Sky News on our (absurdly hopeful) 2° Future

Just in time for the talks in Paris* and as the last hopes of our keeping temperature-increase under 2 degrees Celsius evaporate, here's a nice video from Sky News illustrating what, at this point, our most optimistic future might look like due to our greedy shortsighted stupidity.

This video, released in the last 24 hours or so, on our 2° future was accompanied by scarier videos illustrating 3° & 4° respectively.  For some reason, Sky has since chosen to set the accompanying videos to 'Private' status on YouTube.

To be generous to Sky, maybe these videos were just released prematurely by accident, and will be re-released shortly.  Maybe.**

The remaining video is instructive.****  But we're missing the progression that the video-makers clearly intended with just the one.  Also, each video ended with an encouragement to share said content via social media.  Kinda hard to do that Sky when you disappear the videos with no warning, and no explanation.



* Which due to our ever currently convenient obsession with 'The War on Terror'*** are to occur under a 'State of Emergency' with protests conveniently banned.

** That, or representatives of Murdoch's buddies in the fossil-fuel-industries got wind of what one of his media-outlets was putting out, and convinced Sky of the benefits of a little self-censorship ?

*** Many of the roots of which can be directly tied back to our dependence upon fossil-fuels, and support of the backwards regimes who control much of the supply thereof.

**** Myself, I think there's an argument that some of the millennials and younger may have an excuse (living under Western corporate media & the likes of GOP-compromised educational systems) for not understanding just how dire the threat is.  But, really, if you're over thirty or so and need any further convincing, then at this point I can't put it down to any better than, at most generous, wilful ignorance.


Update: This vid. on 5° change may be a replacement for the other two videos I mentioned.

Fragility

PARIS (AFP) - Only aggressive efforts to rein in global warming coupled with a rethinking of the British countryside will save many native species of butterfly, according to a study published Monday.

"Widespread, drought-sensitive butterfly population extinction could occur as early as 2050," scientists reported in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Under a business-as-usual scenario of continued greenhouse gas emissions, the odds that certain British Isles species will make it beyond mid-century are "around zero", the study concludes.

Protecting wilderness areas - and especially reducing the fragmentation of natural habitats - would give some of these gossamer creatures at least a slim chance of survival.

Such measures combined with a 2 degrees Celsius cap on global warming would boost their odds to about 50 per cent, the researchers said.

The two-degree target, benchmarked to pre-industrial times, has been embraced by the 195-nation UN forum tasked with delivering a climate-saving pact in Paris in December.

...

The researches suspected that occasional bouts of drought were at least as devastating to some species as gradually rising temperatures.

...  

As critical, the researchers discovered a direct link between landscape and recovery: the more fragmented the habitat, the longer it took for populations to revive.

"Conservationists increasingly recognise the importance of reducing fragmentation of natural habitats rather than simply managing protected 'islands' in a hostile landscape of intensive farming," Oliver said by email.

Butterflies in other countries with a high degree of industrial farming that face similar climate change scenarios may also be in danger.

In areas "that are already hotter and drier, the impacts of drought may be much more severe", said Oliver.

The significance of the findings goes beyond the intrinsic beauty of butterflies and their value as part of Earth's natural heritage.

Butterflies are frequently used as a "canary-in-the-coal-mine" indicator for other types of insects.

The cheery news for our future just never stops, does it ?

Slate/New Scientist on Obama's 'Bold' Climate Plan

Obama wants you to think his climate plan will be bold. It’s not

US president Barack Obama's much-heralded attempt to curb carbon emissions from coal-fired power stations is nowhere near enough

Later today, US President Barack Obama will unveil the final version of the centrepiece of his climate legacy: the Clean Power Plan.

It is designed to speed up the retirement of coal-fired power plants – the most carbon-intensive way of generating electricity – and could more than double the rate of their closures by 2040.

In a video preview, Obama called the Clean Power Plan “the biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken to combat climate change”. While that may be true, it’s not saying a whole heck of a lot.

As I wrote last year when the details were initially announced, many states are already well on their way to achieving the required reductions, thanks in part to a recent boom in cheap natural gas and the Obama administration’s choice of 2005 as the basis year for cuts, which was close to America’s all-time peak in carbon emissions. Obama’s plan is significant, but it’s not bold.

