NOAA Soils Itself And Undermines Public Trust - By Decision To Back Trump On Fake Dorian Path

Trump bloviating about the fake hurricane threat to Alabama a week ago, slapped down by Birmingham National Weather Service office but supported by an "unnamed" NOAA official.

In its heyday.  the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was one of the most reliable and trustworthy science-based agencies,but evidently no longer. Not after publicly coming out in support of Donnie Dotard's fake threat (by Hurricane Dorian) to Alabama.  As noted by Bloomberg News:

"During a briefing on the storm’s threat to the U.S. East Coast, the president held up an Aug. 29 map from the National Weather Service showing initial projections of Dorian’s track into Florida. But the map had been changed -- by the president -- with a black line that extended the storm’s path beyond Florida and into southern Alabama, according to people familiar with the matter."

The story goes on to note:

"Trump repeatedly claimed on Sunday that Alabama was in Dorian’s path -- he tweeted it, repeated it at the White House, and said it again during a visit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But by then, the storm’s track had turned decidedly north and east.

The National Weather Service’s Birmingham office said in a tweet on Sunday that “no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.” Trump nonetheless said his warning had been accurate."

We've since learned (WaPo, yesterday) that a week before the NOAA publicly backed Trump over its own scientists, and a top NOAA official warned its staff against "contradicting the president."   Contradicting Donnie Dotard? How about contradicting physical reality?

In an agencywide directive sent Sept. 1 to National Weather Service personnel, hours after Trump asserted, with no evidence, that Alabama “would most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated,” staff was told to “only stick with official National Hurricane Center forecasts if questions arise from some national level social media posts which hit the news this afternoon.”

They were also told not to “provide any opinion,” according to a copy of the email obtained by The Washington Post.

According to the Post:

'A NOAA meteorologist who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution said the note, understood internally to be referring to Trump, came after the National Weather Service office in Birmingham contradicted Trump by tweeting Alabama would “NOT see any impacts from the hurricane.”

Further:

"The agency sent a similar message warning scientists and meteorologists not to speak out on Sept. 4, after Trump showed a hurricane map from Aug. 29 modified with a hand-drawn, half-circle in black Sharpie around Alabama."

And:

"Late Friday afternoon, NOAA officials further angered scientists within and beyond the agency by releasing a statement, attributed to an unnamed agency spokesperson, supporting Trump’s claims on Alabama and chastising the agency’s Birmingham meteorologists for speaking in absolutes.

That statement set off a firestorm among scientists, who attacked NOAA officials for bending to Trump’s will."

At that point, the NOAA  ceased to  be a reputable federal scientific agency, and became another rubber stamp farce for Dotard- much like the EPA, and the DOJ.  Essentially, it  lost any shred of credibility, gravitas and independence.  Rather it had mutated into a disreputable arm of Trumpdom - as has the EPA, the DOJ, and other once proud federal institutions.  As the Post went on to warn:

"The firestorm surrounding the president’s hurricane statements is unprecedented in the organization’s history, and threatens to politicize something that most Americans take for granted as an objective, if flawed, part of daily life: the weather forecast"

So yet another branch of the government has been dragged into Trump's vile, contaminated orbit.

Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Union of Concerned Scientists - an organization to which I also belong, said;

"It makes me speechless that the leadership would put Trump's feelings and ego ahead of putting out accurate weather information. If we're politicizing the weather what is there left to politicize?   We're seeing this kind of clapdown on scientists across the government  and  it's been an escalating trend."

Kathryn Sullivan, a former NASA astronaut who ran NOAA under Obama, didn't mince words in her assessment of the latest incarnation of the agency, telling the Post in an earlier (Saturday) article, 'Stormy Response To NOAA Stance':

"The anonymous and disingenuous statement that NOAA tweeted out is a major breach of scientific integrity that damages the National Weather Service (NWS)"

Jane Lubchenco, who preceded Sullivan as head of NOAA told the Post in an email (ibid.):

"This looks like classic politically motivated obfuscation to justify inaccurate statements made by the boss.  It is truly sad to see political appointees undermining the superb, lifesaving work of NOAA's talented and dedicated career servants."

Meanwhile, David Titley, an atmospheric scientist who served at NOAA during the Obama years tweeted - after reviewing the NOAA defense of Trump statement:

"Perhaps the darkest day ever for leadership. Don't know how they will ever look their workforce in the eye again. Moral cowardice."

Moral cowardice indeed.

