I want to sue the republican party for willful denial of scientific evidence about climate change.

[twa]

regs have changed from the 60's and even 90's....as the study itself directly mentions (such as unlined waste pits)

 

 

no rules preventing exactly what?....'this' is rather generic 

[PeterMP]

regs have changed from the 60's and even 90's....as the study itself directly mentions (such as unlined waste pits)

 

 

no rules preventing exactly what?....'this' is rather generic 

 

When is the last time you heard of a company getting in trouble for using an unlined waste pit?

 

And "the regulations" depend on the kind of pit.

 

https://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2014/04/01/are-drilling-waste-pits-threat-to-texas-groundwater/

 

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Most-fracking-waste-dumped-in-unlined-pits-in-CA-6375558.php

 

Most of state’s fracking waste left in unlined pits, study finds.

 

Rules that actually prevent industry the fracking industry from simply dumping chemicals so that they can end up in ground water.

Edited March 30, 2016 by PeterMP

[twa]

there are rules that penalize any leakage or contamination.....cradle to grave ones , and I've certainly heard of companies getting in trouble with them

 

your own article acknowledges it is common practice to use steel tanks in the industry, furthermore fluids like drilling mud do not need lined pits 

 

a report from the 80's  ....lotta changes since then

a blurb by a environmental waste company is real convincing  , next ya are gonna quote Boeing on the need for more airplanes

[PeterMP]

there are rules that penalize any leakage or contamination.....cradle to grave ones , and I've certainly heard of companies getting in trouble with them

 

your own article acknowledges it is common practice to use steel tanks in the industry, furthermore fluids like drilling mud do not need lined pits 

 

a report from the 80's  ....lotta changes since then

a blurb by a environmental waste company is real convincing  , next ya are gonna quote Boeing on the need for more airplanes

 

As far as I know, there have been 3 cases where people have looked for leakage.  The Duke work, the EPA, and the work by the group in CA.

 

And all show that are issues and as far as I know nobody has been penalized (Duke was looking at methane from the wells themselves not groundwater contamination from pits).

 

Can you actually cite a case of a oil company in this context getting in trouble for violating a regulation?

 

The report isn't from the 1980s.  It is the result of the work a group that was originally created in the 1980s, but done post-2013.

Edited March 30, 2016 by PeterMP

[twa]

you serious?

\http://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-pennsylvania-eqt-corp-fracking-idUSKCN0HW1VK20141007

 

add

 something to keep in mind is fines do not include the remediation/cleanup costs the companies must pay as well.....which are very expensive

Edited March 30, 2016 by twa

[PeterMP]

you serious?

\http://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-pennsylvania-eqt-corp-fracking-idUSKCN0HW1VK20141007

 

add

 something to keep in mind is fines do not include the remediation/cleanup costs the companies must pay as well.....which are very expensive

 

Come on.  That's not what we are talking about, and you know it.  You understand the difference the difference between leakage of water containment systems into ground water, and faulty containment or non-containment that contaminates surface water and soil.

 

The Duke, CA, and EPA all looked at contamination of ground water from fracking related activities and found evidence that it happened.

[twa]

Come on.  That's not what we are talking about, and you know it.  You understand the difference the difference between leakage of water containment systems into ground water, and faulty containment or non-containment that contaminates surface water and soil.

 

The Duke, CA, and EPA all looked at contamination of ground water from fracking related activities and found evidence that it happened.

 

 

You come on, contamination certainly happens by accident and poor procedures in rare cases....and the costs both in remediation and fines is steep for offenders ....you want some extra rule, whereas liability costs are more effective

 

your evidence is of minor impacts and most by processes no longer in use

 

it happens from driving your car as well...which is getting cleaner as well

 

add

Edited March 31, 2016 by twa

[PeterMP]

You come on, contamination certainly happens by accident and poor procedures in rare cases....and the costs both in remediation and fines is steep for offenders ....you want some extra rule, whereas liability costs are more effective

 

your evidence is of minor impacts and most by processes no longer in use

 

it happens from driving your car as well...which is getting cleaner as well

 

Over 1/2 of CA fracking waste is in unlined pits based on a study STARTED in 2013 in CA.  Based on what I know, there hasn't been a similar study conducted in a single other state.  There is no real reason to believe that CA is an outlier.

 

And there has been essentially no work done at looking at ground water contamination of fracking waste in CA from those unlined pits and in a lot of places where there has been fracking.