A previous version of the targets, announced last year, would have required states to begin implementing changes to their power-producing mix in 2020. The final version, to be announced today, gives states and utilities an extra two years. The targets will vary by state, depending on their current energy mix, and states will have flexible ways of achieving emissions reductions, including an option to join an interstate cap-and-trade scheme.

All this will be a heavy lift for some coal-intensive states, like Wyoming, but it’s being heralded as largely “business as usual” for some states, like Minnesota, that have already made significant efforts to shift their energy mix.

...

It has been calculated that the plan would shave just 6 per cent from US carbon emissions by 2030. Climate science and international equity demand the US cut emissions 80 per cent by then. We’re nowhere near that pace.

Still, this plan is not nothing. In its coverage, The New York Times includes this hopeful gem: “But experts say that if the rules are combined with similar action from the world’s other major economies, as well as additional action by the next American president, emissions could level off enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change.”

That’s a lot of hedging on which to base a climate legacy.

In fact, when compared with the climate plans of his would-be successors on the left – Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley – Obama’s ranks last in terms of ambition.

Clinton, who has frequently aligned herself with the president on climate, announced a preview of her own climate plan last week. It’s fractionally more ambitious than Obama’s, but it essentially just kicks the can forward another few years.

...

Last week, former NASA climate scientist James Hansen, fresh off a dire new warning about global sea levels, had harsh words for the slow, incremental progress that’s formed essentially the entirety of American’s climate ambition to date. “We have two political parties, neither one of which is willing to face reality,” Hansen told the Guardian. “Conservatives pretend it’s all a hoax, and liberals propose solutions that are non-solutions.”

“It’s just plain silly,” said Hansen, speaking specifically of Clinton’s planned renewable energy push. “No, you cannot solve the problem without a fundamental change, and that means you have to make the price of fossil fuels honest.”

In the end, our climate won’t care about how we fix this problem. But it’s clear that time is running out. If Obama truly wants to go all-in on climate change, he should meet Republicans where they are – as painful as that might be – and negotiate a way to pass a carbon tax.

...

If Obama really wants to make a lasting impact on global warming, he can work across the US political divide or across the Pacific in Beijing, to work toward implementing a meaningful, economy-wide carbon tax as quickly as possible. Just because such a breakthrough feels impossible doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary. 

Nice change from the coverage in most outlets, including, sadly, the BBC, which seems to have framed the discussion of Obama's plan solely in terms of his Republican opponents' view (ie, 'Radical Enviro-Nazi Obama and his War On Coal; Let's debate the two sides...'), whilst ignoring those who would argue Obama's legacy-burnishing proposals are at the very least too little, and quite likely, too late.

<Rant below the fold:>

Speaking of our Future Semi-Benevolent Dictator

Here's Hillary's super-duper Reality-driven plan for dealing with climate-change: More solar panels** and wind-turbines to power US homes.

That's it apparently.*  No mention of the need for more nuclear in the short term at least.  No mention of industry.  No mention of our destructive economic system that is inherently dependent on infinite growth in a world of finite resources.  No mention of globalisation & trade.  No mention of population-growth.  No mention of China, Russia, Canada, Brasil, Australia, etc., and that fact that nothing the US does will make a damn bit of difference without some sort of global agreement on action.

Just put a solar panel on your house, drive a Prius, and bye-bye climate-change.  And everybody gets a magical pony to boot.


This folksy aw-shucks shit made me want to vomit:

I'm just a grandmother with two eyes and a brain.

Uh, you're a Yale-educated lawyer, a millionaire, a former board-member of Walmart, the highly influential wife of a two-term president of the United States (who amongst other things did much to undermine existing efforts on climate change by outsourcing much of US industry to the far east and México), a former Senator of the United States, and a former Secretary of State.  This lil' ole' Gran'ma me shit is starting to grate.


* There is a line in the video that hints at a coming 'comprehensive agenda', but hey, I'm not the one who released this publicly as 'Hillary's plan to curb climate change'.  And if you seriously believe Hillary will take any bolder action than this, then I've got a bridge for sale.