But let's take a step back and observe again this isn't the only federal agency or arm being fouled and discredited by Trump political appointees heading a service or agency.  When Joy Reed asked her assembled panel ('AM Joy') on Saturday how it could be that now the military is abetting Trump, i.e. in enriching his hotels,  Malcolm Nance delivered a robust answer: "It's not actually any generals, who despise Trump, but the political creatures appointed by Trump and able to pull select strings".  In this case, ensuring that a C-17 crew back in March ended up staying at his Turnberry, Scotland resort for a mission in March. And oh, by the way - as Joy noted- overpaying for the privilege.

But again "official Air Force" personnel insisted the crews were following strict protocol.  Which, of course, is balderdash.  There is no known protocol which says or stipulates an AF crew must stay at a given president's resort and overpay to enrich that resident  - thereby flouting the domestic emoluments clause.  But this is now the deformed universe under Trumpism.  It is yet another reason that Trump must be dumped next year, irrespective of whom the Democratic candidate may be.


See also:

Donald Trump

‘Utter Madness’: Trump’s Assault on the Truth Continues as Weather Agency Releases Unsigned Statement in His Defense

And:

Donald Trump

The Sharpie Referendum

by P.M. Carpenter | September 7, 2019 - 6:12am | 

The Actual (Not Alternative) Facts Concerning The Hottest Year Yet Of The Modern Era: 2016

After the email arrived in my inbox that the incoming EPA gang of Scott Pruitt plans to replace scientific data and facts with alternative facts, it occurred to me that getting the facts of the hottest year out might be appropriate. Before the Trumpistas got in, the EPA with other agencies (NOAA, NASA) delivered the sorry stats concerning 2016, as the third straight record warm year in a row - and the hottest yet of the modern era.

What are some of the facts revealed via the separate analyses?

-  The last time the planet was warmer than 2016 was 125,000 year, this according to data extracted concurrently from tree rings, ice cores, sediments, according to NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt.

- The average temperature across land and ocean surfaces in 2016 was 58.69 degrees F or 1.69 degrees above average. This, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  It was the largest differential by which an annual global temperature record has ever been broken.

The Agency pointed out that while the difference may appear insignificant,  global climate temperature averages are reckoned generally in tenths of a degree difference, or even hundredths of a degree.

- Most of the warming recorded thus far for Earth has happened in the past 35 years and 16 of the 17 warmest years have occurred since 2001.

- Temperature records were set on nearly every continent and no land areas were cooler than average.

- For eight straight months (January through August) each month recorded its warmest temperatures since record keeping began 15 years after the Civil War.

- The warmth detected was 80-90 percent the result of long term climate trends (including the fact CO2 accumulates and molecules remain in the atmosphere on average 100 years) and 10 percent derived from the El Nino climate pattern. (According to Gavin Schmidt)

Finally, the warmth last year contributed to deadly heat waves in Asia and the Middle East, as well as record low sea ice in the Arctic.

Process these stats carefully and save them, because you won't be seeing them on agency websites much longer if the Trump bunch has their way.


See also:

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/climate-trends-continue-to-break-records

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/02/when-are-climate-records-really-records.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/05/new-data-shows-el-nino-has-accelerated.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/10/skewering-spurious-global-warming.html

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!

Colorado Climate Change Future: Grim - According to New Report

Fires like this will be common in Colorado in 25-30 years.

A newly released report (on Thursday) commissioned by three Front Range cities forecasts grim climate conditions for Colorado - certainly for the Front Range, and likely the entire state. This according to the Louisville, CO-based Rocky Mountain Climate Organization.. The forecast includes an increase in the average number of days with temperatures over 100 F, as well as increased precipitation for other areas, i.e. featuring severe winter or summer storms. Already, here in the Springs - two months ago- we were lashed with the worst hail storm in memory with hail stones up to the size of softballs.

We just had our entire roof repaired following hail strikes with pits, holes that one roofer compared to "meteorites" - an exaggeration but he got the point over to us. Now, we are awaiting one entire south side of the siding to be replaced after it was literally ripped into multiple holes by the hail. According to the insurance company (Hartford) hundreds of homes have been affected putting enormous pressure on roofers and others in the area, now forcing wait times of many weeks to complete repairs.  This is only a taste of what's to come if the RMCO projections turn out to be even 50% correct, and there's more reason to believe the probability will be a lot higher.

