

A warmer climate will be a disaster? there is considerable doubt about that, as in the past warmer climates have been wetter, not dryer. The fear mongers want us to believe it will be a disaster so that we will re-elect them to an office of power. That is their only real concern.

I would welcome warmer winters, I don't ski and wouldn't miss a lot of snow on the slopes. I do know some who would. If I really wanted a "white" Christmas, I'll buy one of those surplus snow machines and mount it on my roof to get a white Christmas. One week of below freezing weather would be enough.

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Right, except that "white Christmases" are essential for building snowpack on mountains that then thaws to feed rivers in the spring and summer. Warm winters mean no snowpack means not enough water later in many areas of the world.

Which is just one example of why such simplistic thinking of "Oh, I don't like the snow and slush!" is not a basis for concluding that global warming will be a boon.

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No, it means that the "snow" will fall as rain, and with a warmer climate, the growing season will start earlier, which would coincide with the rain falling in the early part of the year. The planting and growing will just shift to when the rain is falling and the water is available.

Also recreation will shift from cold weather activities to warm weather activities and those who can't or won't learn to change, will be left behind, and someone else will provide the opportunity for recreation.

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Universal Renewable Energy: Suitable Substitute for Morning Sex? - Freethought Forum -- I wish to put in a plug for renewable energy here. It's a good way of reducing one's total carbon-dioxide emissions, and it's also very sustainable.

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Are you seriously not trolling here? You really think that's all there is to it?

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heh

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Do you have some problem thinking?

If you don't agree with me, I can't keep you from being wrong.

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Unfortunately, it does get pretty complicated.

The problem with much of the West is that snow/rainfall is very seasonal. Since relatively little rain falls from late Spring to Autumn, many of these areas are indeed very dependent on snowmelt from the mountains to keep streams flowing during the drier months.

And while a warming climate means more atmospheric water vapor and so more precipitation overall, that's not true everywhere. Indeed, in most continental interiors, the increased temperatures are expected to lead to increased water loss from the soil and from surface water, and decreased precipitation.

Most of the American West and South is expected to become substantially drier as the climate warms.

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I just checked, using an incognito window to be sure the results are generic, and if you Google "global warming," the first and second results mention severe weather and rising sea levels as some of the primary effects of global warming.

It's not all just about accommodating shorter ski seasons and modified farming techniques, but this information is so easily discoverable that I assume there's some other reason you're ignoring it.

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Sometimes there just ain't no tellin'.

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:stunned:


:stunned:

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LOL, I got bored with that thread before that plot twist, so I missed it entirely.

That is just fantastic.

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Look, all we gotta do is build levees all around the entire southern half of Florida to withstand the rising waters and the inevitable devastating hurricanes that do hit Florida from time to time. It's easy-peasy and not really a disaster. Especially since replacing Florida's famous beaches with dikes is of little significance.

As for the millions and millions of people who live in Bangladesh, an impoverished country that would struggle to complete such a large and expensive engineering project in a proper fashion, assuming it's even feasible in the first place... well, they're all poor anyway, right? So it's not that big of a disaster for them to leave their shacks and huts and mud farms behind! They can just move to, you know... somewhere else.

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Exactly! All that poverty and squalor, GONE, and at minimal cost to the taxpayer (unless you count government subsidies to polluters, which are much more like freedom than a "use of public funds").

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So what do you care, or are you pretending to support them somehow?