Trump: The 'Hannibal Lecter' Of Climate With His Coal E.O.

"Ah, for some nice roast planet, pickled Dems and ....fahvah beans!"

Let us admit right now that about the worst fuel that can be used on this planet is coal. As Bill Nye ('the Science Guy') explained last night on 'The Last Word', it is the stuff of ancient plants that existed millions of years ago. And not just in any era, but a very high CO2 era. Hence, burning coal releases the long sequestered CO2 within it, tipping our planet further toward the runaway greenhouse effect.

Let's also understand that coal mining jobs are decreasing and this is as a result of primarily automation. Coal companies have already cut mining jobs by nearly  two thirds since 1985 - because of factors like automation, as well as the fact that fracking produces a bigger 'bang for the fuel' buck for energy companies.  But don't tell Donald Trump that. Each day it seems this turkey occupying the highest office in the land knows less and less about less and less.

If not why would this odious gasbag issue yet another "executive order" this time to increase coal production, mesmerized by the "clean coal" oxymoron. Which makes about as much sense as "benign VX nerve agent" ... or "President Trump". 

But let's not mince words here, Trump launched an all-out assault on Barack Obama’s climate change legacy on Tuesday with a sweeping executive order that undermines the U.S. commitment to the Paris agreement. The worst aspect? This travesty took place at a ceremony at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, where BLOTUS FECES signed an order to trigger a review of the clean power plan, Obama’s flagship policy.

No surprise this move was swiftly condemned by environmentalists and climate scientists as a “dangerous” and “embarrassing” attempt to turn back the clock that would do little to revive the U.S. coal industry while threatening cooperation with major polluters such as China and India. In a speech noted for its stupidity and ignorance before he signed the order, Trump promised “a new era in American energy and production and job creation”.

He actually said: “The action I’m taking today will eliminate federal overreach, restore economic freedom and allow our workers and companies to thrive and compete on a level playing field for the first time in a long time. I’m not just talking eight years.”

Trump promised the measures would be “bringing back our jobs, bringing back our dreams and making America wealthy again”.

Don't believe it, not now or ever! Those jobs aren't coming back no matter what this glorified baboon says. The entire energy dynamic no longer supports coal miners. And no amount of Trump wishing it so or tweeting like a drunken canary will make it so. Even if this buffoon thinks of himself as a canary in a clean coal mine.

Adding insult to felonious injury Trump also pledged a future of “clean coal”, and dismissed “the so-called clean power plan” as “a crushing attack on American industry”. The executive order also lifted a moratorium on the sale of new coal leases on federal land, removes “job killing restrictions” on energy production, and returns power to state level. Of course, with no federal oversight most energy generating states will just go hog wild and try to expand fracking, for example, wherever they can. I expect now that Colorado will probably open fracking wells in or near Rocky Mountain National Park.

All of this amount to a recipe for ensuring this planet is uninhabitable for a future generation, say by 2100. Because if the equivalent of 400,000 Hiroshima scale bombs are now being unleashed every year in the atmosphere -  comparable to the watts per square meter excess CO2 input from man-made global warming, then Trump's E.O will ensure it hits 500,000 bombs per year equivalent within 8 years.

While the fictional "Hannibal the Cannibal" butchered and ate 36 odd humans over his vile career (usually served with a fine Chianti and fava beans), the EPA estimates that 3,600 more will die each year if Trump's new climate insanity gets implemented.

And yes this nation's wealthy days, at least for the general population, are over. I've gone over the reasons until blue in the face in numerous posts but basically it's because the energy efficiency of our current fuels - that determined by EROEI or energy returned on energy invested- is much less than previously. If you want to talk of a "Peak oil" era we can.

