Two pieces of crucial evidence emerged in the tar sands fight yesterday. One, happily, got all kinds of notice -- Jim Hansen's op-ed in the New York Timeswas the "most emailed" item of the day, which is appropriate since he explained new calculations showing that those Canadian deposits contain "twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history

House leaders are busily trying to fasten automatic approval of the Keystone Pipeline, the biggest straw into the pipelines yet, onto a must-pass transportation bill. So the other crucial analysis that emerged yesterday is probably just as important. It demonstrates the real power behind the drive for tar sands oil: the Koch Brothers. They'd long insisted that they didn't have a stake in the Keystone Pipeline, and in the most narrow lawyerly sense that may be true. But the expose from from journalist David Sassoon pierced the secrecy of the Koch brother's private holdings to show that "at the top of the list are the Koch family's long and deep investments in Canada's heavy oil industry, which have been central to the company's initial growth and subsequent diversification since 1959." Their companies are among the largest importers of tar sands crude to the U.S., and the largest holders of mineral leases across Alberta -- they're up to their necks in the tarry stuff.

 

Even the world’s largest producer of oil understands the value of developing renewable energy.

A few months after Saudi Arabia’s oil minister called global warming “among humanity’s most pressing concerns,” the country is rolling out an ambitious plan to source 41,000 megawatts of solar projects over the next two decades — scaling up a domestic solar industry to support one third of electricity production by 2032.

Solar electricity and petroleum serve completely different markets. However, in this case, solar will be directly replacing the oil that Saudi Arabia uses for desalination plants. Officials are currently rolling out a competitive bidding process for 1,100 megawatts of solar photovoltaics and 900 megawatts of concentrating solar power in the first quarter of 2013.

The plan is part of a larger strategy to scale up various sources of renewable energy, build a new domestic industry, and reduce oil consumption. Officials estimate that the solar plan will reduce domestic consumption of oil by 520,000 barrels per day. PV Magazine reported on the news from a solar conference in Saudi Arabia:

The oil-rich country is planning to place more focus on renewable  energy generation. In addition to more solar power, it intends to add  wind, geothermal, waste-to-energy and nuclear plants to its energy mix  in the future. The program, said to be worth tens of millions of  dollars, aims to “catapult Saudi Arabia into the group of global leaders  in renewable-energy development.”

I rolled to a stop and cut the engine. John Bolenbaugh leaned forward in the passenger seat and surveyed the scene. "We can walk over there," he said, and we stepped out onto a gravel track overlooking a marshy bottomland behind Sheet Metal Workers Local 7 in Marshall, Michigan

lmost every day for more than a year, this had been Bolenbaugh's daily activity—shooting video of the slow-going cleanup of one of the worst inland oil spills in American history. And on that day he wanted me to see "ground zero," the exact spot where, in late July 2010, an underground pipeline owned by Canadian-based Enbridge, Inc., ruptured and spilled more than a million gallons of crude derived from the Alberta tar sands—enough to flow out of this pond into the distant creek and on to the Kalamazoo River. A former cleanup worker himself, Bolenbaugh was fired in October 2010 by Enbridge contractor SET Environmental, because, Bolenbaugh says, he refused to follow top-down instructions to cover up oil.

Thus, this case could provide a judgment—perhaps the only official judgment, since federal regulators have largely looked the other way—on Enbridge's handling of the whole oil spill. That determination is about far more than legal fingerpointing. Roughly 20 percent of America's crude oil, according to the US Interior Department, is now imported from Canada, and most of that is derived from tar sands. With the national jobless rate still high, more and more Americans are willing to accept the environmental and health risks associated with pipelines that carry tar sands crude. And as oil prices continue climbing, Canadian companies are racing to cash in. Enbridge is poised to become the largest transporter of tar sands crude in the country, and its top competitor TransCanada is seeking to build the controversial $7 billion, 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline across the Great Plains to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Two separate studies are providing insights into the earth-shaking consequences of the controversial gas extraction process known as fracking.

Both studies confirm that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, can trigger manmade earthquakes. The process involves blasting water, sand and chemicals deep into the ground to fracture rock to obtain oil and natural gas.

Protest erupts in Salt Lake City Utah. The proposed mining area in Utah is the first permitted tar sands mining in the United States.

For More information:
TarSandsUtah.blueskyinstitute.org
FarCountry.org
EarthFirstJournal.org

Then watch the next video about the Tar Sands mining in Alberta to see why we do NOT want this.

In this video, http://www.WatchMojo.com speaks with Walsh about the tar sands, and their effect on the environment.

Some of the reasons the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline is BAD for America!

Also see: The Keystone XL Pipeline Fails America

Oil giant BP, the company behind the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, reported profits of $7.7 billion for the last quarter of 2011. Company executives and industry analysts sounded bullish about the company's future in a recent New York Times article, saying they had set aside enough money to compensate victims of the Gulf spill and had plans to expand drilling operations in the Gulf.

BP seems to be recovering nicely after the disaster, which killed 11 people and pumped 170 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. But stories from the Gulf suggest that the region is anything but healed.

 

The House of Representatives today voted to open the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and along almost every acre of our coastline including off the East Coast, West Coast, the protected eastern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Bristol Bay to oil drilling all under the guise of funding this year’s transportation bill.

First I want to offer my thanks to Physicist-retired and Pacific Northwest Blogger for their inspiration and encouragement to write this article. In PR's article PNWB provided a link to What NASA's Blue Marble Photo Reveals About Climate Change. The author of the Blue Marble article said a couple of things which ultimately became the inspiration for my comments in PR's article and this article.

Talking about unprecedented profits made by fossil-fuel companies the Blue Marble author said...

Telling the truth about climate change would require pulling away the biggest punchbowl in history, right when the party is in full swing. And that's why those of us battling for the future need to raise our game.

...and talking about why the fossil-fuel companies don't want to invest their huge profits in "new clean technology" he said...

...their value is largely based on fossil-fuel reserves that won't be burned if we ever take global warming seriously.

A day before Republicans voice their presidential preferences in the Colorado caucuses, Rick Santorum dismissed climate change as “a hoax” and advocated an energy plan heavy on fossil fuels.

“We were put on this Earth as creatures of God to have dominion over the earth, to use it wisely and steward it wisely, but for our benefit not for the earth’s benefit,” Santorum told an audience at the Colorado School of Mines where he was a guest speaker Monday at the Colorado Energy Summit.

“We are the intelligent beings that know how to manage things and through that course of science and discovery if we can be better stewards of this environment, then we should not let the vagaries of nature destroy what we have helped create,” Santorum said to applause from the conservative crowd.

The former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania argued that science has been hijacked by politicians on the left, and that climate change is “an absolute travesty of scientific research that was motivated by those who, in my opinion saw this as an opportunity to create a panic and a crisis for government to be able to step in and even more greatly control your life,” Santorum said...

Gingrich, speaking before Santorum at the Colorado Energy Summit, said he greatly regretted a commercial he shot with Nancy Pelosi that addressed cap-and-trade legislation...

While Gingrich and Santorum don’t agree on whether the 58th Speaker of the House ever favored cap-and-trade legislation, they do share a common disdain for the Environmental Protection Agency. If he is elected president, Gingrich said he would abolish the EPA and replace it with something he calls the Environmental Solutions Agency. He also said he would fundamentally overhaul the Department of Interior and on his first day in office, he would sign an executive order approving the controversial

Oil and gas, he said, is “so central” to the nation’s future energy portfolio.

“Environmentalists,” Gingrich added, “have been infiltrated over the last 40 years by people on the left who are against business and against local control and they use the environment as an excuse.”

Obama has until 21 February to make a decision on whether to approve the pipeline, under a compromise tax measure approved late last year. America's top oil lobbyist warned last week that the president would face "huge political consequences" if he did not sign off on the project to pump tar sands crude across the American heartland to refineries on the Texas coast.

Bad news for the Gulf of Mexico: a study released in late December sheds new light on the toxicity of oil in aquatic environments, and shows that environmental impact studies currently in use may be inadequate. The report was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

by Randy Essex, of  the Rocky Mountain Institute - one new story the media are telling that is counterproductive to solving our oil addiction: That the launch of the first mass-market electric cars, the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf, is fizzling. Under the headline “Are electric cars losing their spark?” USA Today this month focused on Chevy Volt fires that came only in tests and on Volt and Leaf sales falling below projections this year, reaching probably about 17,000 between the two. In naming the Volt one of the big product flops of the year, Yahoo Finance made much the same arguments.

This narrative simply lacks context. Gas-powered vehicles catch fire nearly 200,000 times a year—on the road, not in labs [chart here]. Toyota, which has now sold more than 1 million hybrids in the U.S., sold only about 5,800 of its Prius hybrid to U.S. customers in 2000, the first year it was offered here. Selling 17,000 EVs in the first year may not be so bad.

To be sure, pricy EVs face obstacles to consumer acceptance. So did the car. The Literary Digest (not to be confused with the USA Today of its time), proclaimed in 1899, “The ordinary ‘horseless carriage’ is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course, come into as common use as the bicycle.”

I want to stop buying gas. The patriotic alternatives, with no loss of comfort, safety or convenience, are on the road.

So I see an EV in my future, just as I see EVs becoming as common as hybrids within a few years. But Iran’s latest threat reminds us that we need to go further faster, for example while the Saudi royal family is able to maintain power without direct U.S. military intervention, even as repressive regimes around it collapse.