Much of this isn't surprising in that NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) made similar predictions, including for the entire Rocky Mountain  West, some six years ago. They projected hotter, drier conditions with extended droughts and enhanced fire danger especially as the forests ravaged by the mountain pine beetle spread. See, e.g. this report on the pest.

http://extension.colostate.edu/docs/pubs/insect/05528.pdf

What this pest does is nothing short of horrendous, in converting living plant tissue into highly flammable dead bark for which the slightest spark can start a conflagration. Those readers interested in a detailed account of the trepidations of this pest can get hold of the superb book: The Dying of the Trees.  You can read a shorter account here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/science/18trees.html?pagewanted=all

The point is the beetle is a major catalyst for all the ongoing and uncontained Colorado wild fires, including the nearby Waldo Canyon fire  four years ago.  At the time I posted that thermal currents and winds also dispersed parts of the fire's burgeoning smoke plumes eastward, toward the east side of Colorado Springs where we live.  Basically, if heat-trapping emissions into the atmosphere keep increasing, the northern Front Range climate by 2050 will be fundamentally different. According to lead  researcher Stephen Saunders, director of RMCO,:

“By the middle of the century, summers here will be as hot as summers have been recently in El Paso.  Half the houses in Denver today do not have air conditioning. We’re going to be facing serious threats to people’s health because of these temperature increases,”

Adding:

“Temperature increases also will drive wildfires, increased evaporation from reservoirs, changes in snowpack, and enormous increases in energy use for air conditioning. These temperature changes will affect every aspect of our life.”

Already, Denver's average summer temperature has increased. This year, the average temperature in Denver for June, July and August was 72.7 degrees — 1.5 degrees higher than the annual average of 71.2 dating to 1872, said Kyle Fredin, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Boulder. If current trends in heat-trapping emissions continue, Denver residents by 2050 will face an average of 35 days a year where temperatures hit 95 degrees or hotter, the study found. Right now, the average is five days a year.

Boulder by 2050 will have an average 38 days a year with temperatures exceeding 95 degrees and, by the end of the century, an average of 75 such days a year. The studies found Fort Collins by 2050 will have an average 24 days with temperatures exceeding 95 degrees and 58 days on average by the end of the century.

These numbers may not significantly impress many people, but they should given they mean vastly more demands on the power grid, already stretched energy sources. Currently, half the houses in Denver lack air conditioning as noted above by RMCO Director Stephen Saunders. The proportion is even greater here in Colorado Springs (65%). That means more health problems for those who don't install it, but it also implies the probability of more power outs if all those people do. This is something the deniers need to register as they keep pooh-poohing consequences of a rapidly changing climate.

According to a Denver Post account (Sept. 23, p 1A) the RMCO report was commissioned for the purpose of:

"helping Colorado prepare and are based on government temperature data and university consortium climate models. RMCO does advocacy work in favor of limiting greenhouse gas emissions in addition to climate research. Denver environmental health officials commissioned the Denver climate analysis. Boulder and Fort Collins analyses were done as part of a $57,300 project run by the Colorado Department of Local Affairs.

Denver officials commissioned this study for $9,000 “as a way to frame our actions on climate, both for the mitigation of climate altering greenhouse gas emissions and the adaptation to a warming, altered climate,” city spokeswoman Kerra Jones said. “This study was intended to bring real data into models that could project what that might specifically mean for Denver and the metro area.”


Officials in the three cities that commissioned the study are also painfully aware of the role of increased CO2 emissions. (An appreciation that's been slow to emerge in the right wing City Council members here in the Springs). Prompted to act,  Denver officials last year issued a Climate Action Plan calling for citywide cutting of emissions by 80 percent, below 2005 levels, by 2050.

 Unfortunately, as the Post notes, "local efforts to reduce emissions from vehicles, factories, the oil and gas industry and other sources in Colorado likely would make a small difference because climate change is driven by global-scale increases in heat-trapping gases." So unless thousands of other municipalities around the planet  take action, the difference in conditions will hardly be noticeable. It is a global problem.  According to Saunders, quoted in the Post:

“All this depends on global emissions. However, people around the world will be looking to see what we do here in response.”

Indeed. A prime reason we moved to Colorado 16 years ago was because we believed it to be one of the few places - given its mean altitude - that might weather the worst excesses of climate change. It now appears we were wrong, but when we look around and see the likely impacts on other areas -including Barbados - we still realize we probably have been relatively lucky. Besides, neither of us are likely to still be around when the worst arrives!

 

Astrophysicist Intends Trilogy To Combat Global Warming Deniers - Can It Work?