At the heart of these considerations is the concept of net energy (cf. Weisz, in Physics Today, July, 2004, p. 51). Weisz posed this in terms of a concise equation:

Q (net) = Q (PR) – [Q (op)  + E/T]

In effect, for break-even oil one would find Q(net) = 0

For the last 700 billion barrels:    Q(net) = negative quantity =  - Q

Since the rate of energy production (Q (PR) must be debited by the energy consumed for its operation Q(op), and the energy E invested during its “lifetime” T. Thus its Q(PR) will be small in relation to the bracketed quantity.  In a similar vein, Richard Heinberg has used the quantity EROEI or ‘Energy returned on energy invested’ which for oil reached a high of 30 (ratio) in the 70s and is still the highest of all energy sources at around 22.   Thus, the problem in a nutshell is not “running out of oil’ per se but running out of CHEAP oil.

Right now, to fix ideas, we are very nearly at this Q(net) = 0 level with shale oil - which is why once its price falls to much lower than $50 /bl. it makes little economic sense to take it out of the ground. Compared to light sweet crude it is effectively garbage fuel. Bottom line, we need not run out of the stuff before the world economy runs into problems of untold, unspeakable proportions!

Alas, fracking shale oil - drilling into shale rock to get kerogen, or alternatively, natural gas, is in fact evidence of grabbing BREAK EVEN oil NOT high EROEI oil!  It is a sign of defeat and desperation.  not success - just like deep sea drilling for oil.

As Richard Heinberg explains (p. 110) it in his book: 'Snake Oil - How Fracking's False Promise Imperils Our Future':

"No evidence suggests that the technology of fracking has actually raised the EROEI for natural gas production. It temporarily lowered prices but only by glutting the market."

Get that? Adding it to the total world pool of higher quality oil merely "glutted the market". This is also what's dragging your 401k down right now, though yeah, you will catch kind of a break at the pump. Let's also grasp that this crap oil isn't even used here in the U.S. it's shipped off to places like China - where it fouls their skies and creates health havoc along with the CO2 and SO2 from factories and autos.

Given all of this which transpired yesterday, as Austan Goolsbee pointed out to Lawrence O'Donnell last night, what planet is Trump living on? How can he take a sledge hammer to Obama's climate legacy on the one hand and then expect to find comity and work with Dems on the other? Only a nut, a fruitcake who's 52 cards short of a full deck would fail to process the inherent cognitive dissonance.

Thus we have the latest evidence 'the Donald'  belongs in a face mask like Hannibal Lecter. Especially after Trump declared  some babble the past two days about "working with Democrats" including on infrastructure.   No Dem I know in his right mind would want to work with this orange-haired psycho ape, first because he can't even parse the most basic aspects of legislation and how to pass it. And second, well, because everything he touches turns to shit. Look at his foolish health plan and his claim to repeal Obamacare. If anything the win with health care will embolden Dems to further opposition of this maniac, which is the correct political call.

Sadly too many of his numb nut supporters bought into his con, just like the delusional coal miners did yesterday at his dog and pony show.

After Trump's latest load of fake bravado and posturing,  Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, offered the best take:

“No matter what any elected official says, rescinding commonsense climate change regulations and popular public health protections will not revive the coal industry or put thousands of miners back to work. Market forces, including consumer preferences and technological advancement, are the primary reason for the surge in cleaner forms of energy. In fact, even without the clean power plan, we are likely to hit its emissions targets ahead of schedule – because consumers, cities and businesses will continue leading on public health and climate change even when Washington won’t.”

He is correct up to a point. Unfortunately, the CO2 already accumulated in the atmosphere over the past 100 years will continue wreaking its havoc as the rising CO2 concentrations disclose.  The best we can do now  is at least try to ensure the planet is 50 percent livable -while making plans to adapt to what we can in the other 50 percent.