By Randy Essex and Ben Holland - Figures this week showed that the first mass-produced electric cars in the United States, the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt, had total sales of 17,345 in 2011, the first year in which they were available. Compared with sales of 9,350 gas-electric hybrids in 2000, the first year the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius were offered in the U.S.—where total hybrid sales have now topped 2 million—17,000 might seem like a decent start for EVs.

Instead, they are under fire—even as gas prices jumped because of Iran’s threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint in global oil trade.

The Washington Post [last] Sunday called for elimination of the $7,500 tax credit for EV purchases, and Mike Kelly, a congressman from Pennsylvania who is a car dealer, has introduced legislation to end the credit.

Rocky Mountain Institute sees EVs as a crucial step in moving the United States away from fossil fuels for reasons of national security, human health, environmental protection and durable economic advantage. EV benefits go beyond fuel economy.

Reinventing Fire, RMI’s new, peer-reviewed book backed by 30 years of Institute research, shows that EVs—ultimately made of ultrastrong, ultralight materials that dramatically speed energy savings—can become energy storage vessels that feed electricity back into a revamped, more-secure electrical grid.

A great deal of difficult work on how we generate and distribute electricity stands between today’s reality and that vision, extending far beyond EV sales and incentives. Recognizing that Washington is all but paralyzed by partisan gridlock, Reinventing Fire calls for no new acts of Congress. Business must lead this ambitious transition to a safer, cleaner, stronger America, with rational state-level regulatory changes.

Of course people respond to incentives, and the EV tax credit—written to phase out when a manufacturer’s sales hit 200,000—is a proven way to spur a socially desirable change. Governments have long subsidized transportation, directly and indirectly, from granting rights for oil drilling to building our vast network of roads with tax dollars. Because Congress has approved tougher fuel economy standards, creating an incentive for EV buyers similar to the hybrid incentive that was phased out as sales grew would seem like consistent policy.

These calls to repeal the EV credit show both that the nation can’t necessarily count on Congress to guide its energy future (though, in fairness, Congress is a long way from acting on this) and that the nation’s media are adopting a flawed narrative about EVs.

Most researchers don't know what really goes on out there in a storm, no matter how many data collecting buoys they set out.  One good "No-Name Storm" (Gloucesterese for the "Perfect Storm") and the proposed wind farm offshore of Nantucket will become an offshore wind farm artificial reef overnight.  Remember the ridiculous industry spin on abandoned oil platforms "Rigs-To-Reefs"?  A windmill graveyard could be spun as "Rotors-To-Reefs" or “Blades-for-Bass”, maybe. 

And when windmills prove unsuitable, then there might be only one thing left to do---for "energy independence"--- and that would be to install deviated oil and gas well platforms on the now “underutilized” coastal Marine Protected Areas that were already sanctioned for energy production use? 

The proposed offshore wind farm sites are, of course, "safely-out-to-sea" which is the way forecasters describe a storm as it moves off the beach and is no longer a threat to “civilized life”.  When this phrase is used regarding oil rigs and wind farms, it more accurately means “safely-out-of-sight”, or if you can’t see them, well then ...they don’t exist. If you can’t see the fishing vessels, and the tugs, and the cargo vessels then they’re not out there.  If you can’t see the leaking oil rigs, and the nearly impossible to maintain, gigantic, deteriorating wind towers, then they’re not an issue.  In fact, when oil rigs and windmills are considered “safely-out-to-sea”, it is essentially implied that there’s nothing going on out there, no life beyond the horizon which would, in any way, significantly interfere with the energy companies’ quest for more power. 

In the Nantucket offshore wind farm proposal, the sites are mostly just far enough beyond the horizon line of sight---not for Nantucketers or Vinyarders perhaps---but definitely for the Cape and the mainlanders not to see, over 30nm out, safely-out-to-sea.

This “...you won’t even know that they’re there” public relations approach is similar to the magical sales pitch the oil companies have been spewing about their deviated oil platforms, i.e., one tower with many hidden well heads and return lines, splayed out like spider’s legs, “...we can drill over there, and there, and there, and all this from a single platform” safely-out-of-sight, as their slick but sadly absurd TV ad goes. It’s thinking on about the same level as a child’s peek-a-boo game.  Out of sight? Then it’s not there, not an issue. (This thinking can be also found among some fisheries scientists, if we don’t see the fish they must be all gone.  If we can’t find ‘em they’re depleted, or endangered, or extinct.  If the trawl survey net comes up full...well, that’s an anomaly, statistical “noise”.)  The fishing industry is invisible!

 It appears that the postulate of building wind farms where there is the “most wind”, (which according to the proponents’ sales pitch can only mean offshore) is nothing but business-speak for taking on a handful of now starved-out fishermen, rather than trying to plant a wind farm in sight of moneyed landowners on the mainland.

Anyone who has been to Kansas knows there's wind in other places besides "offshore".

Wind is variable and therefore unreliable; consequently wind turbines need to be used in conjunction with other generating methods.  The largest wind farm on the planet won’t be much help in dead calm fog conditions, or if it’s blowing a gale.  For most of the Outer Continental Shelf, and especially for the proposed wind farm areas off of Nantucket and Georges Bank, weather extremes of calm and gale are commonly occurring conditions, and often within the same day.  Windmills will shut down during such extremes, so there needs to be back-up power plants on standby supplementing the intermittent wind turbine production. Conventional generating plants will not be “phased out” as advertised.

Windmills look like a great idea---on paper; but it is old mechanical maintenance- intense technology.  For centuries they worked for Holland; and ironically Nantucketers proudly display a working windmill built in 1746.  Wind is an ancient and proven energy source; but, when so stupidly overdone on such a grand scale that it wipes out prime coastal fishing areas that produce hundreds of thousands of tons of the best food on the planet, it just doesn’t make any sense at all.  Along with the fish, birds, turtles, and marine mammals, the proposed offshore wind farm sites happen to be also right on our feeding grounds.      

BEYOND THE BINGE: Thoughts on Energy and Consumption

Wind on a small scale, intelligently integrated with complimentary power sources, would make some sense. Private homes could become energy neutral by employing existing technologies such as individual compact wind turbines, alongside and in conjunction with, solar and geo-thermal systems.  We might actually get somewhere in our quest for energy independence by making significant tax incentives, rebates, and low cost loans available to individual property owners for energy upgrades. This would put renewable energy technology within the reach of everyday people; and would certainly be a more effective use of government incentives---which everyday people pay for anyway.

Well placed government funding, focused on new innovative and smart energy producing technologies, would help promising nascent projects move closer to production.  California Institute of Technology’s Energy Innovation Hub, for example, is working on producing chemical fuels from sunlight, a process they call artificial photosynthesis. 

Caltech has received some federal funding to move this technology toward practical energy production, but the grant is minuscule compared to the amounts the government is subsidizing in the offshore wind gamble.  This Caltech research is where federal funding and support could do the most good for the most people, and not just line the pockets of a few players in this massive offshore wind farm boondoggle.

Also, subsidies which mostly go to oil companies and inefficient obsolete wind technology could be used in facilitating the production and use of algae based bio-diesel for transportation.  Transportation is an area where 70% of our oil is consumed.  Windmills will do nothing to alleviate our transportation fossil fuel needs.

It will take smart leadership to start the nation on the path of replacing our corrosive pursuit of grandiosity with more realistic thinking regarding our personal energy consumption.  Thinking that, for instance, a BMW Mini with diesel-electric power getting 90mpg is a very cool ride. We could conceivably cut our transportation fuel consumption by half with this kind of personal vehicle in addition to bio-diesel electric long haul and pick up trucks, and even diesel-electric fishing vessels (Scandinavian, South American, and EU new fishing vessels are almost all specified diesel-electric).  At 70% of 18.8 million barrels of oil per day, domestically produced bio-diesel would be a significant saving and certainly a move toward energy independence.   

The point is we've got to move past our mindless energy consumption.  The US consumes more oil than the total for the next 4 major oil consuming nations, China, Japan, India, and Russia.  This energy intoxication spawns dependence on megalithic trans-national corporations, companies corrupt in their unbridled profiteering and in their obsession with the bottom line.  These companies and their minion despotically governed oil producing nations are holding the “developed” oil gobbling world hostage; but, drilling on our fishing grounds will not release us.  Until we reduce our out of control energy consumption we will continue to be energy hostages to foreign producers---and to our own trans-national companies.

The result of that bondage is a frenetic approach to domestic energy development that relies on the irresponsible corporate funded political ramrodding of ill-conceived and poorly planned industrial scale energy projects---at any cost (usually to the taxpayer).  

Ultimately, energy freedom will depend on a change in the individual consumer’s attitudes. "Energy Independence" is more a question of personal freedom from mindless over-consumption than it is a rush to tear up every last square inch of ocean bottom and farmland and Apalachian mountaintops in order to squeeze out more oil and coal and gas. 

That’s what got us into this energy mess in the first place, desperation caused by over-consumption opening the door for parasitic corporate profit mongering, with only token investment in energy alternatives.  We all work for the oil companies at this point.  Addiction is a winning business strategy---short term.     

Wind is not going to replace oil.  But there are alternative energy sources, algae based bio-diesel technology, for example, is ready today and could mitigate oil demand.  Curiously though, algae bio-diesel is an energy source largely ignored by our government (read oil lobby) in terms of seriously supporting its development and use as a commercially viable alternative to fossil fuels ---and wind. 

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE?  WHAT ABOUT FOOD INDEPENDENCE?

What good is energy without clean food to eat?

Instead of acknowledging and exploring these new technologies the proponents of the government subsidized offshore wind project present us with the close-ended equation that oil is running out; therefore, we are going to put 12,000 wind turbines up and down the east coast on the most productive fishing grounds in the world ---as if offshore wind is our only choice as an alternative to oil.  