Wonder why no sensible person can get through to climate change deniers?

Astrophysicist Philip Judge is a Briton living in Longmont, Colorado who - according to a Denver Post bio spot from two months ago ('Scientist Pens Trilogy To Combat Doubters', May 16, p. 8A)-  is "incensed about climate change doubters in recent years". Well, I mean just about every sensible person is so incensed, because trying to get through to these batshit crazy fools is like trying to make a hole in solid concrete with a pen. You will break the pen before you succeed.

In the meantime, these uninformed, semi-educated twits - ranging in IQ from room temperature level to members of Intertel (like Kort Patterson) keep generating nonstop codswallop such as global warming is one huge "swindle" or "alarmist conspiracy". And pray tell who is behind this conspiracy? Well, all federal scientific agencies including NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) which are supposedly all part of one grand government-sponsored "alarmist" network to hood wink citizens. If only! If that were the only fact we'd truly have nothing to fret over.

But as recent published data from NOAA and NASA have shown June global temperatures have now set a new global record "joining every other month so far this year".  Both federal agencies, indeed, have shown the temperature increments to have resulted in the highest departures since global temperatures began in 1880 (according to NOAA).

To be specific, NOAA revealed that globally -averaged temperatures in June were 1.62 F higher than the average across the 20th century. Meanwhile, NASA data showed globally averaged temperatures were 1.42 F above the average applicable to the years 1951 through 1980.  But still there are numb nuts who truly believe there is a "global warming pause'.

Of course, even before the string of new records Thomas Karl, Director of the National Centers for Environmental Information of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (NOAA),  had dispatched the warming pause nonsense. See e.g.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2015/noaa-analysis-journal-science-no-slowdown-in-global-warming-in-recent-years.html

Judge is a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder where's he's been for 25 years. He plans to change the climate doubters' brains by publishing a trilogy entitled "Ergo Sum". Already two works have been published, the 2nd 'Credo, Ergo Sum" (transl. "I believe, therefore I am") in April. The third and final volume will be out later in the year.

In the Post bio piece, Judge expresses deep concern about climate science doubters and their political motives. As well he should, given most have been caught in the maw of the ExxonMobil brain fuck machine so are no longer capable of thinking for themselves unless it's to conjure up some conspiracy theory about scientists colluding to get money for grants. Which is the biggest howler of all as I exposed earlier. In fact, bozos who latch onto this BS aren't even clear that scientists compete for grant money so it would not be in their interest to vindicate or reinforce the research of others - far less engage in a massive, networked conspiracy to snatch more money from taxpayers to attain one single goal.

According to the write up Judge felt compelled to write a story about the ethics of what's going on. He posed the central question that runs like a thread through all the books:

"What kind of person is willing to gamble the future of their grandchildren at the expense of today?"

Well, evidently, a hell of a lot of haughty, arrogant "economy first" deniers who - despite never even having taken a 1st year college thermal physics course  such that they can pass a basic test, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2009/12/thermal-physics-test-for-skeptics.html

Believe they have all the answers and that global warming is an "alarmist conspiracy". The core question, of course, is whether a trilogy can change the minds of such people. I doubt it. First, if they refuse to even read a relatively objective journal like 'Nature' or a web site like www.realclimate.org
 what makes anyone think they'd wade through a trilogy concerning the ethics of rejecting climate science? All the odds point to the books being ignored.

Second, this gets us to the primary impediment for these denier pseudo skeptics to even consider genuine science: they suffer from false knowledge syndrome.  This leads them to collect — even invent — bad information to flesh out what they already believe.  The classic case is the semi-educated dupe who by virtue of bad life decisions or experiences comes to believe "all liberals are liars". He then somehow finds Larry Schweikart's fishwrap book on '48 Liberal Lies About American History' and finds specious support for his false knowledge and bad insights. Classic confirmation bias.

In the case of a climate denier, say as one finds in the high IQ societies, you are typically looking at a libertarian or anti-government kook who distrusts everything about government, especially its scientific capabilities. Hence, he postulates wackadoodle scheit like gov't climate scientists engaged in a massive "conspiracy" to create alarm and thereby destroy the economic basis of the nation.. These turkeys never seem to process that if the runaway greenhouse emerges, our whole electric power grid-  not to mention economic system  that hinges on it - will be the first to go.