** Just thought, hang on a minute, where are all these solar panels coming from, given that the PRC-subsidised manufacturers in China already put most US manufacturers out of business ?  On a heavily polluting container-ship over the Pacific Ocean ?

Ethanol !

Was wondering just the other day about the fact that we hear so little about biofuels these days.  A decade ago, they were all the rage, with governments pushing them as a more environmentally-friendly, more sustainable alternative to fossilfuels, and stories showing up all the time in the media about people filling up their cars with chipfat or other leftover oils from restaurants.

Those who pointed out the potential environmental consequences of turning over more land to development for fuel, never mind the impact on food-supply for humans in redirecting the output of swathes of agriculture were pooh-poohed or ignored.

Anyways, this led me to Google News, and these two recent headlines:

Confused ?  Can both these headlines be true ?  Apparently, they can.

As I understand it, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is increasing year-on-year the requirements for, 'renewable fuel' percentages in the United States, but is doing so at levels, below the targets set by Congress.  For the simple reason that there isn't enough supply.  Or, as the EPA puts it:

The Clean Air Act provides EPA with the authority to reduce the volume requirements from their statutory targets under certain conditions, and we are proposing to use these authorities in this action. EPA has evaluated the availability of qualifying renewable fuels and factors that in some cases constrain the supply of those fuels to the vehicles that can consume them. EPA has also considered the ability of the market to respond to the applicable standards by producing changes in production, infrastructure, and relative pricing to boost the use of renewable fuels.

Based on these and other considerations, EPA is proposing volumes which, while below the volumes originally set by Congress, would increase renewable fuel use in the
U.S. above historical levels and provide for steady growth over time.

This is the kind of thing BTW likely to cause a freakout on the right in the US over Barack Obama's 'tyranical' abuse of executive power.  Except for the fact, that it's a relatively obscure wonkish issue that most people don't understand or care about.

And so anyway, the end-result is that no-one is happy with these proposals, whether it be boaters worried about ethanol destroying their engines, or those calling for the abolition of this idiotic mandate that should never have been put through for stupid political reasons by the Bush administration in the first place (What, should I pretend not to be biased ?), or the agricultural groups with a vested interest in maintaining artificial government subsidies for their crops.

Speaking of which, here's a nice quote:

The president of the The Iowa Corn Growers Association, Jerry Mohr, pointed out that farmers have the capabilities for increased ethanol production. "Iowa farmers have rallied to the challenge and been asked to produce corn, and we have. We just need a way to get rid of it. And ethanol has been a great one. And it's great for our country, and it cleans the air."

Never mind the crap about it cleaning the air (is he talking about photosynthesis ?), 'we just need a way to get rid of it.' ?  Seriously ?

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about 805 million people of the 7.3 billion people in the world, or one in nine, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2012-2014. Almost all the hungry people, 791 million, live in developing countries, representing 13.5 percent, or one in eight, of the population of developing counties. There are 11 million people undernourished in developed countries (FAO 2014; for individual country estimates, see Annex 1.

This insane law is one of those things Obama could have set out to have repealed from early on in his presidency.  And although there is, of course, an instinctive resistance on the part of Republicans to go along with any the Obama administration's proposals, I suspect that there is actually some bipartisan agreement on this issue, the agri-lobby in Iowa aside, given that this law does interfere with the market, does impose bureaucratic governmental standards on business, and was pushed in the name of pseudo-environmental concern against the interests of fossil-fuel-based business.  The United States should be repealing this stupid legislation ASAP, and the EPA increasing the Ethanol-mandate not a jot.


* Relevant Links below:
http://www.examiner.com/article/corn-growers-rally-over-epa-s-rule-to-cut-ethanol-production
http://counton2.com/2015/07/14/epa-proposes-increasing-ethanol-in-fuel-supply/
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fuels/renewablefuels/regulations.htm
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fuels/renewablefuels/documents/420f15028.pdf
http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm#Number_of_hungry_people_in_the_world

** BTW, news-sites, the only thing worse than auto-play embedded video, is embedded video programmed to re-start automatically every five minutes or so, despite the fact that you've repeatedly expressed your disinclination to watch/listen to said video.  I am of course, not including in this comparison, video which is set by default to 100% volume.  WHICH IS SHEER EVIL !!!