 

But where people have looked there has been (at least some) contamination.

 

Those are the facts presented in this thread.

 

It is of minimal impact as long as we don't look too hard, and you don't own a home in an area where we do look.

 

Yes if industry is dumb enough to let their waste escape into surface water ways and soil where it creates obvious and immediate damage on non-industry properties, they get hit pretty well.

 

But realistically, that's very limited enforcement.

Edited March 31, 2016 by PeterMP

[twa]

w/o knowing the geology and soil composition, as well as the water tables in that region you cannot conclude it is unsafe.

 

all of those are factored into waste pits here and I would assume there

http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/oil-gas/applications-and-permits/environmental-permit-types-information/pits/

 

waste from some is mainly brine which is already present in the water table they are over

 

are these reserve pits for reinjection on site or long term storage?

[China]

Florida is Screwed

 

As humanity continues to pump carbon into the sky, the models that predict Earth’s future are becoming increasingly complex and detailed. And yet, they’re zeroing in on a simple conclusion: if we don’t get our act together fast, Florida is totally screwed. Along with a bunch of other coastal cities around the world.

 

A major new ice sheet analysis, which appears as the cover story in Nature today, offers the latest dire warning that we are on the brink of dramatic and essentially irreversible sea level rise. The key finding is that the Antarctic ice sheet may be extremely sensitive to a couple degrees of warming, much more so than we thought. The authors conclude that if carbon emissions continue unchecked, Antarctic melting alone could cause more than a meter of sea level rise this century and 15 meters (50 feet) by the year 2500.

 

“This is just the Antarctic piece,” lead study author Robert DeConto at the University of Massachusetts told Gizmodo. “The IPCC is coming in at about one meter of sea level rise this century in their worst case scenario, but this implies that there’s the potential for a lot more.”

 

Over a meter of sea level rise would turn Miami, New Orleans, and other US cities that sit at sea level into giant wading pools. But it gets a lot worse if you start looking further into the future. In their study, DeConto and David Pollard incorporated several new physical feedback processes into Antarctic ice models. These include the accumulation of mel****er on icy surfaces, and the collapse of cliffs that hold back the flow of inland ice into the ocean. The result? A few degrees of warming may cause tremendous amounts of ice—particularly in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet—to fall and melt into the sea over centuries to come.

 

Unfortunately for humans, the results line up very nicely with what geologists believe happened during the last interglacial period 125,000 years ago, when the planet was maybe a degree or two warmer than it is today, but global mean sea level was up to 60 feet higher.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[twa]

Florida is screwed anyway as well as much of the NE coast

 

the West coast is just waiting on the Big One or Yellowstone 

 

ya keep teasing me with waterfront property for decades

[PeterMP]

w/o knowing the geology and soil composition, as well as the water tables in that region you cannot conclude it is unsafe.

 

all of those are factored into waste pits here and I would assume there

http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/oil-gas/applications-and-permits/environmental-permit-types-information/pits/

 

waste from some is mainly brine which is already present in the water table they are over

 

are these reserve pits for reinjection on site or long term storage?

 

I don't think we know because I don't think anybody ever checks, and I think that's true in almost every state.

 

Other than when there is clear contamination that is publicly visible (e.g. surface contamination on non-industry property), I've never heard of industry getting in trouble for having improper waste in an improperly designed pit.

 

And I don't believe industry is perfect on the topic.

[twa]

I don't think we know because I don't think anybody ever checks, and I think that's true in almost every state.

 

Other than when there is clear contamination that is publicly visible (e.g. surface contamination on non-industry property), I've never heard of industry getting in trouble for having improper waste in an improperly designed pit.

 

And I don't believe industry is perfect on the topic.

 

 

 

no industry is perfect, including environmentalists and researchers 

[PeterMP]

no industry is perfect, including environmentalists and researchers 

 

That's true, but:

 

1. Those industries aren't putting chemicals in puts where the potential to affect large numbers of people.

 

2.  I'm not claiming the government is doing a good job of regulating those industries.

[twa]

That's true, but:

 

1. Those industries aren't putting chemicals in puts where the potential to affect large numbers of people.

 

 

they are not keeping the lights on and feeding folk either

 

the govt is not doing a good job regulating researchers and environuts either 

 

govt generally sucks

[China]

The Fracking Data

 

 

[twa]

The Fracking Data

 

Wasn't it tied to waste injection wells rather than fracking itself in most all cases?