More to the point, as an example of the creation of bad information invoked for what one already believes, one need look no further than libertarian wannabe curmudgeon Kort Patterson bloviating about "celestial mechanics" being a key basis for climate change over the ages. (Based on the absurd Milankovitch hypothesis). Or his claim that "changes on the Sun" are behind it, long since torpedoed by numerous solar physics papers and studies.

Guys like this, impervious to actual insights and knowledge, will hold onto anything so that their precious economic world with its gratuitous consumption and GDP can continue indefinitely.

Basically, short of a brain transplant, you are not going to change their minds, though I do give Philip Judge props for his efforts. That's a lot of time invested in a trilogy of books aimed at climate change denier block heads for a likely tiny return on investment.

It's Official: 2015 Was Hottest Year On Record

Most may already have been aware but now they know 2015 was the hottest year on record, at least since reliable records began in 1880.  If the forecasts, as well as those of the UK Hadley Center prove accurate, then 2016 will exceed even the record 2015.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as well as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced their findings at a joint news conference Wednesday.  It is to be noted that the NOAA and NASA each track temperatures globally using slightly different analytical methods.  This in itself makes their joint statement and agreement even more significant.

By the reckoning of NOAA and NASA  our planet is inexorably warming in response to rising concentrations of CO2. Previous EOS Transactions papers have put the rise at a rate of 2 ppm/ year and we are already at nearly 390 ppm. Autos and coal factories contribute to this higher concentration but also deforestation. See e.g.

http://www.wri.org/blog/2013/11/new-high-resolution-forest-maps-reveal-world-loses-50-soccer-fields-trees-minute

How bad, how wretched, can it get? How about a heat index of 170F by the year 2100?


And this may well be conservative if specific thresholds are crossed (e.g. the 6C increase mark) by that year.

As a recent TIME report noted (Dec. 28, p. 18):

"A 3.5 C temperature rise would occur even if all (200) nations meet initial pledges to reduce carbon emissions.  This would still submerge coastal cities and drive over half of species to extinction."

It would also make life so horrific for humans, many will wish for extinction. Think of 6-8 month heat waves lasting even through supposed 'cold' months and temperatures hitting 95F- 100 F regularly - even in December. Think of it happening not just in the U.S. but globally.  And think of power grids mostly being down because they are unable to meet the vastly enhanced power demands, say for air conditioning.

All the indicators for 2015 show we are well on our way. For that year the average temperature was the highest in 136 years over the 1880-2015 interval, surpassing the previous record set in 2014 by 0..29F and marking the fourth time a global temperature record has been set.  Meanwhile, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.62F (0.90 C) above the 20th century average. This is mind boggling given that the total increase up to mid-20th century had been estimated at 0.8C.

NASA scientists also emphasized that 15 of the past 16 warmest years on record occurred since 2001. So much for the "global warming pause" the deniers have been using like a bogus cudgel since 1998.

Climate scientists at the UK Hadley Center For Climate Prediction and Research (which independently tracks global temperatures) also confirm the NOAA, NASA conclusions. Indeed, they note that global temperatures in 2015 reached 1C above pre-industrial levels for the first time. Admittedly, as I pointed out earlier, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/12/warmest-xmas-ever-in-east-dont.html

El Niño has contributed to this record with the increased warming of the Pacific Ocean.

However, the El Niño effect doesn't explain everything.  Climate expert Dr. Michael Mann explained to the New York Times, that even if the global climate weren't warming, the odds of setting two back-to-back record years would be about one chance in every 1,500 pairs of years.

He added that because the planet is warming, the odds of setting back-to-back record years are really closer to one in 10.  Most terrifying, is that there's good evidence that this is nothing compared to what's to come.  For reference, This graph shows how global temperatures have historically, for more than 400,000 years, tracked with carbon dioxide and methane levels in the atmosphere.

The graph at the top shows how the temperatures have soared since the start of official record keeping (source: The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 18, p. A7)

See also:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/01/20/its-official-2015-smashed-2014s-global-temperature-record-it-wasnt-even-close/

Now Fracking Pollutes the Soil As Well As Water

The news in the Sunday Denver Post (1B) that 200 gallons of toxic effluent spills per day on Colorado soil from fracking, should not have blown anyone’s mind. Indeed, we already knew the multifold ways in which fracking contaminates the air and water. But that it is allowed to flow into fertile soil, thereby leaching into ground water too is an added abomination.

Although some PR guys claim it is “safe” – most of us don’t buy it. According to Matt Lepore, head of the “Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission” (basically a PR cover for the oil industry):

"The whole point is that it is safe, that the harm to the environment has been minimized.”