Tony Abbott is an Asshat Part MMMCCXLVIII

If, as the environment movement contends, fossil fuels are the new tobacco, then Australia has cast itself as a sort of swaggering Marlboro man, puffing away contentedly as the rest of the world looks on quizzically.

As other countries look to transition to low-carbon alternatives with one eye on crunch climate talks in Paris later this year, Australia is pushing ahead with an expansion in coal extraction that its conservative prime minister Tony Abbott insists is “good for humanity”.

A series of huge mines planned for outback Queensland would, at capacity, produce nearly enough coal to match Germany’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

The federal government has just approved another mine, further south, on the fertile farming plains of New South Wales. It will be allowed to operate until 2046, a full 26 years after the point when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests the world should stop emissions rising to avoid disastrous global warming.

The mine, to be operated by Chinese state-owned firm Shenhua, has caused consternation among farmers, with agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce rebelling against his own cabinet colleagues by branding the approval “absolute madness” and “dopey”.

Both mines will liberate coal to further escalate Australia’s huge export industry, predominantly to India and China. The government’s rationale is clear – coal is here to stay and there is a moral imperative to provide it to the world, ideally reigniting Australia’s fading mining boom in the process. Any contrary view, such as the Pope’s, has been branded “unchristian” in the Abbott-friendly, Rupert Murdoch-owned press.

“For the foreseeable future coal is the foundation of prosperity,” Abbott said late last year. “Coal is the foundation of the way we live because you can’t have a modern lifestyle without energy, you can’t have a modern economy without energy.

“So if we are serious about raising people’s living standards in less developed countries, if we are serious about maintaining and improving living standards in countries like Australia, we have to be serious about making the best use of coal.”

Indeed !  Why do you hate poor people, environmentalists ?  Stupid Malthusian Marxist Big-Government Bureaucrats standing in the way of basic human progress and prosperity !  Why shouldn't developing nations be allowed to play as much a part (full knowingly) as we played (somewhat knowingly, perhaps) in destroying the ability of the planet to support advanced ecosystems, and human civilisation ?  And while we're at it, we should also encourage every nation to develop nuclear weapons.  Why should the developed nations have a monopoly on the power to destroy all of humanity at the touch of a button ?

According to recent polling by the Lowy Institute, 50% of Australians agree that “global warming is a serious and pressing problem” – up 14% since 2012. Asked what Australia’s primary energy source should be in 10 years, 43% of respondents cited solar power. Coal was selected by only 17%.

But it is doubtful whether Abbott will be swayed, either by scientific or economic evidence or, despite his undoubted ability as a political survivor, poor polling.

As he wrote in his book Battlelines: “To a conservative, intuition is as important as reasoning; instinct as important as intellect. A way of life has far more demonstrative power to a conservative than a brilliant argument.”

Earlier, in the article, Abbott is referred to as a 'a poor man’s George W Bush'.  Bush was never so eloquent, but that sentiment in bold, scares the shit out of me.  That kind of anti-rational bullshit might well serve as the epitaph on our species' tombstone.

Tony Abbott is an Asshat Part MMMCCXLVII

Government pulls the plug on household solar

The Abbott government has opened up another front in its war on renewable energy by pulling the plug on investments in the most common form of alternative energy, rooftop and small-scale solar.

As a storm raged over the government's directive to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to no longer back wind energy projects, it emerged that it has also put a stop to solar investments other than the largest industrial-scale projects.

The solar industry has been left fuming by a letter to the CEFC by Treasurer Joe Hockey and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann in which they direct investments in household and small-scale solar to be "excluded" from the $10 billion fund in future.

The draft investment mandate calls for "mature and established clean energy technologies … to be excluded from the corporation's activities, including extant wind technology and household and small-scale solar".

Currently, about a third of all CEFC investments involve small-scale solar. The corporation, which has produced more than a $1 profit for the government for every $1 invested, was assessing $500 million in finance for solar projects valued at more than $1 billion.

There are 1.3 million rooftop solar systems in Australia and most households receive publicly-backed rebates to install, but the CEFC has made a priority projects that help people who do not own their own homes, those who live in apartments and community groups to invest in solar panels.