See also:

http://www.salon.com/2017/03/29/donald-trumps-grotesque-new-grand-bargain-did-he-learn-nothing-from-the-obama-years/

Scott Pruitt Shows He's The "Arsonist" For Climate Change We All Believed

The lying maggot Scott Pruitt - now head of the EPA- said under oath in Senate hearings barely three months ago that he wasn't certain humans were the major agent for climate change has now come out and made his aberrant position abundantly clear.  Pruitt said on Thursday that he did not believe that the release of CO2  was pushing global temperatures upwards.  He told CNBC:
.
“I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see,

The very fact Pruitt could invoke "precision" discloses he hasn't the first clue about the nature of climate science.  Like many libertarian climate change deniers Pruitt confuses deterministic  science and outcomes with disciplines (like climate science) based on stochastic processes. .Thus, a reasonable skeptic must allow for a higher threshold of fuzziness than allowed in celestial mechanics where I can very exactly predict Jupiter's position in 50 years.

Even so, the parameters are such we are fairly confident of what the outcomes will be. For example, the inputs that predict the most dire effects of rapid warming then, are not so stringent nor do they have attached to them such absurd levels of accuracy. One we can name for instance is the concentration in parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is currently at about 400 ppm. Attendant on that is the fact that in the historical record (analysis via ice cores) there has never been an ice age when the CO2 concentration was higher than 200 ppm (See: 'Greenhouse' by Gale Christianson).

These two quantitative indices already tell us we are in dire straits, because: 1) we have surpassed the 200 ppm threshold and by a factor 2, and 2) the concentrations are increasing. The temperature of the planet is currently out of balance by 0.6W/ m²  and this is almost entirely due to the annual rate of CO2 concentrations increasing. Further,  every increase in CO2 concentration by 2 ppm increases the radiative heating effect by 2 W/ m².  Taken in tandem we have the equivalent of 2.5 x 10 ⁷  TJ injected each year into the atmosphere or roughly 400,000 Hiroshima size A-bombs. In most other circumstances a nation lighting up the planet with that many A-bombs would be immediately taken down by the human community. But too many of us appear to just sit while Earth burns.

Pruitt also blabbed in total confounding ignorance, typical of the Trumpites:

But we don’t know that yet ... We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.”

In fact, numerous surveys of actual climate scientists (not paid whores) show it's as settled as it's ever going to be. Specifically, I've referenced the scientific consensus on global warming reported in Eos Transactions, Vol. 90, No. 3, p. 22, by P. T. Doran and M. Kendall-Zimmerman found that (p. 24) :

“the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely non-existent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes.”

In their analytic survey for which 3146 climate and Earth scientists responded, a full 96.2% of specialists concurred temperatures have steadily risen and there is no evidence for cooling. Meanwhile, 97.4% concur there is a definite role of humans in global climate change.

The authors concluded (p. 24) :

“The challenge appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact (non-existent debate among real climate specialists) to policy makers and a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate exists among scientists”


This misbegotten stance puts Pruitt at odds with the scientists of the EPA, which states on its website that carbon dioxide is the “primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change”. This finding is backed by NASA, which calls CO2 “the most important long-lived ‘forcing’ of climate change”.   Most recently, the quantification of the annual forcing component has been put in terms nearly every human ought to be able to grasp, i.e. an energy impact equivalent to 400,000 Hiroshima scale A-bombs released every year in the atmosphere.  And yet dopey, dumbass Scotty Pruitt can't (or won't)  process that.

Pruitt’s comments were quickly condemned by scientists, environmental activists and even his immediate predecessor as EPA chief, Gina McCarthy.

“The world of science is about empirical evidence, not beliefs,” said McCarthy, an appointee of Barack Obama. “When it comes to climate change, the evidence is robust and overwhelmingly clear that the cost of inaction is unacceptably high. I cannot imagine what additional information the administrator might want from scientists for him to understand that.”

Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said:

“Pruitt has demonstrated that he is unqualified to run the EPA or any agency. There is no doubt whatsoever that the planet is warming, and it is primarily due to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from burning of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and we can demonstrate clearly that the observed warming of the planet would not have occurred without that change in atmospheric composition. These are scientific facts, not opinion, and it is incumbent on politicians to take account of the scientific evidence.”

