Methane Release Increases Because of Supply Chain Plumbing Leaks

Outside  Geophysical Institute in Fairbanks, AK in March, 2005. Methane there is continuously outgassing from the melting permafrost.

Today, methane - the chief component of natural gas - accounts for one fourth of global warming. Given the nasty effects of methane (it has more than 20 times the forcing factor of CO2)  one would have thought humans would take more care in not releasing any more than already estimated from natural events. (Themselves of anthropogenic origin).

In the latter case, I refer to the Nov. 26, 2013  issue of the peer-reviewed journal Nature Geoscience, in which the authors warned that the Arctic Ocean is releasing methane at a rate more than twice what existing scientific models predicted.  Natalie Shakhova and Igor Semiletov at the University of Alaska- Fairbanks' International Arctic Research Center - after a decade spent researching the Arctic's greenhouse gas emissions- have found this unexpected result.

Shakhova, the lead author of the report, in an interview post-publication, warned the methane release rate iwa likely even greater than their paper describes.  In an interview describing the work in The Fairbanks News Miner, she said:


" We decided to be as conservative as possible. We’re actually talking the top of the iceberg.” 


The researchers focused on the continental shelf off the northern coast of eastern Russia - the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. Underlying this region is sub -sea permafrost. When the permafrost melts, the methane can be released. For example, the submerged East Siberian Arctic Shelf contains much of the same stored carbon as the dry tundra to the south but also at least 17 teragrams of methane. (One teragram is equal to one million tons).

The vast carbon stores in the Arctic are also protected by the layer of sub-sea permafrost, but the new research shows it's in danger of disappearing.   Core samples taken of the sub-sea permafrost by  Shakhova et al show now the temperatures are near the freezing mark (30-32F)  Meanwhile, both the top and lower levels of sediment have already thawed. (Some climate modelers had previously suggested this wouldn't happen for five to seven thousand years.)

Shakhova added

"What we’re observing right now is much faster than what we anticipated and much faster than what was modeled,”

The consensus carbon budget estimates that more than half of carbon emissions are human-caused, but these estimates vastly underestimate the amount of carbon stored in the Arctic shelves, 

According to Shakhova:

“I believe strongly the Arctic sources are understated and need to be paid more attention,”


What is even more sobering now is the recent finding that humans are inadvertently releasing even more methane.  We are talking about unburned methane which leaks from wellheads, processing plants and pipelines all along the natural gas supply chain.  For the first twenty years after it's released into the atmosphere it is 84 times more potent  than CO2 as a global warming gas.  Thus, even small amounts leaked into the atmosphere can negate any advantage natural gas has over other fossil fuels.

An independent study commissioned by the Environmental Defense Fund found the industry could cut methane emissions 40 percent or more  for less than a penny per 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas produced by leaky valves and by properly maintaining pumps and other devices.. As one EDF investigator Mark Brownstein put it:

"It's largely a plumbing problem. And plumbing is dead simple".

In response, the White House - to its credit- announced a goal of reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas industry to nearly half of 2012 levels by 2025. Which is totally practical - as well as economical.

Nevertheless, no less a lard head and nincompoop than James Inhofe (R-OK), blasted the plan for "imposing a mandate designed to stifle our domestic energy industries."

Actually no, lamebrain. It would in fact conserve more natural gas resources the same as turning off faucets conserves water wastage. But then maybe Inhofe is as much a proponent of wasted energy as he is the dimwit notion that global warming is a hoax.

Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry insists voluntary control are sufficient. Yet fewer than 30 of 6,000-plus oil and gas operators across the nation have taken steps to lower their emissions..

Indeed, IF voluntary measures worked we wouldn't need federal standards or "mandates".

Thankfully, the EPA this summer will propose regulations for emissions of methane from new and modified oil and gas sources.

It's about time, because we are already flirting with catastrophe and a runaway greenhouse effect given the cavalier attitude of too many-  especially posturing right wing fools like Jim Inhofe.

Yes, All That Frigid Cold & Buffalo's Snow Event - Can Be Traced to Global WARMING

Satellite image of Arctic at point of maximal Arctic melting. Increasing warmth in the Arctic is influencing the polar vortex causing icy cold to spill southward to North America.