...

Australian Solar Council chief executive John Grimes accused Tony Abbott of playing "cynical politics" after the Prime Minister insisted on Sunday that his government "supports renewables" but wants to "reduce the upward pressure on power prices".

Mr Grimes said the CEFC had made it possible for low-income people and retirees to invest in solar and take advantage of the power bill savings that flow.

"Tony Abbott is keeping people trapped paying higher electricity prices," Mr Grimes told Fairfax Media.

The government tried and failed to abolish the profit-making CEFC after failing to get Senate support and its latest strike against wind and solar is expected to further scare renewable energy investors away from Australia, Labor and the Greens claim.

..

Shadow environment spokesman Mark Butler said: "These proposed changes go well beyond Tony Abbott's opposition to the aesthetic values of wind farms - it's a wholesale attack on renewable energy.

"Tony Abbott is broadening his assault on renewable energy technologies putting thousands of Australian jobs and billions of dollars in investment at even further risk."

Maybe it's an Anglo-Saxon thing.  Here we are in 2015, decades after we were first warned about global warming, and at a time when even the PRC in China are embracing renewables, we have governments in the US*, Canada, the UK, and Australia all actively working against renewable projects, such as windfarms & solar, and championing greater investment in fossil-fuels.

And in this case, it would seem it isn't even about money.  $1 profit for every $1 invested sounds like a pretty good investment to me.  This is just being an asshole for the sake of it.  It's the politician's equivalent of those assholes in the US, who 'roll coal', ie modify their vehicles to release black smoke on demand, then wait till a Prius shows up in their rearview and blast them.  I really do despair for humanity.


* I'm referring here of course not to Barack Obama, but to the Republican assholes in Congress and elsewhere.

Just Shut Up Old Man Or We Won't Put the Shiny Hat on your Head

Prince Charles has said that “profound changes” to the global economic system are needed in order to avert environmental catastrophe, in an uncompromising speech delivered in front of an audience of senior business leaders and politicians.

The heir to the throne – often criticised for his meddling in political affairs – argued that ending the taxpayer subsidies enjoyed by coal, oil and gas companies could reduce the carbon emissions driving climate change by an estimated 13%.

Although the prince’s passion for environmental causes is well known, the speech delivered on Thursday evening in St James’s Palace, London was particularly pointed in its criticism of companies that protected vested interests and came with a report that proposed raising taxes on them.

Speaking at a event for the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), of which he is a patron, the prince complained that “the irresistible power of ‘business as usual’ has so far defeated every attempt to ‘rewire’ our economic system in ways that will deliver what we so urgently need”.
He said: “Yet if we are to limit climate change, conserve resources and keep ecosystems functioning, while at the same time improving the health and wellbeing of billions of people – including the several billion who are projected to be added later this century – then we will need to see profound changes.”

The prince also attacked what he characterised as the wastefulness of modern society. “The challenge now is to go much further and much faster, progressively eliminating waste by developing a circular economy that mimics nature’s loops and cycles, rather than perpetuating our largely unsustainable and linear way of doing things,” he said.

...

Cue the usual complaints about interfering in politics, and How dare you have an opinion on anything when your lifestyle is funded by the taxpayer.  As if Charles asked to be born into that family...into that role.  His mother, who entered the monarchy rather unexpectedly at a young age had a fairly straightforward (if unasked-for) role of maintaining relative stability between the traditional institutions of Empire and the New, which she has performed admirably, though hardly ever knowing another life, outside of her early girlhood.  Charles has grown up in the declining post-Imperial world, living entirely in the shadow of his mother, and rather than simply accepting a future (if now, ever) role as figurehead, has tried to find some way to make the monarchy relevant beyond the role of pure figurehead, a role that could just as easily be filled by a stuffed doll, by a religious icon, by a tamed zoo-animal.  For which I can't blame him.

He's tried to find a niche for himself, and had greater success in some areas, such as those relating to the environment, than others, such as when he's interjected himself into discussions of architecture or popular culture.  I rather suspect that Charles sees himself as future-monarch as 'The Conscience of Britain'.  His son on the other hand, I suspect* would willingly toss anything potentially political or controversial aside, and accept his role as being granted a handsome lifestyle with the price being that he has to wave at the commoners periodically, give up more than a little of his family's privacy, and give a political speech once a year or so in which he is a puppet into which the words, however outrageous, of the ruling party at the time are poured.  Can't blame him for that, in his way.