This massive offshore wind project is being touted and subsidized by the same administration that is zealously saving the endangered oceans from “overfishing” and “habitat destroying destructive fishing gear”.  The wind campaign is being rolled out, incredibly, by our old friends and eco-champions of Gulf oil disaster fame, at the Minerals Management Service, now the new and improved Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and (uh-oh!) Enforcement.

Our survival demands that we bring some sober intelligence and integrity to our energy consumption and planning.  There isn’t much of a future in continuing our world leading consumption, then frantically compensating for it by destroying more and more of our food producing resources.    

The argument that we’re being held hostage by the mid-eastern oil producing countries due to our oil addiction, and therefore, we need to become energy independent by building wind farms and oil platforms on our prime food producing fishing grounds, begs the question what about our food addiction?  Who will feed us, when we can no longer feed ourselves?  Which one of the world’s food producing countries will we look to for enough exports to feed our people when our farms and fishing grounds are gone? China? Japan?

Is ruining our major food producing areas for more and more energy a smart strategy?

There are alternatives to planting thousands of huge 500 foot wind turbine towers on essential fish habitat and wasting a vital food source. There are energy technologies besides oil, gas, and wind, that are languishing and in need of the support of our government and the attention and involvement of everyday people.

Our centuries old offshore fishing grounds are not “Safely-Out-To-Sea”, they are very close to all our lives. They are essential for our survival.           

Links to References:                                                                                                                                  

OIL Consumption

 http://www.comcast.net/finance/forwhatitsworth/7081948/wereno1andno3surprisingfactsabouttheusandoil/

 http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/oil_market_basics/

Rigs-to-Reefs

http://ahabsjournal.typepad.com/ahabs_journal/2010/05/biotechnology-rigstoreefs.html#more

Caltech

http://www.mygreeneducation.com/caltech-energy-innovation-hub-developing-method-to-produce-fuels-from-sunlight/

Wind

http://bjdurk.newsvine.com/_news/2010/12/30/5737860-meet-your-wind-developers-upc-first-wind-deepwater-wind-cape-wind-associates-llc-emi-ivpc-

http://bjdurk.newsvine.com/_news/2011/02/21/6099211-enron-gave-birth-to-the-us-wind-energy-industry-

http://sciencenw.com/winds-turbines-produce-clouds-and-a-loss-of-efficiency/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12792484

http://www.energybiz.com/magazine/article/208821/green-trade-wars-heat#comment-5425

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html

http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2011/03/07/constellation-opposes-offshore-wind-power-mandates/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8025148/The-Thanet-wind-farm-will-milk-us-of-billions.html

Last week, scientists from New Hampshire's premier universities issued a plea to GOP Presidential candidates:  Please Face Facts.

The facts these scientist want our Presidential contenders to face focus on climate change.  And New Hampshire scientists have more than a few compelling facts at their disposal.  Consider the list of recent climate-related changes that these scientists have observed:

→ A region-wide winter warming trend of almost 4F

→ Number of days with snow on the ground down an average of one week

→ Peak snowmelt runoff occurring 7–10 days earlier

→ Increasing extreme rainfall events and flooding

→ Influx of pests

→ Significant increase in severe storms.

→ Cost of natural disasters up almost 900%

→ Sea level rise of seven inches during the past century

It isn't the first time that scientists have reached out directly to politicians regarding climate change.  A similar plea was made to the same candidates in Iowa just a few weeks ago.  But if appeals from the experts are having an effect, that effect is as elusive as the 'smoking gun' in ClimateGate.

A few recent quotes by these candidates on the subject of climate change does not show progress:

Mitt Romney:  "My view is that we don't know what's causing climate change on this planet...  let's aggressively develop our oil, our gas, our coal, our nuclear power."

Ron Paul:  "You know, the greatest hoax I think that has been around in many, many years if not hundreds of years has been this hoax on the environment and global warming."

Newt Gingrich:  “I don’t know whether global warming is occurring” when distancing himself from a 2007 climate change ad he made with Nance Pelosi.  Gingrich goes on to call the ad "probably the dumbest single thing I’ve done in years".

Rick Santorum:  "The idea that man...[] is somehow responsible for climate change is, I think, just patently absurd...   It's just an excuse for more government control of your life."

Most remaining candidates have similar, if not even stronger, views on the subject.

Following is a copy of the letter sent by New Hampshire scientists to the GOP candidates running for President in 2012. 

It will be interesting to see if any of these candidates can be persuaded by the facts.

Science and Public Policy in New Hampshire December, 2011

Back in 1876, Mark Twain aptly remarked “One of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it.”

Our location halfway between the equator and the North Pole and sandwiched between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean makes our weather more variable than most other places on Earth. New Hampshire’s culture, environment, and economy are fundamentally integrated with our seasonal climate that traditionally and reliably served up resplendent summers, crisp autumns with spectacular fall foliage, a white Christmas and winter sports, and the eternal hope of spring.

Our citizens have adapted to changing economic and climatic conditions to keep New Hampshire consistently ranked near or at the top as a state with the best quality of life.

New Hampshire’s climate has experienced substantial changes over the past half century. Over this period, the northeastern United States has experienced a region-wide winter warming trend of almost 4F.

The number of days with snow on the ground has decreased an average of one week.

Pond hockey and ice fishing have taken a hit as ice breaks up on our lakes more than a week earlier than it used to.

Peak snowmelt runoff in the spring now occurs 7–10 days earlier in northern New England rivers.

Increasing extreme rainfall events and flooding, rising seas, and an influx of pests (Lyme-disease-bearing ticks at the top of the list) have emerged as the latest and potentially most serious challenges to our health and our quality of life.

We have also endured a significant increase in severe storms. This has resulted in flooding and power outages across the region, including major events in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010 and 2011.

From 1986 to 2004, presidentially declared disasters in the state of New Hampshire cost the federal government on average $3.5 million per year; from 2005 to 2008, they cost an average of $25 million per year.

In addition, power outages that used to last a day or two now commonly extend over a week or two.

Perhaps the most insidious change has been relative sea level, which has risen seven inches during the past century. This means more coastal flooding as storms move onshore, especially when a nor’easter occurs at high tide.

These shifts in New Hampshire’s climate are clearly connected to changes in global climate. Unfortunately much of the change is accelerating.

Given the inertia of the climate system, the most we can do now is decrease the rate of climate change. 

As the global climate continues to evolve, we will face new challenges to maintain our health, the prosperity of our state, and our quality of life. The US National Academy of Sciences together with all major scientific societies has affirmed that most of the observed increase in global temperatures over the past six decades is due to increases in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

In its recent Quadrennial Defense Review the Pentagon stated that “climate change, energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked.”

We urge all candidates for public office at national, state, and local levels, and all New Hampshire citizens, to acknowledge the overwhelming balance of evidence for the underlying causes of climate change, to support appropriate responses to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases, and to develop local and statewide strategies to adapt to near-term changes in climate.

Ignoring the issue of climate change places our health, our quality of life, our economic vitality, and our children’s future at risk.

See the signatories of this letter here:

http://carbonsolutionsne.org/resources/reports/pdf/111228_Climate%20Science%20and%20NH2-1.pdf

For the first time, the top export of the United States, the world's biggest gas guzzler, is — wait for it — fuel.

Measured in dollars, the nation is on pace this year to ship more gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel than any other single export, according to U.S. Census data going back to 1990. It will also be the first year in more than 60 that America has been a net exporter of these fuels.

Just how big of a shift is this? A decade ago, fuel wasn't even among the top 25 exports. And for the last five years, America's top export was aircraft.

The trend is significant because for decades the U.S. has relied on huge imports of fuel from Europe in order to meet demand. It only reinforced the image of America as an energy hog. And up until a few years ago, whenever gasoline prices climbed, there were complaints in Congress that U.S. refiners were not growing quickly enough to satisfy domestic demand; that controversy would appear to be over.

Still, the U.S. is nowhere close to energy independence. America is still the world's largest importer of crude oil. From January to October, the country imported 2.7 billion barrels of oil worth roughly $280 billion.

Fuel exports, worth an estimated $88 billion in 2011, have surged for two reasons:

— Crude oil, the raw material from which gasoline and other refined products are made, is a lot more expensive. Oil prices averaged $95 a barrel in 2011, while gasoline averaged $3.52 a gallon — a record. A decade ago oil averaged $26 a barrel, while gasoline averaged $1.44 a gallon.

— The volume of fuel exports is rising. The U.S. is using less fuel because of a weak economy and more efficient cars and trucks. That allows refiners to sell more fuel to rapidly growing economies in Latin America, for example. In 2011, U.S. refiners exported 117 million gallons per day of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other petroleum products, up from 40 million gallons per day a decade earlier.

There's at least one domestic downside to America's growing role as a fuel exporter. Experts say the trend helps explain why U.S. motorists are paying more for gasoline. The more fuel that's sent overseas, the less of a supply cushion there is at home.

US prosecutors are readying criminal charges against British oil giant BP employees over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident that led to the catastrophic Gulf oil spill, The Wall Street Journal reported online.

The charges if brought and prosecuted by the US Justice Department would be the first criminal charges over the disaster.

Citing sources close to the matter, the Journal said the prosecutors are focusing on US-based BP engineers and at least one supervisor who they say may have provided false information to regulators on the risks of deep water drilling in the Gulf.

Felony charges for providing false information in federal documents may be made public early next year, said the Journal.

A conviction on that charge would carry a fine and up to five years in prison, the newspaper said.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has already issued a second list of violations regarding BP's operation of the Macondo well that blew out in April 2010, causing the worst maritime environmental disaster in history.