 He was referring to the industry’s latest cleanup method of using mixing machinery and microbes on the affected soil.  But as the Post observes: “It is not proven”.

 In other words we have only the industry’s-  excuse me, their front organization’s – words to go by. But given they are mainly devoted to the articulation of PR can we trust them?

 The Post expose found that 716,982 gallons of the petroleum chemicals spilled during the past decade have stayed in the ground after the initial cleanup. This has contaminated soil, sometimes spreading into groundwater- based on a Denver Post analysis of COGOC data. Incredibly, their maestro had the never to say the cleanup method was “safe” despite the Post finding the stuff is invading the soil, groundwater.  According to the Post (ibid.):

“There’s about one gallon of toxic liquid penetrating soil every eight minutes.”

In addition, the Post notes: “drillers churn up 135 to 500 tons of dirt with every new well, some of it soaked with hydrocarbons and laced with potentially toxic minerals and salts.”

Given this, is it any wonder adults – kids living near frack sites often have severe health complaints, ranging from horrific rashes to bleeding orifices to breathing problems? According to Eugene Kelly, chief of soil and crop science at Colorado State University – quoted in the piece:

“The overall impact of the oil and gas boom is like a death sentence for soil. It could be the next limiting component when we talk about feeding the planet and having a sustainable lifestyle- - because all the good stuff is gone and the soil is being degraded.”

Most citizens, including here in Colorado, have no remote idea how fast, far and wide the fracking craze is expanding.  According to the Post (p. 2B):

“3,000 new wells are drilled each year, adding to the nearly 52,000 active wells statewide.”

Most of this is done in agricultural areas northeast of Denver. In other words, we are sacrificing our 'bread basket'  for oil, natural gas. I’d say we’re sacrificing our water and health for oil –natural gas too.   No wonder groceries are already 50-70% more expensive than they were last year. Between the frackers' consumption of limited water in drought conditions, and their fouling of fertile soil, what would you expect?

Yet every time I turn on the tube now I hear and see one political whore or other insisting we “must become energy independent”.  The question I’d like to pose these poltroons is:

“Look, you want to be energy independent, or you do want to live? You can't have both! If we become energy independent so much carbon will be removed from the Earth and injected into the atmosphere that the runaway greenhouse effect will be triggered and we're all gone in 200 years.....or less.”

 Meanwhile, the Post’s examination of data found that the number of spills reached an all time record last year at 578 (according to the COGOC data).  In addition:

“State data also show that 12.3 percent of the past 1,000 spills (since June 24, 2012) already had contaminated groundwater before companies began cleanups.”

Beyond the contamination of soil and groundwater, the Post's data analysis showed that drilling of new wells unearthed an estimated 652,000 tons a year of sludge-like drill cuttings. These are supposed to be taken to special landfills but more often than not  spread them instead on “leased fields”.

 Naturally, the industry would rather look for short cuts given the costs to haul and bury ruined soil, which can require hundreds of truck to carry away – not to mention labor and landfill fees. The Post then cited just the volume created after the March, 2013 Parachute Creek spill in western Colorado.  It notes:

“The Williams and Bargath companies recovered 11,800 gallons of liquid hydrocarbons. They’ve excavated 2, 275 tons of contaminated soil, hauling it for burial at the ECDC facility in Utah.”

Process the dimensions and scale of this filth, polluting our landscape and the need to haul ever more away as the existing landfills grow into mountains.  It seems that Jared Polis’ idea of brining a ballot measure in for November – to allow communities to decide whether to allow fracking and how to regulate it- is more needed than ever.

Another urgent reason to allow this is the recent news (Denver Post, May 8, 1A) that scientists have found that Colorado's front Range oil and gas boom has been emitting three times more methane than previously thought. The rate, at 19.3 tons an HOUR. This is serious given the EPA has determined methane is 20 time more potent (i.e. higher forcing component) than CO2.   This study was done at the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration's Cooperative Institute for Research on the Environment.

The NOAA scientists also measured industry emissions of cancer -causing benzene and smog forming organic compounds at levels seven times higher than government agencies originally estimated.

Polis, like many of us, understands that if something isn’t done soon, the entire country will be turned into one giant, diseased shit pile.  Oh, excuse me, except for the rarefied and isolated one percent – ensconced in their high mountain redoubts far from the stink, fiery drinking water and cancers that the rest of us “little guys” will have to bear.

All for energy independence!