With his own advancing age, and the continuing absurd desire of some in the public to see him forsake the throne for his son, in the name of Saint Diana, we may never see what sort of king Charles would make**.  I for one, would welcome Charles' final ascendancy to the throne, if only to see which particular individuals' heads explode, and how.


* Lot of suspecting going on here, huh ?

** We still don't know of course what his actual regnal name would be.

Always Someone Gonna Bring Us Down

Also from news.com.au,  there's this cheery perspective:

Musician Anthony Hegarty also fired up at another point, accusing the politicians and spin-masters on the show of ignoring climate change and taking advantage of indigenous communities in exchange for mining royalties.

“Where are you all going to be with all that money and nothing left to eat and nothing left to drink and nowhere to go,” said the Antony and The Johnsons band member in response to a comment from political consultant Grahame Morris about the deal with indigenous communities over uranium mining.

“Do you think you’re going to f**k off to paradise elsewhere that you’re going to ascend to heaven?

“What are you thinking? You gotta dream forward, you got to wake up.”

Earlier, Mr Hergarty said 50 per cent of the world’s species will be extinct in the next 70 years and that unless governments “changed track” we were “all doomed”.

“You’re doomed, I’m doomed and your children will be doomed,” he added.

Fun times, everybody !

Accepting, Learning, Adjusting...

With the Pope's recent encyclical, the right-wing in American (professional) politics have predictably gone bezerk, including supposedly Catholic politicians in the GOP, but I get the sense from Catholic and mainstream media that the laity are more or less taking it in their stride.  Seems like the overall attitude is okay, this isn't something we've traditionally focused on that much, but now that Il Papa's had his say, maybe it's time to learn a little more and find out how we can apply what he said to our lives...  Catholicism is inherently conservative of course, and quite slow to change as a result, but there's a difference between conservative and radical (which would be a more appropriate label for many political & religious groups in the West that misuse the former term).

The Catholic Church isn't the one desperately trying to prove that the Earth is six-thousand years old, or insisting that every word of the Bible must be interpreted literally.  For that we have various evangelical organisations, some of them every bit as extreme in their interpretations of the Book and how it must determine every aspect of human society as their Muslim equivalents in the Middle East.  But sometimes we, certainly I, forget that difference.  And then it comes as a surprise, though it probably shouldn't, when the message from the Church is a fairly moderate, even sensible one. *

* Wanted, really really wanted, to embed the full video, which said somewhat more, but guess FN's scripts & Blogger don't play nicely together...Grumble...  Full video here:http://video.foxnews.com/v/4311350106001/cardinal-donald-wuerl-on-popes-climate-change-message/?#sp=show-clips

Cue Heads Exploding from DC to LA

Guess the ole' Encylical is out now from the Pope that some Americans insist on calling 'Pope Frank.'*  And given that the Republicans were already freaking out calling him a Marxist and hinting at him being the antichrist** (thinking of Gutfeld and Michael Savage specifically, but no doubt, there's countless examples), who knows what new rhetoric they'll come up with now.  How dare he bring religion into politics in my country !  Well, for most of you...you already did that. Again and again and again...But anyways...


*Which is far less insulting than what they called his predecessor.

** Not than many haven't been doing exactly that for generations.

Drill Baby, Drill...

Nicola Sturgeon will today call on the UK Government to consult urgently on incentives to boost exploration in the North Sea.

The First Minister will make the demand at the annual Oil and Gas UK Conference in Aberdeen.

Figures show that North Sea exploration last year reached its lowest level in at least two decades, with 14 explorations wells drilled compared to 44 in 2008.

The Scottish Government claims the Westminster Government has yet to deliver any follow up action after committing at the end of 2014 to further work on options for supporting exploration through the tax system.

The First Minister will today suggest that financial incentives, such as a new exploration tax credit or an expansion of the investment allowance, will help companies to find new oil.

She will also point to the example of the Johan Sverdrup field in Norwegian waters, which was discovered in 2010 in a mature area which had previously been explored without success.