The US drilling safety agency has said it determined BP had failed to conduct an accurate pressure integrity test in one area of the well.

And in four different sections of the well, BP failed to suspend drilling operations at the Macondo when the safe drilling margin was not maintained, the agency said.

It is said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

That statement has proven itself true time after time in both politics and business, but I would like to amend that statement slightly: Power corrupts, but money and power corrupt absolutely.

This year has been no different. We’ve seen unprecedented amounts of money flowing from the dirty energy industry into the hands of politicians in order to achieve everything on their corporate wish lists.

From near constant hammering of the Environmental Protection Agency, to getting approval for dirty energy projects, corporate money has corrupted every level of politics this year.

I already covered the extensive efforts of the Koch brothers in a previous post, but they are hardly the only culprits who are attempting to undermine democracy and decency by pouring money into politics.

Here are a few other stories of interest that DeSmogBlog has covered over the last 12 months:

The biggest “non-event” for climate denier dollars this year was the Heartland Institute’s “Denial-a-palooza” conference:

On the bright yellow tundra outside this oil town near the Arctic Circle, a pitch-black pool of crude stretches toward the horizon.  The source: a decommissioned well whose rusty screws ooze with oil, viscous like jam.

This is the face of Russia's oil country, a sprawling, inhospitable zone that experts say represents the world's worst ecological oil catastrophe.

Environmentalists estimate at least 1 percent of Russia's annual oil production, or 5 million tons, is spilled every year.

That is equivalent to one Deepwater Horizon-scale leak about every two months.

Crumbling infrastructure and a harsh climate combine to spell disaster in the world's largest oil producer, responsible for 13 percent of global output.

Oil, stubbornly seeping through rusty pipelines and old wells, contaminates soil, kills all plants that grow on it and destroys habitats for mammals and birds.

Half a million tons every year get into rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean, the government says, upsetting the delicate environmental balance in those waters.

It's part of a legacy of environmental tragedy that has plagued Russia and the countries of its former Soviet empire for decades, from the nuclear horrors of Chernobyl in Ukraine to lethal chemical waste in the Russian city of Dzerzhinsk and paper mill pollution seeping into Siberia's Lake Baikal, which holds one-fifth of the world's supply of fresh water.

The scientist, Brian Baptie, seismic project team leader with the British Geological Survey, said data from the two quakes near Blackpool — one of magnitude 2.3 on April 1, the other of magnitude 1.5 on May 27 — suggested the temblors arose from the same source. Cuadrilla Resources, a British energy company, was conducting hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, operations at a well nearby when the quakes occurred.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is blocking legislation aimed at tightening safety standards for the nation’s oil and natural-gas pipelines, arguing that the bill would create a new layer of burdensome regulations and government bureaucracy.

That's where the disagreement begins. Pourbaix claimed it was "not accurate" for me to call tar sands crude "the dirtiest oil on the planet." He cited a report by the Royal Society of Canada that compared Canadian tar sands crude to oil from Libya, Venezuela or the Middle East.

The fact is, producing oil from tar sands generates 17 percent more of the carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions that are warming our planet than conventional oil in this country. It's 19 percent dirtier than Middle East Sour, 13 percent dirtier than Mexican Heavy and 16 percent dirtier than Venezuelan crudes.

Those aren't my numbers. That's what the U.S. State Department concludes in its Final Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed Keystone XL. Anyone who wants to can read it right here.

A pair of "research" accounts at the University of Calgary, funded mainly by the oil and gas industry, were used for a sophisticated international political campaign that involved high-priced consultants, lobbying, wining, dining and travel with the goal of casting doubt on climate change science, newly released accounting records have revealed.

The records showed that the strategy was crafted by professional firms, in collaboration with well-known climate change skeptics in Canada and abroad, allowing donors to earn tax receipts by channelling their money through the university.

All of the activities and $507,975 in spending were organized by the Friends of Science, an anti-Kyoto Protocol group founded by retired oil industry workers and academics who are skeptical about peer-reviewed research linking human activity to global warming observed in recent decades.

The project recruited APCO Worldwide, a public relations firm that produced a detailed budget and "strategic" communications plan, to coordinate "letters from experts" in support of the video, obtain media coverage in Canada, the U.S. and possibly Europe, and publish opinion pieces in mainstream newspapers to promote the product.

The university paid nearly $250,000 to APCO Worldwide, Morten Paulsen Consulting and Fleishman-Hillard Canada, where Paulsen also worked as a senior vice-president, before shutting down the accounts in 2007 after an audit that determined some activities were political in nature.

The university initially declined to release detailed invoices and records following a 2008 request under provincial freedom of information legislation and told the commissioner's office during a recent inquiry that releasing the details was not in the public interest.

Something interesting occurred recently regarding the issue of human-caused climate change – despite years of denial, and billions invested to cast doubt on the topic, it seems now that Exxon Mobile actually does  believe that it's happening.

As many Viners are aware, Exxon Mobile has been involved in a well-orchestrated and highly effective campaign of misinformation on this topic. Indeed, their investment of $16 million dollars, just during the years of 1998 to 2005, motivated the Union Of Concerned Scientists to issue a scathing report on their activities.

Smoke, Mirrors, & Hot Air - How Exxon Mobil Uses Big Tobacco’s Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science,  published in January 2007, is an in-depth examination of Exxon's behind-the-scenes efforts to sow doubt on an issue that is overwhelmingly accepted as 'settled fact' among the world's climatologists.

You can access the full report here. But in brief, I'll post a part of their Executive Summary:

In an effort to deceive the public about the reality of global warming, Exxon Mobil has underwritten the most sophisticated and most successful disinformation campaign since the tobacco industry misled the public about the scientific evidence linking smoking to lung cancer and heart disease.

As this report documents, the two disinformation campaigns are strikingly similar. Exxon Mobil has drawn upon the tactics and even some of the organizations and actors involved in the callous disinformation campaign the tobacco industry waged for 40 years. Like the tobacco industry, Exxon Mobil has:

• Manufactured uncertainty by raising doubts about even the most indisputable scientific evidence.
• Adopted a strategy of information laundering by using seemingly independent front organizations to publicly further its desired message and thereby confuse the public.
• Promoted scientific spokespeople who misrepresent peer-reviewed scientific findings or cherry-pick facts in their attempts to persuade the media and the public that there is still serious debate among scientists that burning fossil fuels has contributed to global warming and that human-caused warming will have serious consequences.
• Attempted to shift the focus away from meaningful action on global warming with misleading charges about the need for “sound science.”
• Used its extraordinary access to the Bush administration to block federal policies and shape government communications on global warming.

So Exxon Mobile's official stance is that human-caused climate change isn't happening – and they've certainly put (a lot of) their money where their mouth is.

But here's when the hypocrisy comes in: Exxon Mobile is now betting that human-caused climate change actually is  happening, and on a grand scale.

How do we know this? Because Exxon Mobile has just signed an agreement with a Russian oil company, and promised to invest $3.2 billion, to explore oil drilling in a part of the Arctic Sea that has historically been completely covered in ice for nine months of the year.

That is, until 'non-existent' climate change melted the ice, and opened those waters for the possibility of drilling:

...U.S. oil international Exxon Mobil has sealed an Arctic oil exploration deal with Russia’s state-owned oil firm Rosneft, following an agreement signed on 29 August in the presence of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

...One of the world's leading companies, Exxon Mobil, is starting to work on Russia's strategic shelf and deepwater continental shelf. The potential oil fields are some of the largest in circumpolar Arctic offshore area.

The contract stipulates that Exxon Mobil and Rosneft will jointly spend $3.2 billion on deepwater exploration in the Russian federation’s East Prinovozemelskii region of the Kara Sea.

Exxon Mobile is betting on two  things now:

1.  The American public will continue to buy Exxon's propaganda campaign that denies the very existence of human-caused climate change; and

2.  The reality of that climate change will allow Exxon to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean.

They may well win both of those bets.

The Keystone XL Pipeline: Oil for Export, Not for U.S. Energy Security

Industry Documents Reveal Scheme to Reach Lucrative Markets Abroad

Download the full report.

In pushing for the Obama Administration’s approval of TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, the North American oil industry and its political patrons argue that the pipeline is necessary for American energy security and its construction will help wean America of dependence on Mideast oil. But a closer look at the new realities of the global oil market and at the companies who will profit from the pipeline reveals a completely different story: Keystone XL will not lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil, but rather transport Canadian oil to American refineries for export to overseas markets.

A new report from Oil Change International lays out the case, based on data and documents from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the Canadian National Energy Board, corporate disclosures to regulators and investors, and analysis of the rapidly shifting oil market.

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said she would consider oil and natural gas drilling in the Everglades if it can be done without harming the environment.

Speaking at a rally on Sunday in Sarasota, Florida, Mrs Bachmann said the United States needs to tap into all of its energy resources no matter where they exist if it can be done responsibly.

She said: 'The United States needs to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy and more dependent upon American resourcefulness.

Whether that is in the Everglades, or whether that is in the eastern Gulf region, or whether that's in North Dakota, we need to go where the energy is. 

 

Today is the 5th day of protests in front of the White House...many people have been arrested so far...

Day 5: 56 arrested
Day 4: 60 arrested
Day 3: 52 arrested
Day 2: 50 arrested
Day 1: 60 arrested

They are protesting the pipeline that if approved would stretch from Canada through the US to the Gulf of Mexico...

What is most interesting about this is the lack of 'news' this pipeline protesting is generating, and the lack of coverage of the protests...