Things are bound to get even worse given now the Trump administration is mandating that any studies or data from scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency undergo review by political appointees before they can be released to the public.

Doug Ericksen, the communications director for Donald Trump’s transition team at the EPA, said on Wednesday the review also extends to content on the federal agency’s website, including details of scientific evidence showing that the Earth’s climate is warming and manmade carbon emissions are to blame.

So, if anyone is interested in the actual facts to do with current climate change, now is the time to do screen shots off the relevant websites because soon they will be replaced by "alternative facts" to suit the Babbits and Munchkins of the country. I.e. those who wouldn't recognize a scientific theory if they were given the attributes in advance.

Meanwhile, former EPA staffers said on Wednesday the restrictions imposed under Trump far exceed the practices of past administrations.

What Pruitt represents then,  is an arsonist in charge of the Fire Dept.  His corrupt presence ensures the human stewardship of the planet is essentially scuttled for future generations.  Because merely for the interval this troll will head EPA - even if only 4 years- the dynamics of the atmosphere can change dramatically. As one observer quoted in the Denver Post has pointed out, we could soon see summer temperatures hot enough to melt asphalt - like in India - and also have as many airline diversions we now have for ice.

Am I being mean or hyperbolic with poor little Scotty? Hell no!

Some of the other Pruitt "achievements" for those who might wonder why he was picked to take down EPA:

He also joined other knuckle dragger AGs opposing EPA plans to curtail methane emissions. In case you didn't know,  methane is an even more intense greenhouse gas than CO2, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/05/methane-release-increases-because-of.html

- On his linked in page this climate assassin has boasted of "being a leading advocate against the EPA's activist agenda". Transl.:  He is quite happy to see your grand kids choke to death on fracking fumes or mercury pumped from coal fired utilities, or the toxic residue left behind in a place because there aren't enough EPA personnel to do clean ups.

-  The goober is a self-declared ally of the Energy industry along with Alabama AG Luther Strange. Both of these a-holes  came to the defense of Exxon even as they were preparing documents that tried to minimize climate threats, acknowledging in their own documents the threats were real, e.g. see all 340 pages of the 'Climate Deception Dossiers'  here:

www.ucsusa.org/decadesofdeception

Pruitt's being a whore and a hack for the fossil fuel industry isn't the least bit surprising. Indeed, his outlook of "drill,  baby drill and let the world burn"  reflects the regressive zeitgeist of his home state, Oklahoma.

If you can grab a good health care policy now, better do it. When we are swamped with all the effluent from Scotty's inaction in another year or two it will be too late. And if the Repuke "make America sicker" plan isn't to your liking, now is the time to make  noise - lots of it!

Trump Fascists' Attack On EPA Demands Political Warfare- From Scientists Too!

"I am merely following the advice from my resident Nazi, Mr. Bannon of Breitbart.com!"

Now we know the Trump gaggle of degenerates wants war- all out political war - as Bernie Sanders endorsed in a 40 second viral video from Jan. 20th.  Yesterday, under advice from Obersturmfuhrer Steve Bannon, the Trump administration instituted a media blackout at the Environmental Protection Agency and barred staff from awarding any new contracts or grants, part of a broader communications clampdown within the executive branch.

Emails sent to EPA staff and reviewed by The Associated Press also detailed specific prohibitions banning press releases, blog updates or posts to the agency’s social media accounts. According to one directive, likely penned in Bannon's office:

"Incoming media requests will be carefully screened. Only send out critical messages, as messages can be shared broadly and end up in the press.””