As Buffalo, NY was piled under by more feet of snow on top of the 6' they already had,  random tweets could be observed on multiple forums to the effect that "So much for global warming!"

Uh no, Bozos, much much more global warming! Dumbness in scientific matters appears to always surface when events occur - like Buffalo's lake effect snow storm  - that seem to contradict what we know scientifically or otherwise incepts cognitive dissonance amongst the hoi polloi. This is no different. So let's try to trace the logical sequence here for those who somehow believe the frigid air and snow storms mean global warming is a "hoax" in the words of  Sen. Screwball,  James Inhofe (OK).

The first element is the Arctic air dipping into the States, which we now know is a result of what's been called the polar vortex.  This phenomenon was originally proposed in a theory by Prof. Gunther Weller of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, more than 25 years ago. He defined it as a normally stable system circulating around the Arctic, like a massive cyclone. (Weller called it  a stable polar cyclone)   However, with increased warming in the Arctic-  especially more than anyplace else on Earth-  the circulation in the vortex is weakened and the vortex’s cold spills southward – discharging energy and creating the record breaking cold we’ve been seeing.

In other words, the polar vortex is the first sign of an ongoing Arctic instability associated with its extraordinary polar warming - again first revealed by Prof. Weller a early as 1986. As the melting ice proceeds faster the instability will become more and more pronounced leading to more such events in the years to come. Until the point is reached that the 'fridge' has totally defrosted leading to monumental climate upheaval and prolonged heat waves around the world - as well as the first "year of no seasons."

We see then that the polar vortex was the "necessary condition" for the massive snow event in Buffalo. For the actual occurrence there must also have been the "sufficient condition" and that was the warm waters of Lake Erie. (Note: Technically speaking, Typhoon Nuri might be regarded as the "co-necessary condition" as it approached the Aleutians from Japan and triggered the instability of the vortex.)

To remind readers, a necessary condition is one which, if absent, the entity cannot exist or the phenomenon cannot occur.. A sufficient condition is one which, if present, the entity or phenomenon must exist. For example, a sufficient condition for the existence of a hydrogen emission nebula in space would be proximity of the nebula to a radiating star. The necessary condition is the nebula exist in the first place.

For the Buffalo snow storm the necessary condition was the polar vortex (as we saw, traced to  global warming -climate change) and the sufficient condition was the frigid air descending over the highly warmed Lake Erie giving rise to a monstrous "lake effect" which generated snow volumes much much higher than normally experienced in the region.

Bottom line: Don't take the frigid temperatures or the Buffalo snowstorm as any evidence there is no global warming!

U.S. Political Class Goes Ape Shit Over Putin Op-Ed

Ah, the "land of the free and home of the brave" - which ironically boasts more people in prisons or on probation than China, Russia, Iran and Syria combined. But wait....our troops are fighting for "our freedoms". Puh-leeze!  At least some of this Neoliberal codswallop would be digestible if  the Overclass and its media that run this country were less hypocritical and at least gave a nod to freedom of speech, without getting their panties in a snit and losing it every damned time a meme opposing their own gets high profile circulation.

 But we already saw how that one worked out, when a long forgotten essay by former Univ. of Colorado prof Ward Churchill was found, then circulated and he was run out of his teaching job - based on a university witch hunt that detected "plagiarism". (Interestingly, in a "QA research vetting" wherein they singled out only Churchill.)

Then there was Joe Wilson, who in his New York Times op-ed piece, "What I Didn't Find in Africa", exposed the Bushies'  phony Niger "yellowcake" bunkum (used to justify the Iraq invasion, and which many rightist idiots or disputatious obsessives still believe, e.g. at snopes.com and other enclaves). The entrenched Neocon political class was so outraged that they let Joe have it....or rather his wife, with the subsequent "outing" of  Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. And yet these rat fuckers are still walking around and haven't been hanged yet for treason.

So pardon me if I am compelled to laugh now at the hysterical responses of the new political class where the likes of John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and James Inhofe all bleat their outrage together- like a chorus of cosseted corporate, Neoliberal whores and losers. "Awwww.......Putin got to write a piece in the New York Times, BWAAHAHAHAHAHAAA .....I'm gonna lose my lunch!"