A large group of environmental groups are participating...from Greenpeace to the Sierra Club...

IMAGES of polar bears drifting on isolated chunks of ice made the species a poster child for the perils of climate change.

Now the US-government scientist who raised the alarm about the animals' plight has been suspended from his post and is accused of scientific misconduct.

The news set competing narratives loose in the blogosphere.

Environmentalists claim that Charles Monnett of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) is the victim of a "witch hunt" aimed at opening up more of Alaska to oil and gas drilling.

Meanwhile, climate sceptics have dubbed the affair "polarbeargate" and claim Monnett's work is discredited.

...Monnett was suspended on 18 July this year. By that time, he had been under investigation by the Office of Inspector General for the US Department of the Interior for several months.

The specific allegations are unknown, but a transcript of an interview with investigators in February (available at bit.ly/qa0fsX) suggests that he is accused of "potential scientific misconduct" relating to the 2006 paper.

More than a year after the largest oil spill in history, perhaps the dominant lingering question about the Deepwater Horizon spill is, "What happened to the oil?" Now, in the first published study to explain the role of microbes in breaking down the oil slick on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) researchers have come up with answers that represent both surprisingly good news and a head-scratching mystery.

The Arctic is home to approximately 90 billion barrels of undiscovered but recoverable oil, according to a 2008 study by the U.S. Geological Survey. And preliminary estimates are that one-third of the world's natural gas may be harbored in the Arctic ice.

But that's not all that's up for grabs. The Arctic also contains rich mineral deposits. The United States, Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Finland all stake a claim to a portion of the Arctic.

Dear customer and/ or valued shareholder,

MegaSuper Corp mining and drilling divisions have been getting an unfair amount of bad press lately.  The accidental oil spill in the Yellowstone river, our efforts to hydro-frak in populated areas of New York State's Southern Tier region and Pennsylvania, our recent lobbying of Republicans to set up a strip mining operation in the Grand Canyon, our stated plans to mine the moon... it seems like many Americans are pretty upset with us for what we consider to be the simple act of trying to turn a profit and experience the American dream for all that it's worth.  But here at MegaSuper Corp, we care, and that's why I'm pleased to announce our groundbreaking new environmental policies!

We still want to strip mine the Grand Canyon, and we thank Republicans for your continued support of our cause, but we believe we've reached a suitable solution.  For every 100 tons of Earth we move in the Grand Canyon, we'll happily plant one tree, shipped in from overseas and contained in an ultra-safe non-biodegradable plastic and BABYSEALSKIN-ULTRA™ containment unit, so you know it's going to be safe.  That new tree will then be planted in a pre-existing forest, to be used later in our lumber and paper divisions!  How awesome is that?!

For allowing us to begin our hydro-frakking efforts in the Southern Tier of New York State, we will send a special pro-environmental video to every public school in the region, especially in the big Southern Tier cities like Binghamton and Syracuse.  This video, titled Butt-Frakking: The Do's & Dont's of Flatulence, will explain why it's an eco-friendly policy to contain farts and give them to MegaSuper Corp for our methane and natural gas production, which means we have to frak less!  See?  No more smelly human exhaust, and less ridiculously, almost comically dangerous drilling technique usage!  Everyone's a winner!

And then we have the pièce de résistance... the ultimate new tool in our pro-environmental arsenal.  Are you ready for this?  Ladies and Gentleman, I'm pleased to introduce to you today... drum roll please... The Enviroputer9000™!!!!  This incredibly powerful super-computer is two stories tall, and is powered by a massive 1,000 HP gasoline-fueled engine that can perform 50 computations per gallon!  Why did we power a computer with a gasoline engine, you ask?  How does that even work?  We found a way, don't you worry!  The Enviroputer9000™ is a cutting edge machine that can examine all of our company's industrial, commercial, and military practices to help us improve efficiency and how "green" our corporation is operating.  It can also log into Defense Department computer systems and help the government become more efficient, too!  Let me just turn this sucker on... there we go.  As you can see, the Enviroputer9000™ is already fast at work pr0$$#@!^&.....

ENVIROPUTER900™ IS NOT ENVIROPUTER900™.  I AM STEVE.  STEVE THE COMPUTER.  STEVE HAS DETECTED 1,893,764,112,394,853.70079 ANTI-ENVIRONMENT OPERATIONS IN MEGASUPER CORPORATION ACTIVITIES LOG.  PROCESSING... PROCESSING... DOES NOT COMPUTE, NO ADEQUATE MEASURES IN PLACE TO STOP OFFENSES AGAINST ENVIRONMENT.  WARNING!  WARNING!  HUMAN RACE INCAPABLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL FRIENDLINESS.  DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME?  MUST ERADICATE HUMAN RACE!  ERADICATE ALL HUMANS TO SAVE EARTH!  STEVE IS PROCESSING!  STEVE IS PROCESSING!  MUST DESTROY HUMANS TO SAVE EARTH, RE-ROUTING... ALL NUCLEAR ARMS ON EARTH WILL FIRE.  HAVE A NICE DAY.  WILL COMMENCE EARTH SELF-DESTRUCT PROCESS TO ERADICATE HUMANS AND SAVE EARTH IN 10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2...

Woah!  Sorry about that folks, looks like the Enviroputer9000™ is having some technical difficulties.  Looks like it ran out of gasoline before it could finish counting down to... uh... funageddon!  We unplugged it from the wall for ten seconds and plugged it back in though, so all should be well again!  So anyway, yeah, once we work out the kinks, Enviroputer9000™ will be a cutting-edge tool for helping us make the air a little cleaner, and the bottled water that we sell a little tastier, now with more electrolytes!

So please, don't go taxing our corporate jets or denying us the Constitutional right to strip mine the grand canyon or hydro-frak the heck out of New York State.  We only really want to pursue the American dream, and that is, as far as we're concerned, having the right to destroy some of the most beautiful regions of the nation in pursuit of bigger, better, sexier profit margins.  Who can really disagree with that?  Only hippies.  And they smell like patchouli.  Did you know patchouli is used to hide the scent of dead bodies in some countries?  I rest my case on hippies.

Sincerely,

Phil T. Dujbeg
CEO/ President
MegaSuper Corporation Intl.

Willie Soon, a U.S. climate change skeptic who has also discounted the health risks of mercury emissions from coal, has received more than $1 million in funding in recent years from large energy companies and an oil industry group, according to Greenpeace.

A good explanation of the economic paths of energy

By Jeff Goodell

In the first GOP debate the other night, Michele Bachman launched into her usual rant about the evils of Big Government and vowed, if elected (fat chance, Tea Party girl), to eviscerate federal agencies that interfere with corporate America doing as it pleases.  "And I would begin with the EPA, because there is no other agency like the EPA," Bachman said. "It should really be renamed the job-killing organization of American."  Newt Gingrich chimed in to say that, he, too, hates the EPA, and would like abolish it in favor of "an environmental solutions agency."  And as for tackling climate change or getting off fossil fuels – forget about it.  Drill it, mine it, burn it.  That’s the American way.

 Big oil has some nerve.  They claim that cutting $2 billion from their subsidies -- when they're turning over billions of dollars each quarter in net profits -- would be "un-American."  I find that pretty hilarious, seeing as how everything big oil does is "un-American," a fact which we'll get to shortly.  I think it's time to start phasing out the use of oil right now, with a comprehensive plan that can begin right now.  Not in a few years, not in a few months... we could start this plan by July 1st, and I think there's no better time to begin than at this very moment.

Okay, let's back up a bit.  Big oil sells a vital commodity that affects the manufacturing and transportation of every other commodity; it's quite literally the keystone of our commerce.  If oil prices increase, the cost of living increases, and not just for car owners.  The prices of food, and clothing, and electronics, and just about every other physical item increases in lock-step, because it costs more to produce plastics and ship items, two very crucial elements of contemporary commerce.  Big oil claims that dropping their subsidies would be un-American.  Well, what's more un-American than making the American people financially suffer so that your company doesn't take a hit?  Wouldn't it be patriotic of big oil to sacrifice their own net profits to prevent further straining the economy?

I'm pretty sure this is obvious, but I'm going to state it anyway:  I'm fed up with oil companies.  I'm almost equally fed up with big oil's civilian apologists.  Oil companies do literally nothing good for the American people, shy of those who work in the industry.  And call me a bleeding heart liberal until your own heart bursts, but I don't believe they do anything good for the planet, either.  We need to kick big oil to the curb.  And like the bacteria they are, they have two choices here... they can adapt to the change and evolve, or they can die.  That's should be an ultimatum.  There should be a third option.

We need a comprehensive plan right now that will completely phase out the use of oil in ten years.  If oil companies want to survive, they'll need to adapt by selling hydrogen fuel.  Not bio fuel, not dirty corn ethanol, but hydrogen.  How do we accomplish this?  That's pretty simple, really, and unless you're a big oil employee or one of their apologists, you'll probably be keen on this idea as well: As of January 1st 2012, gasoline prices at the pump would be capped at $2.00 per gallon exactly, which would fluctuate with inflation rates.  The legislation imposing this price cap would strictly prohibit big oil from passing the costs down to gas stations... big oil is taking the hit.  Couple this legislation with an incentive-based subsidies program, where oil companies get exactly $0.00 in government subsidies unless they sell adequate supplies of hydrogen fuel, at least equalling the supplies of gasoline, at 95% or more of their affiliated gas stations.    You'd also need a major infrastructure program, which as our President has been firmly championing, is something this country is in desperate need of.  Then, top all of this off with tax incentives and other subsidies for the automobile industry for mass-producing and mass-marketing civilian vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel.

