New realities in the Climate Change Debate

Climate

Changing Tides: Research Center Under Fire for 'Adjusted' Sea-Level Data

Is climate change raising sea levels, as Al Gore has argued -- or are climate scientists doctoring the data?

THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO’S SEA LEVEL RESEARCH GROUP DECIDED IN MAY TO ADD 0.3 MILLIMETERS -- OR ABOUT THE THICKNESS OF A FINGERNAIL -- EVERY YEAR TO ITS ACTUAL MEASUREMENTS OF SEA LEVELS, sparking criticism from experts who called it an attempt to exaggerate the effects of global warming.

"Gatekeepers of our sea level data are manufacturing a fictitious sea level rise that is not occurring," said James M. Taylor, a lawyer who focuses on environmental issues for the Heartland Institute.

Steve Nerem, the director of the widely relied-upon research center, told FoxNews.com that HIS GROUP ADDED THE 0.3 MILLIMETERS PER YEAR TO THE ACTUAL SEA LEVEL MEASUREMENTS BECAUSE LAND MASSES, STILL REBOUNDING FROM THE ICE AGE, ARE RISING AND INCREASING THE AMOUNT OF WATER THAT OCEANS CAN HOLD.

"We have to account for the fact that the ocean basins are actually getting slightly bigger... water volume is expanding," he said, a phenomenon they call glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA).
Taylor calls it tomfoolery.

"THERE REALLY IS NO REASON TO DO THIS OTHER THAN TO ADVANCE A POLITICAL AGENDA," he said.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/17/research-center-under-fire-for-adjusted-sea-level-data/#ixzz1PiO3MSbf

Let’s see, they are adding .3 mm to the sea level not because it is actually rising that extra amount, but because it should be rising that amount. Yeah, that’s scientific.

Top Green Admits: “We Are Lost!”

GEORGE MONBIOT OF THE LEFT-LEANING BRITISH NEWSPAPER THE GUARDIAN HAS A MUST-READ COLUMN IN WHICH HE ADMITS THAT BECAUSE OF A WHOLE SERIES OF INTELLECTUAL MISTAKES, THE GLOBAL GREEN MOVEMENT’S POLICY PRESCRIPTIONS ARE HOPELESSLY FLAWED.

Read the whole piece for a thoughtful and brutally clear expose of the intellectual bankruptcy of the green movement from one of the smartest people in it. This is what I’ve been getting at for more than a year here: regardless of what is happening to Planet Earth, the green movement does not have coherent and workable solutions.

Greens like to have it both ways. They warn darkly about “peak oil” and global resource shortages that will destroy our industrial economy in its tracks — but also warn that runaway economic growth will destroy the planet through the uncontrolled effects of mass industrial productions. BOTH DOOMSDAY SCENARIOS CANNOT BE TRUE; ONE CANNOT SIMULTANEOUSLY DIE OF BOTH STARVATION AND GLUTTONY.

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/05/03/top-green-admits-we-are-lost/

So which way is it? Peak Oil or a global resource shortage?

Don’t believe the talk about Peak Oil

….The oil rush is already transforming this impoverished area of Texas near the Mexican border, doubling real estate values in the last year and filling restaurants and hotels….

…Based on the industry’s plans, SHALE AND OTHER “TIGHT ROCK” FIELDS THAT NOW PRODUCE ABOUT HALF A MILLION BARRELS OF OIL A DAY WILL PRODUCE UP TO THREE MILLION BARRELS DAILY BY 2020, according to IHS CERA, an energy research firm. Oil companies are investing an estimated $25 billion this year to drill 5,000 new oil wells in tight rock fields, according to Raoul LeBlanc, a senior director at PFC Energy, a consulting firm.
“This is very big and it’s coming on very fast,” said Daniel Yergin, the chairman of IHS CERA. “THIS IS LIKE ADDING ANOTHER VENEZUELA OR KUWAIT BY 2020, EXCEPT THESE TIGHT OIL FIELDS ARE IN THE UNITED STATES.”

In the most developed shale field, the Bakken field in North Dakota, production has leaped to 400,000 barrels a day today from a trickle four years ago. Experts say it could produce as much as a million barrels a day by the end of the decade.

THE EAGLE FORD, WHERE THE FIRST WELL WAS DRILLED ONLY THREE YEARS AGO, IS ALREADY PRODUCING MORE THAN 100,000 BARRELS A DAY and could reach 420,000 by 2015, almost as much as Ecuador, according to Bentek Energy, a consultancy….

…WHAT MAKES THE NEW FIELDS MORE REMARKABLE IS THAT THEY WERE THOUGHT TO BE VIRTUALLY VALUELESS ONLY FIVE YEARS AGO. “Everyone said the oil molecules are too large to flow in commercial quantities through these low-quality rocks,” said Mark G. Papa, chief executive of EOG Resources….

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/business/energy-environment/28shale.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1


Awash in energy yet we won’t use it

AMERICA’S COMBINED ENERGY RESOURCES ARE, ACCORDING TO A NEW REPORT FROM THE CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE (CSR), THE LARGEST ON EARTH. They eclipse Saudi Arabia (3rd), China (4th) and Canada (6th) combined – and that’s WITHOUT INCLUDING AMERICA’S SHALE OIL DEPOSITS and, in the future, the potentially astronomic impact of methane hydrates….

…The CRS estimates US RECOVERABLE COAL RESERVES AT AROUND 262 BILLION TONS (not including further massive, difficult to access, Alaskan reserves). Given the US consumes around 1.2 billion tons a year, that’s A COUPLE OF CENTURIES OF COAL USE, at least….

…. In 2009 the CRS upped its 2006 estimate of America’s enormous natural gas deposits by 25 percent to around 2,047 trillion cubic feet, a conservative figure given the expanding shale gas revolution. AT CURRENT RATES OF USE THAT’S ENOUGH FOR AROUND 100 YEARS. Then there is still the, as yet largely publicly untold, story of methane hydrates to consider, a resource which the CRS reports alludes to as “immense…possibly exceeding the combined energy content of all other known fossil fuels….”

…. While the US is often depicted as having only a tiny minority of the world’s oil reserves at around 28 billion barrels (based on the somewhat misleading figure of ‘proven reserves’) ACCORDING TO THE CRS IN REALITY IT HAS AROUND 163 BILLION BARRELS. As Inhofe’s EPW press release comments, “THAT’S ENOUGH OIL TO MAINTAIN AMERICA’S CURRENT RATES OF PRODUCTION AND REPLACE IMPORTS FROM THE PERSIAN GULF FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS….”


http://hotair.com/archives/2011/03/26/us-most-energy-resources-in-the-world-and-most-incoherent-energy-policy/

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=04212e22-c1b3-41f2-b0ba-0da5eaead952

Next time someone talks about “peak” oil or how we are running out of fossil fuels, remember what you’ve read here. America is the most energy independent country on earth, if only the left would let us exploit it.