But there it was in full view - with clips featured on Chris Hayes 'ALL IN" last night-   where we beheld the same screeching and hysteria - by the Neoliberal political class assholes, analogous to what we beheld from the Bushite war criminals after Joe Wilson exposed their ruse on yellowcake. (Which, btw, a number of articles in Physics Today have also validated.)


All this huffing, puffing, pissing, farting and moaning after Putin's Op-Ed appeared in The New York Times. There was Nancy Pelosi sputtering and moaning with her head spinning- looking like some poor wretch who'd taken too much Ex-lax - and didn't know where to run, then Sen. Bob Menendez (NJ) bellyaching at how he "wanted to vomit"  after having read it. And last, there was Sen. Jim Inhofe, the illustrious asshole who himself feels he has the right to call global warming a "hoax" over and over- despite the fact his BS may well have postponed action until we're now all for the high jump. But this same asshole imp who declares his "right" to spout  climate rubbish,  is now seen screaming and howling about "having to read such stuff" and "wanting to throw up".

Hey, don't let your barf bag hit you in the ass on the way out, asshole!  You didn't HAVE to read it!  No one forced you to!  The same applies to all the other mealy -mouthed Neolib pols pouting, whining and evidently missing their own hypocrisy in this instance too. Hey, what happened to the "free market of ideas"? Oh wait! It only applies to Neolib rats and scoundrels!

But let's move on to the larger point.

As exposed this morning on CBS News Early Show, the American PR firm Ketchum was behind getting Putin's op-ed expeditiously published a mere day after Obama's "war" speech.  Ketchum is but one PR firm, and there are literally hundreds which do just about everything - from painting positive portraits of our pols when caught with their pants down, to those like BRJames which helped get Assad's wifey into Vogue, to  Hill and Knowlton, which helps the natural gas-fracking bunch promote the myth that fracking poses no harm.(As well as assisting pro-frack pols to get elected.)

My point is that the PR influence is spread throughout our political system as much as lobbying. Indeed, the two are often tied together 'at the hip' with lobbyists often using PR firms in their own goals to either get their clients elected or move public opinion on an issue- such as fracking, or to deny global warming (like Inhofe does). What the Neolib crybabies are really bellyaching over is that Putin had access to an American PR firm (like they do) but now given the capacity to influence American minds, re: the Syria issue and especially the threat of U.S. strikes.

But instead of paying attention to their own use of PR firms and lobbyists,  all our pissant pols instead hypocritically postured by castigating Putin for HIS "posturing" while objecting to a basic freedom most of them take for granted. And I am talking about the Democrat weasels as well as the Repukes. On certain issues, when they all scream the same way, you can really see how they have more in common than one believes, as on the issue of Edward Snowden  - when Chuck Schumer screamed as loud for Snowden's head, as Insane McCain and that moron Lindsey Graham.

So don't get me started on these jackasses and jagoffs. I will take them seriously when they go after Ketchum and their OWN PR firms, as opposed to trying to keep those unsavory facts hidden from us. At least in the case of Putin's op-ed, most savvy Americans already knew that the exceptionalist meme was poisoning the country and leading its military- industrial complex to ever more wars of choice and military spending adventures. We didn't need a bimbo such as Chris Hayes had on last night (from New Republic) trying to tell us that the op-ed was --------- (fill in your epithet)  and Americans ought not buy it. Well, why would we buy claims from politico.com, HuffPo,   The Daily Beast (whose then editor, Tina Brown,  couldn't even get the grassy knoll aspect of the JFK hit right- using it as a joke to ding the Diana conspiracy) or New Republic or any other sources?

What separates the deep politics immersed citizen from the superficial citizen, is that we do our own research from independent sources and arrive at our own conclusions via critical thinking - not Neoliberal group think. (Which was blatantly obvious the way they all came down on the Snowden issue, even "liberal" MSNBC, with the exception of the more intelligent Chris Hayes.)

As opposed to hysterically screeching their heads off, the American political class would have done better to extract the key nuggets from Putin's op-ed as opposed to pissing on all of it, and trying to evoke phony outrage. Especially when most savvy citizens already can see right through them, and the Neoliberal whores and grafters they really are. Need a clue? Look at the polls that showed congress is rated even lower on the 'approve' scale than getting dysentery or West Nile virus!