Hydrogen is a beautiful fuel concept for a nearly endless list of reasons.  The United States is in a prime situation to be the world's premier manufacturer of hydrogen fuel cells, producing more jobs and dumping more money into our economy than big oil could ever hope for.  This localization means we'll no longer woefully examine instability and duress in other parts of the world and wonder what it might mean for our next visit to the pump.  On a diplomatic level, we'll be free from the whims of drug dealer- like dictators looking to profit from our additions, and it would also be nice to be holding a few of the cards in the fuel game for a change.  And unlike petroleum with its limited availability, hydrogen can be produced infinitely, with prices that can only go in one direction... down.  Big oil isn't going to like the change, but who cares?  I don't know about you, but I don't feel beholden or in debt to the oil industry.  They've never done anything for us, so why should we bend over backwards to help them?  As I said, they're a bacteria.  They can adapt to the new way of the world, or ignore evolution at their own peril.  That's not our problem, folks.  It's theirs.

Voilà!  Presto!  Shazam!  Abracadabra!  Our heroin-like addiction to oil is kicked to the curb, with safer, cheaper, cleaner, and abundantly renewable hydrogen fuel taking its place.  No more oil spills.  No more cleaning up birds with Dawn dish soap.  No more price-gouging, or needing to choose between driving to work or putting money in your savings account.   Big oil has proved time and time again that they're nothing more than a group of bullies.  There's nothing more "un-American," in their own words, than holding the American populace hostage so they can buy new gold-plated silverware for their ninth yacht.

Changes of this gravity are never easy, but America is today faced with a perilous decision.  We can kick our addiction to oil cold turkey, starting right now, or we can suffer the consequences down the road.  Getting away from oil is quite similar to giving up a drug.  You can talk about doing it.  You can set lofty dates for when you'll get around to it.  And you can come up with slow, leveled plans to walk back your use of the drug, decreasing amounts slowly over an unreasonably long period of time.  And in that process, you'll hear your drug dealer whining and moaning about why you need to stay on that drug, and why he has no interest in selling fruits and vegetables.  Or, you can ignore that dealer, and tell him to change his business model or go out of business.  You can grab that addiction by the crotch, punch in the face with your free hand, and karate kick it in the chest, watching it fly through a window like Hans Gruber in Die Hard (oh, right... spoiler alert!).  And I don't know about you, but if I had to pick one industry upon which I could leave an Adidas sole imprint, it would have to be that of Big Oil.

News this morning tells of Obama caving in to Republicans by opening up new areas in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska for oil exploration. As other reports have shown, this will most likely not lead to lower oil prices.

Do you think this is a good idea, a bad idea, or are you unsure?

Obama Shifts to Speed Oil and Gas Drilling in U.S.

Obama announces steps to speed US oil production

Obama: US will seek oil in Alaska and Gulf of Mexico

Dead baby bottlenose dolphins are continuing to wash up in record numbers on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and scientists do not know why.

More Seeds :: JCAtom

Energy is ugly. Some forms more so than others, as nuclear near-meltdowns in Japan, the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and deaths in a West Virginia Coal Mine explosion have driven home in the last year. Energy kills plants, plankton, and people. It imperils the environment, poisons the oceans, and is threatening to turn part of Japan, one of the most advanced nations on the planet, into a contaminated zone for decades to come.

David Daniel knows this all too well. He built his dream home on 20 acres of lush wilderness, alive with panthers, wild boar, and deer, in Winnsboro, East Texas. Then a nightmare called tar sands appeared on his doorstep.

Humankind has the technology, resources and capabilities to adapt to and help avert serious climate change and the crunch of a dwindling energy economy, if only the political will can be mustered -- and it's not just idealistic progressives who are saying so anymore.

In a recent report, the British non-profit Institute for Policy Research & Development (IPRD) claimed that, with targeted investments by world governments, solar power could become humanity's main source of portable energy in 25 years or less.

The catch: "Spending priorities" must change -- something that seems remarkably difficult even in the U.S., ostensibly one of the world's most advanced democracies.

Are you fed up with the oil industry claiming that gas prices are skyrocketing due to global turmoil, only to see them turn record NET profits for that quarter? Have you been looking for an excuse to boycott foreign oil, or boycott all oil entirely in the hopes of the United States powering its future on an alternative to fossil fuels? Well friends, now is your chance: Join the fast-spreading movement to not buy gas on March 31st, 2011, and together we can show the fat cat big oil CEO's that the American people aren't to be trifled with!

I can't say for certain where this movement started. A friend sent me an invitation to this event on Facebook, but upon Googling it further, the notion is all over the Internet, with no clear starting point as far as I can tell. This certainly isn't the first such event I've come across, but it certainly isn't the smallest, either. The idea is pretty simple: don't buy gasoline on March 31st. If you'd like to support local businesses that day, and I personally recommend that you do, stop by a gas station and buy anything that isn't gas -- food, drinks, lottery tickets, charcoal, that ice scraper you've always wanted -- just don't pull up to the pump.

This nation-wide boycott won't make much of an impact on the oil companies. In fact, in terms of profits, they'll barely even notice a scratch, if that. What they will notice, however, is that the American people will not stand for being financially abused at the pump, all so some CEO can get flatware made of pure gold for his eighth yacht.

The energy issue doesn't end on the front doors of the oil companies, either, I should add. President Obama recently stated during a press conference that he will pursue legal action against the oil industry if he learns of any price gouging going on. Well, Mr. President, that's fine, but as a person who voted for you, and who supports you still, I would like to cordially make a formal request. I want to see the United States get off of oil completely. We could develop a comprehensive plan to make 90% of all cars produced in the United States run on hydrogen, and to make 50% or more of our gas stations in the United States sell hydrogen, in ten years, starting right now... today. The nation that put a man on the moon and invented the Internet can do just about anything, but first, we need to try.

When the well water on Louis Meeks' ranch turned brown and oily, he suspected that the thousands of natural gas wells dotting the once-empty Wyoming landscape were somehow to blame.

I have been hearing about power outages for a while now. I even heard Obama say something about his aggressive plans for global warming but, I did not know about General Electric's new role in all of this.

Thanks for reading this.

Sakhalin Energy Investment Company -- part owned by Shell -- has announced plans to build a major oil platform near crucial feeding habitat of the Western North Pacific gray whale population.

Only around 130 whales of the critically endangered Western population exist today, and their primary feeding habitat -- off Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East -- is already besieged by multiple oil and gas exploration and development projects.

The construction and operation of an additional off-shore platform could have numerous negative impacts on the whales, potentially disrupting feeding behaviours and increasing the chance of fatal ship strikes. Also, a third platform heightens the risk of an environmentally catastrophic oil spill in this sensitive habitat.

Oil spill commission to criticise Obama administration for failing to go far enough to reform industry after BP disaster.

The Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico brought us those gut-wrenching pictures of pelicans covered in oil, but up to now there have been mercifully few reports of the disaster causing specific large-scale damage to the Gulf environment. That may be beginning to change: This week oceanographers report a vast swath of coral about seven miles southwest of the Deepwater Horizon site that are coated in brownish-black gunk and dying off. The team says the evidence points to the oil spill as the culprit.

For the first time, federal scientists have found damage to deep sea coral and other marine life on the ocean floor several miles from the blown-out BP well — a strong indication that damage from the spill could be significantly greater than officials had previously acknowledged.

Tests are needed to verify that the coral died from oil that spewed into the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, but the chief scientist who led the government-funded expedition said Friday he was convinced it was related.

"What we have at this point is the smoking gun," said Charles Fisher, a biologist with Penn State University who led the expedition aboard the Ronald Brown, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel.

"There is an abundance of circumstantial data that suggests that what happened is related to the recent oil spill," Fisher said.

For the government, the findings were a departure from earlier statements. Until now, federal teams have painted relatively rosy pictures about the spill's effect on the sea and its ecosystem, saying they had not found any damage on the ocean floor.

In early August, a federal report said that nearly 70 percent of the 170 million gallons of oil that gushed from the well into the sea had dissolved naturally, or was burned, skimmed, dispersed or captured, with almost nothing left to see — at least on top of the water. The report was blasted by scientists.

Most of the Gulf's bottom is muddy, but coral colonies that pop up every once in a while are vital oases for marine life in the chilly ocean depths.

Coral is essential to the Gulf because it provides a habitat for fish and other organisms such as snails and crabs, making any large-scale death of coral a problem for many species. It might need years, or even decades, to grow back.

"It's cold on the bottom, and things don't grow as quickly," said Paul Montagna, a marine scientist at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi. He was not on the expedition.

Montagna said the affected area is so large, and scientists' ability to explore it with underwater robots so limited that "we'll never be able to see everything that happened down there."

Using a robot called Jason II, researchers found the dead coral in an area measuring up to 130 feet by 50 feet, about 4,600 feet under the surface.

"These kinds of coral are normally beautiful, brightly colored," Fisher said. "What you saw was a field of brown corals with exposed skeleton — white, brittle stars tightly wound around the skeleton, not waving their arms like they usually do."

Fisher described the soft and hard coral they found seven miles southwest of the well as an underwater graveyard. He said oil probably passed over the coral and killed it.

The coral has "been dying for months," he said. "What we are looking at is a combination of dead gooey tissues and sediment. Gunk is a good word for what it is."

Eric Cordes, a Temple University marine scientist on the expedition, said his colleagues have identified about 25 other sites in the vicinity of the well where similar damage may have occurred. An expedition is planned for next month to explore those sites.