 

a slower injection rate and better siting, as well as recycling efforts easily address the problem(which is overblown to start with  )

 

http://www.usgs.gov/blogs/features/usgs_top_story/man-made-earthquakes/

Edited April 3, 2016 by twa

[China]

Climate Change? Some People May Not Be Sweating It Because The Weather Is Nicer

 

For millions of Americans, climate change is making the weather nicer. That's the conclusion of a new study that points out winters are getting quite a bit milder, while summers aren't getting that much worse.

 

The study's authors say the mild temperatures might be one reason some people aren't so worried about climate change.

For most of the U.S., the hottest temperatures in July haven't gone up much — scientific consensus is about half a degree over the past 40 years. Same for sticky humidity — not much change, if any.

 

But January's highest temperatures have warmed up on average more than 4 degrees. Patrick Egan at New York University says for lots of people, that means weather many people view as "pleasant."

 

"I live here in New York City, and you've got shirtless beach volleyball games taking place on Christmas Eve in Central Park," Egan says. "And on Christmas Day we had a cookout. We were all wearing shorts, and ... it was bizarre and it was unusual. It was no Currier & Ives Christmas, but it was also pleasant."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

 

That’s why this mesmerizing new graph from climate scientist Ed Hawkins of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading gives such an excellent overview of what’s really going on. In the graph, Hawkins charts out every month’s temperature change since the 1850s into an outward expanding spirograph of climate data.

 

Link

[twa]

sweet, maybe the next ice age will hold off a bit longer

 

 

http://www.livescience.com/51597-maunder-minimum-mini-ice-age.html

 

 

The Little Ice Age

The Little Ice Age saw rapid expansion of mountain glaciers, especially in the Alps, Norway, Ireland and Alaska. There were three cycles of particularly chilly periods, beginning around 1650, 1770 and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals, according to NASA. Although the Maunder Minimum corresponds with the first of the three cooling periods, the connection between solar activity and terrestrial climate are topics of on-going research, according to NASA. [See Photos of Greenland's Gorgeous Glaciers]

- See more at: http://www.livescience.com/51597-maunder-minimum-mini-ice-age.html#sthash.nalVBY94.dpuf

Edited May 11, 2016 by twa

[Larry]

Part of the problem with the animated graph, China, is that it starts off by showing how much the temperature changed from 1850-51, then builds to telling us how much it changed 1850-60, then 1850-1900. Then 1850-1950, and so forth.

It compares one year of change (at the beginning), and eventually compares it to 160 years of change.

Yes, the temperature changed more, in 160 years, than it did in 10 years.

[China]

I don't see how that's a problem.  It's additive.  If them temp went back down the spiral wouldn't keep getting bigger.  That's the whole point.

[Larry]

Then just skip the cutesy animation, and show how much it's changed in 160 years.

[PeterMP]

sweet, maybe the next ice age will hold off a bit longer

 

 

http://www.livescience.com/51597-maunder-minimum-mini-ice-age.html

 

 

The Little Ice Age

The Little Ice Age saw rapid expansion of mountain glaciers, especially in the Alps, Norway, Ireland and Alaska. There were three cycles of particularly chilly periods, beginning around 1650, 1770 and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals, according to NASA. Although the Maunder Minimum corresponds with the first of the three cooling periods, the connection between solar activity and terrestrial climate are topics of on-going research, according to NASA. [See Photos of Greenland's Gorgeous Glaciers]

- See more at: http://www.livescience.com/51597-maunder-minimum-mini-ice-age.html#sthash.nalVBY94.dpuf[/size]

 

Keep reading your link:

 

"Regarding the Maunder Minimum predicted by Zharkova, Feulner said, "The expected decrease in global temperature would be 0.1 degrees Celsius at most, compared to about 1.3 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times by the year 2030," Feulner told the Post. Furthermore, this isn't the first time research has predicted waning heat from the sun, to which experts also said that man-made global warming won't be trumped."

 "A large volcanic eruption in Cosigüina, Nicaragua, in 1838 may have emitted aerosols that circulated through the atmosphere, deflecting incoming solar radiation and cooling the air.

Also, Dickens' white Christmases may have benefited from the 1815 eruption of the volcano Tambora in Indonesia."

 

 

Guess what year had a the low number of sun spots vs. which one had a major volcano erupt.

[pjfootballer]

I for one welcome our ice overlords.