These prohibitions came to light-  thanks to a defiant EPA whistle blowing staffer-  as the agency moved to delay at least 30 environmental rules finalized in the closing months of President Barack Obama’s term. This is seen as a blatant first step to seeking to kill all the regulations. Many of these will directly impact the health and well being of citizens. For example, a summary of the actions posted in the Federal Register included a long list of regulations such as updated air pollution rulings for several states, renewable fuel standards and limits on the amount of formaldehyde that can leach from wood products. Oh, the Trump bunch wants to rescind water quality standards too, so you can guzzle more fracking carcinogens like benzene and xylene.

So the time for fun and games and mere speculation of what the blowhard asshole seated in the Oval Office might do is now over. This Swine -in -Chief and his henchmen, with their shuttering of the EPA and other Agency websites, information flow have now incited full scale political warfare. This  must now be declared, as Bernie did a week ago,  until this gang of reprobates is driven from power. And that must include scientists at the assorted agencies too,

Having worked in the space science research field for over two decades, and as a member of three  professional scientific organizations, I know how averse most members are to stepping into any political arena - especially in that era . The reasons are not hard to fathom, given in that era most grant money arrived from the federal government. Hence, the desire not to 'bite" the hand that feeds you.

But this is different, given science (especially climate and environmental) is now under existential threat from the illegitimate Trump maladministration. Hence, receiving money in any form from this fascist bunch of degenerates can now only be governed by extortion or the demand to lie and produce false data to receive $$$. This can't happen. Scientists, like it or not, must now engage in their own form of resistance and political warfare - including defying the imposed Trumpster gag rules and tweeting scientific facts - like the SD Badlands National Parks site did yesterday (informing citizens that the CO2 concentration at 404.93 ppm is now the highest in 650,000 years)

Scientists have already saved many gigs of actual data, enabling its protection from the predation and destruction of the Trump fascistas. Fortunately realizing they will need to destroy the actual climate facts to be able to spout "alternative facts". But they need to go even further, and that means setting up their own information and data release sites (maybe 'dark')  for citizens to access to stay in touch with real data.  They also need to rebel against any pseudo-authority imposed in the interest of doing the right thing to protect said data and get it to larger audiences. Sympathetic media outlets can greatly help here, including Bill Maher's Real Time, or John Oliver's 'Last Week Tonight'.

Leaks of information, defying the gag rule ban, can also be salutary and advance scientific integrity.. Indeed, it was thanks to an EPA scientist that we even know about this latest Trump abomination - as he took it upon himself to inform a congressional contact. The Trumpies had issued orders that no one was to talk about it, nada, but he defied these imps to get the word out. This is how more scientists will now have to act in defiance of the Trump Nazis and assholes.

In addition, scientists ensconced in agencies like the EPA, NOAA, NASA etc. must let us know - including by blog or defiant tweet or leak, what the nefarious Trumpistas are up to. If they plan to stack the agencies with fake climate scientists they must all be outed by name, including into what agency they're being insinuated. Citizens can then clobber them daily with phone messages, emails etc. or even protest in person at their DC offices or better, in front of their homes.  Everything goes in political warfare that is within the legal framework of constitutional action.

Bottom line, scientists can no longer retreat into enclaves of pseudo objectivity  but must be fully engaged - participating in political warfare and energized resistance.  Will this be partisan? How can it be otherwise when the other side is foursquare against the science? There is no issue here, of course it will be partisan!

Meanwhile, the professional science organizations like the AGU (American Geophysical Union), and Union of Concerned Scientists, must go all out to release data and current research. This basically  compensates for what their peers at NASA, NOAA etc. may not be able to do. This will put greater pressure on outside academic centers, which must not be intimidated in releasing research or data that (i.e. in new papers) that  is sourced from the gag-hamstrung agencies.  

You can also be sure that the substance of any available research papers will be presented here in this blog. I am not part of any government agency but still read current journals and am not averse to keeping fellow citizens informed, devil take the hindmost.

We're in a new era of asymmetric warfare and I will have more to write on more general political warfare in the near future, so that all citizens can get involved in doing more than just one off marches.

Stay tuned!