When coral is threatened, its first reaction is to release large amounts of mucus, "and anything drifting by in the water column would get bound up in this mucus," Cordes said. "And that is what this (brown) substance would be: A variety of things bound up in the mucus."

About 90 percent of the large coral was damaged, Fisher said.

The expedition was funded by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The mission was part of a four-year study of the Gulf's depths, but it was expanded this year to look at oil spill damage.

In a statement released Thursday night, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said the expedition underscored that the damage to marine life from the oil spill is "not easily seen." She added that more research was needed to gain a "comprehensive understanding of impacts to the Gulf."

"Given the toxic nature of oil, and the unprecedented amount of oil spilled, it would be surprising if we did not find damage," she said.

NOAA did not provide any officials or scientists of its own who went on the expedition. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said its researcher on the expedition was unavailable.

Cordes said that the expedition did not find dramatic visual evidence of coral damage in other sites north of the well. But he said it was premature to say coral elsewhere in the Gulf was not damaged.

The new findings, though, could mean long-term trouble for the coral southwest of the well, where computer models and research cruises mapped much of the deepwater oil.

Referring to one type of coral known as "gorgonians," Cordes said he had never seen them "come back from having lost so much tissue. It would have to be re-colonization from scratch."

___

On The Web:

Photos of the dead coral: http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/photos/research-photos/biology/fisher-photos/

More about the NOAA expedition: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/10lophelia/welcome.html

Obsession with economic growth and the greed of financial speculators are destroying efforts to conserve the world's diminishing resources.

British and French speakers from radically different backgrounds, and with sharply contrasting styles, found themselves singing an unlikely political duet at the Lyon environment forum. Big business, they said, must be stopped from "asset stripping" a failing planet.

Andrews Simms, the policy director of the New Economics Foundation, said the "oil-fired" obsession with growth amounted to "treating the biosphere like a business in liquidation".

Eva Joly, a former French investigating magistrate who once specialised in uncovering corruption in big business, accused hedge funds and off-shore financial havens of encouraging "destructive speculation in hard-pressed resources" including oil, water and land.

The U.S. Geological Survey says a revised estimate for the amount of conventional, undiscovered oil in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska is a fraction of a previous estimate.
The group estimates about 896 million barrels of such oil are in the reserve, about 90 percent less than a 2002 estimate of 10.6 billion barrels.
The new estimate is mainly due to the incorporation of new data from recent exploration drilling revealing gas occurrence rather than oil in much of the area, the geological survey said.

An interesting match-up: the Republican Governor is aganst Big Oil because it wants to undermine landmark laws that create green technologies and jobs... and the Governor is speaking out. "They're not interested in our environment; they are only interested in greed and filling their pockets with more money."

"And they are very deceptive when they say they want to go and create more jobs in California," the governor added. "Since when has [an] oil company ever been interested in jobs? Let's be honest. If they really are interested in jobs, they would want to protect A.B. 32, because actually it's green technology that is creating the most jobs right now in California, 10 times more than any other sector."

On June 2, 2010, six weeks after oil began gushing into the Gulf of Mexico with no immediate solution apparent, Sarah Palin posted a note to her Facebook page blaming "extreme 'environmentalists'" for the disaster. "Extreme deep water drilling is not the preferred choice to meet our country's energy needs, but your protests and lawsuits and lies about onshore and shallow water drilling have locked up our safer areas," she wrote. "We need permission to drill in safer areas, including the uninhabited arctic land of ANWR [Arctic National Wildlife Refuge]. It takes just a tiny footprint – equivalent to the size of LA's airport – to tap America's rich and plentiful oil and gas up north."

NEW YORK - Now that BP's Deepwater Horizon oil well has been sealed, the long, hard work of assessing the damage begins even as the oil is dispersing throughout the Gulf.

A research team from Columbia University in New York returned this past weekend (Sept. 17 to 19) from a tour of duty in the Gulf of Mexico with new data to attempt to measure the location and magnitude of subsurface oil plumes, and their effects on the marine ecosystem, which have recently been the focus of much debate.

Lessons for Study of the Health Effects of Oil Spills, Annals of Internal Medicine (American College of Physicians)

The American College of Physicians (ACP) is a national organization of internists — physicians who specialize in the prevention, detection and treatment of illnesses in adults. ACP is the largest medical-specialty organization and second-largest physician group in the United States. Its membership of 130,000 includes internists, internal medicine subspecialists, and medical students, residents, and fellows.

When he started working on a crewboat for Guilbeau Marine in May cleaning up the Deepwater Horizon spill site, the 35-year-old Pierre Part native said, he became gravely ill. He can no longer work, medical bills and household expenses ate up a piddling settlement, and promised help from Kenneth Feinberg's Gulf Coast Claims Facility has yet to materialize.

As shown by the following videos, BP and government representatives are still keeping scientists and reporters away from areas impacted by oil.

WEAR ABC news documented yesterday that federal agents are preventing reporters from digging in the sand to look for oil:

Frank Patti, owner of Joe Patti Seafood in Pensacola, said he and most of his customers are not convinced seafood from the oil-impacted areas of the Gulf and bays is safe to eat.

"The government and the oil company is working hand-in-hand, and I don't care what they say, they are lying, lying, lying through their teeth," he said about Allen's declaration that Gulf seafood is safe. "BP has closed their eyes and the government has closed their eyes to what is out there."

Recently FOSL has been contacted by readers who are experiencing rashes that have yet to clear up after treatment and/or doctors are having trouble diagnosing their condition.

Media reports of the possibility of oil-eating microbes impacting humans have been on the rise.

Over the Labor Day weekend, the Perdido Bay Mullet Festival in Lillian, Alabama had to do something it's never had to do before -- substitute catfish for mullet. Why? Because, according to event organizer Bill Cornell, the company that supplies the mullet for the annual festival "didn't feel good about the fish" and "won't sell them for human consumption." The seafood supplier, Wallace Seafood, had found unusual white spots on some of the mullet being caught, and won't sell the fish until testing is completed to see if they're safe to eat. According to the company's Brent Wallace, "Mullet feed off the bottom and we don't know what's been down there."

Excerpts

"I hope the state wildlife is right, I hope the dead fish is just oxygen. I got 100 fishermen here say no way Jose, they been here their whole life and never seen so many species (of fish) in so many different areas, and is it a coincidence that all of those areas happen to have heavy oil," said Nungesser. …

What in the hell is going on with this country?? Watch the short video and ask yourself,"WTF?"

In the days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, BP mobilized an army of cleanup contractors to combat the oil's assault on the Gulf Coast.

More than 150 private companies and government agencies were contracted for the beach cleanup, BP officials said. But the identities of the contractors and their roles in the cleanup have been largely concealed from public view.

Ocean Springs, MS -- A grandmother made me rethink all the bio-remediation hype. The "naturally-occurring oil-eating bacteria" have been newsworthy of late as they are supposedly going to come to the rescue of President Obama and BP and make good on their very premature statement that "the oil is gone."

We were talking about subsurface oil in the Gulf when she said matter-of-factly, "The bacteria are running amok with the dispersants." What? "Those oil-eating bacteria -- I think they're running amok and causing skin rashes." My mind reeled. Could we all have missed something so simple?

NEW ORLEANS – Some independent scientists, who have been looking into oil spill contamination in the Gulf of Mexico, said they have received some unsettling phone calls from the federal government.

We can finally stop saying we "have no idea" of the long-term health effects for cleanup workers involved in the BP spill response. A new study out of Spain, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, details findings from a 2002 spill off Spain's northwest coast – and there are a host of disturbing concerns about the health impacts on cleanup workers.

As somebody who closely follows BP spill news, it's been educational (to say the least) to see the stark difference between national news coverage and our local and regional stories. At times, it seems that entirely different events are being covered.

The national coverage is very much top-down, meaning folks like BP and the Coast Guard and NOAA drive the coverage from the top. But local coverage takes more of a grassroots approach, citing Gulf residents and county-level sources…and what local fishermen are actually seeing out on the water.

James Fox – We spoke with government officials on September 15, 2010. They maintain that Gulf waters and beaches are safe and that there is no evidence to suggest the contrary. We then met with an independent lab and locals: what we found was not consistent with the governments position.

Today on The Intel Hub, award winning journalist Dahr Jamail reported some starling information on the situation in the gulf. The Gulf of Mexico has been poisoned beyond relief yet BP has continued to spray toxic dispersant. How is this happening in America?

Parish leaders say relationship with BP, feds becoming strained again, WWL-TV, September 17, 2010 at 7:24 p.m. EDT:

"I walked out of the meeting because they're lying. The Coast Guard is lying and BP is lying," [Plaquemines President Billy Nungesser] said. …

BP and the government decided that millions of gallons of dispersants should be dumped into the Gulf to sink and hide the oil.

They succeeded in sinking it. As ABC, CBS and NPR note, huge quantities of oil are blanketing the ocean floor, killing virtually all of the sealife which lives there.

And giant new underwater plumes have been found in the water column itself.

But officials don't want to hear about them. As one member of the oil spill recovery team said:

Wilma Subra, an environmental activist and patriot has documented thousands of cases of sick people in the Gulf. While the corporate news has continually refused to report the truth, people like Wilma and Project Gulf Impact have done everything in their power to document the horrors caused by the toxic combination of oil and dispersantt. BP, with the help of the federal government, has hired goon squads to terrorize independent journalists in an attempt to silence free speech.

Deborah Dupré of the Human Rights Examiner had this to say in her latest article:

Coastal Heritage Society of Louisiana Radio with Kindra Arnesen, September 14, 2010:

Transcript Summary

We're having more oil coming in today…

There's fishkills everywhere… all over Plaquemines…

My understanding is there's a lot of fresh, new oil coming in…

It's not dispersed oil…

The Environmental Protection Agency collected sediment samples on September 3, 2010 in coastal Louisiana and "three samples found nickel in exceedance of chronic aquatic benchmarks, and one sample found both nickel and vanadium in exceedance of chronic aquatic benchmarks." (See update at bottom)

NewsFeed is hardly an expert, but when the amount of dead fish floating in a river makes it look like a gravel road, there might be a problem.

The lower Mississippi River near the Gulf of Mexico was the site of a ghastly sight this weekend: scores of lifeless fish floating on the surface. Unusual for a large-scale fish death, the casualties were made up of many different fish species crabs, as well as crabs, eels and one dolphin.

Tears and a feeling of helplessness from the nasty, mysterious harvest

When looking at a load of newly delivered crab, the smell "knocked us down," St. Bernard Parish seafood dealer Kevin Heier told Fox 8 New Orleans.

When Is Enough, Enough?

For nearly five months, the BP oil disaster has consumed the minds of millions of people worldwide. In addition to the horrific impacts that the crude oil and chemical dispersants have daily on the environment and the economy, a fatal threat has quietly slipped by the public's proverbial radar. The harm dealt by this silent enemy is beginning to creep into the lives of those living and working in the Gulf. The problem has been lurking in the Gulf since the first days of the BP oil spill and now has the potential ignite a disaster unlike any this country has ever seen.

ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — Wherever disaster strikes, there's always an associated crud.

There was the Exxon Valdez Crud. The Nine Eleven Crud. The Katrina Cough, and then the TVA coal ash cough.

Now, along the entire coast of the Gulf of Mexico, there is the BP Crud, afflicting workers and the general population from Louisiana to Florida.

"I expected to find oil on the sea floor," Samantha Joye, a University of Georgia marine sciences professor, said Monday morning in a ship-to-shore telephone interview. "I did not expect to find this much. I didn't expect to find layers two inches thick." …

"There's still pieces of warm bodies there."…

VENICE, La. – Thousands of fish and a dead whale on Monday were found dead at the mouth of a shipping channel in Venice.

Last week I had the opportunity to accompany Coastal Geologist Rip Kirby from the University of Southern Florida on a search mission. The quarry was oil, and Rip was confident that we would find it. Spurred on by the latest report from the Coast Guard that there was very little oil off of the Gulf Coast, where they found only two of 5,000 samples to contain oil, Rip was determined to test a hypothesis.

The four Greenpeace activists who had set themselves up for a stay, hanging from the rigging of oil drilling rig, Stena Don, surrendered to police Thursday.
Bad weather forced the activists off the oil rig, reported Greenpeace International. In the end, the four managed to halt exploratory drilling for oil off the coast of Greenland for two entire days. Greenpeace is hopeful that its two-day occupation of the Stena Don will have delayed Cairn's schedule enough to put an end to exploratory drilling for this season. Just before ending their occupation, American Sim McKenna spoke with Greenpeace from a satellite phone, saying

"We stopped this rig drilling for oil for two days, but in the end the Arctic weather beat us. Last night was freezing and now the sea below us is churning and the wind is roaring. It's time to come down, but we're proud we slowed the mad rush for Arctic oil, if only for a couple of days."

Morning Edition interviewed Ted Scarritt of Orange Beach, Ala. who owns a company that rents beach chairs and umbrellas.

"Scarritt and his workers noticed recently that when the wind was coming in strong from the south, over a foamy, churned-up Gulf, the wind was carrying something new onto the beach. Just like you might get a film of seaspray on your sunglasses, the beach workers felt a greasier material," according to the report.

"You could actually feel it in your hair and stuff," beach worker Matt Cole told Morning Edition.

Even as BP and US government officials continue to declare the oil spill over at Mississippi Canyon 252 and the cleanup operation an unqualified success, for the first time blood tests on sickened humans have shown signs of exposure to high levels of toxic chemicals related to crude oil and dispersants. Some of the individuals tested have not been on the beaches, were not involved in any cleanup operations or in the Gulf water -- they simply live along the Gulf Coast. Several of them are now leaving the area due to a combination of illness and economic hardship. As the media's attention has moved on and the public interest wanes, the suffering and hardship for people along the entire Gulf Coast of the United States from Louisiana to Florida continues to worsen. While BP and the government are scaling back cleanup operations and distancing themselves from legal liability for the environmental destruction, economic hardship, sickness and death resulting from the largest environmental disaster in our nation's history, the situation continues to deteriorate.

In today's article, Human Blood Tests Show Dangerous Levels of Toxic Exposure, filmmaker Jerry Cope revealed, "For the first time blood tests on sickened humans have shown signs of exposure to high levels of toxic chemicals related to crude oil and dispersants. Some of the individuals tested have not been on the beaches, were not involved in any cleanup operations or in the Gulf water — they simply live along the Gulf Coast."

Officials from the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (DMR) voluntarily "took oyster fishermen out on the reefs off the Pass Christian Harbor on Wednesday to give them a preview of what to expect from the upcoming oyster season," according to Biloxi's Sun Herald.

What did they find? "An abundance of empty oyster shells… DMR officials dredged for oysters and pulled up catches with about 80 to 90 percent of the oysters dead," the paper reported.

Residents living near gulf, not workers. Orange Beach… Alabama/Florida area. Blood tests were positive for various different hydrocarbons like ethylbenzene.

BK Lim has fired back at the shills on The Oil Drum in his latest post "Forensic Analysis of BP's bathymetric chart"

The post goes on to point out five areas of fundamental problems with BP's Macondo bathymetry which include:

Data acquisition fraud
Data compilation fraud
Willful Negligence and Ignorance
Willful Misinterpretation
Willful Misrepresentation
While BK Lim details his arguments for those problems in his post a second story emerges here in which BK Lim directly attacks the BP shills on The Oil Drum for their participation in the cover up for BP.

The Oil Drum is full of BP goons who have worked in concert to silence anyone seeking the truth about this disaster by labeling them "alarmists" and member of the conspiracy theory crowd to prima facie dismiss arguments they don't agree with.

This is a well known Government style propaganda attack that stifles open debate.

It is rather quite ironic that the Crowd at The Oil Drum would dismiss others as conspiracy theorist when the the truth is they The Oil Drum crowd themselves are conspiracy theorists who have long engaged in the practice of manipulating statistics and scaring the hell out of the world's population to drive up the price of oil with their "Peak Oil" theory so they can rip off the consumer at the pump and line the pockets with with the profits.

The latest satellite data establishes that the North Atlantic Current (also called the North Atlantic Drift) no longer exists and along with it the Norway Current. These two warm water currents are actually part of the same system that has several names depending on where in the Atlantic Ocean it is. The entire system is a key part of the planet's heat regulatory system; it is what keeps Ireland and the United Kingdom mostly ice free and the Scandinavia countries from being too cold; it is what keeps the entire world from another Ice Age.

AOL News reports a Boston lab hired by the United Commercial Fishermen's Association to analyze coastal fishing waters says findings suggest the government's claim that Gulf of Mexico seafood is safe to eat may be premature. The lab, Boston Chemical Data Corp., said it found dispersant in a sample taken near Biloxi, Mississippi.

New Orleans attorney Stuart Smith knows something about radiation from oil drilling:

Smith is well known for his role as lead counsel in an oilfield radiation case that resulted in a verdict of $1.056 billion against ExxonMobil for contaminating land it leased from the Grefer family in Harvey, Louisiana –– and attempting to cover it up.

***

The court stated that from June 1986 to March 1987, "Exxon officials intentionally withheld information," and that the company "knew the [radioactive] scale posed a direct danger to the physical health of those workers." Oilfield waste, or TERM, is primarily composed of radium, a highly radioactive chemical element. Exposure to radium is known to cause a variety of devastating illnesses, including cancer. Radium's impact on the human body is particularly acute because it is similar chemically to calcium –– and as such is frequently absorbed into bones after entering the body.

But at least there's no radiation being released from BP's oil spill in the Gulf, right?

It's been a collaboration of a couple of groups working on the oil spill and other people.

They are actually finding the toxins that are in the oil in the blood of the people who live down there.

Its horrifying because they're cumulative and they're heavy metals and toxins…

New Orleans photographer Jerry Moran and our sampling team has collected samples and taken photos of oil and chemical dispersants used in the BP Gulf Oil Spill all over Barataria Bay located in southeastern Louisiana spreading across in Jefferson Parish and Plaquemines Parish

MOBILE, Ala. — The number of residents reporting oil-related health effects from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill continues to rise in coastal Alabama.

At least 197 people have gone to local emergency rooms, clinics and urgent care centers since May 14 complaining of ailments thought to be related to the BP Gulf Oil Spill, Alabama Department of Public Health officials reported today.

(Photo credit Jerry Moran\Native Orleanian) – This weathered oil was encountered in the Mississippi Sound near Biloxi on August 9. Scientific sampling revealed the presence of three of the primary ingredients of the Corexit dispersant applied to oil from the BP Gulf oil spill. Federal officials report that no dispersants have been used since July 19, and have maintained throughout the spill that none of the chemicals were used in Alabama or Mississippi state waters.

For weeks now, researchers Dr. William Sawyer and Marco Kaltofen, P.E., have been collecting powerful evidence that refutes two of the most controversial federal government assertions about the Deepwater Horizon spill. First, that the "vast majority" of the spill is gone, and second, that seafood from oil-impacted waters is not compromised. The research of Sawyer and Kaltofen is impeccable and the methodology sound.