Speaking ahead of conference, Ms Sturgeon said: “North Sea exploration needs urgent support. You only need to look to Norway to see the impact that effective stewardship and the right policies can have on exploration, where more than 40 exploration wells were drilled in 2014. 

Of coouurrse she will.

Y'know what it is, don'tcha ?: The evil English are blocking new exploration because they want to deny you the revenues for independence.  That, or maybe the oil isn't there to find.  If it were, we'd be drilling.

From the Arctic to the Falklands, from Canadian oil-sands to fracking, energy-companies are looking at just about every possible option to extract every possible molecule of fossil-fuels from the Earth (Never mind the fact that doing do so will likely doom humanity).  And we've been drilling in this part of the world since the 'sixties.

Although, actually, now that I think about it, I'm torn: On the one hand, I do think we need desperately to move away from fossil-fuels.  But, on the other hand, maybe if we gave you your exploratory rigs, and they turned up dry, you might realise how quixotic your dream of an independent Scotland truly is.  Come back to Britain, Nicky !

Buy Water-Stocks NOW !

Here's some fun news from those radical leftists at the Financial Times:

More than a third of the world’s biggest aquifers, a vital source of fresh water for millions, are “in distress” because human activities are draining them, according to satellite observations.

Scientists from Nasa, the US space agency, and the University of California, Irvine, analysed 10 years of data from the twin Grace satellites, which measure changes in groundwater reserves by the way they affect Earth’s gravitational pull.

...

“Over a third [13] are so bad that they are experiencing exceptionally high levels of stress.”

The problem is most serious in regions where rainfall and snowmelt cannot make up for water extracted for agriculture, industry, drinking and other human purposes.

The scientists determined aquifers’ overall stress rates on the basis of their depletion over 10 years of satellite measurements, together with their potential for replenishment, taking account of regional climate and human activities.

The results, published in the Water Resources Research journal, show that the Arabian Aquifer System, an important water source for more than 60m people, is the most “overstressed” in the world.

It is followed by the Indus Basin aquifer of India and Pakistan and the Murzuq-Djado Basin in northern Africa. California’s Central Valley, currently at the centre of a political battle over water rights, was classed as “highly stressed” and suffering rapid depletion — mainly for agriculture.

Although many of the world’s great aquifers are being drained rapidly, there is “little to no accurate data about how much water remains in them,” the researchers added.

Not that we acknowledge there's a problem at all, because it's all God's will, and this is clearly a false Satanic conspiracy by those evil liberals, but surely the answer is more prayer, more oppression of the gays, more discrimination against the browns, more dismantling of whatever may remain of the social safety-net, and more bombs landing on those heathen Muslim hordes, huh ?

And we....are the...civilised ones...of course...?

We’re Not All Equal When It Comes to Water

Rich Californians balk at limits: ‘We’re not all equal when it comes to water’

By Rob Kuznia June 13

RANCHO SANTA FE, CALIF. — Drought or no drought, Steve Yuhas resents the idea that it is somehow shameful to be a water hog. If you can pay for it, he argues, you should get your water.

People “should not be forced to live on property with brown lawns, golf on brown courses or apologize for wanting their gardens to be beautiful,” Yuhas fumed recently on social media. “We pay significant property taxes based on where we live,” he added in an interview. “And, no, we’re not all equal when it comes to water.”

Yuhas lives in the ultra-wealthy enclave of Rancho Santa Fe, a bucolic Southern California hamlet of ranches, gated communities and country clubs that guzzles five times more water per capita than the statewide average. In April, after Gov. Jerry Brown (D) called for a 25 percent reduction in water use, consumption in Rancho Santa Fe went up by 9 percent.

But a moment of truth is at hand for Yuhas and his neighbors, and all of California will be watching: On July 1, for the first time in its 92-year history, Rancho Santa Fe will be subject to water rationing.

Plenty of detail in the piece at the Washington Post, but you get the idea.  The truly scary thing to me is this line: 'If you can pay for it, he argues, you should get your water.'  And by implication, if you can't pay...  Which is a very real concern for the future.  A future in which large business-interests are already looking to privatise water-supplies.

There is no commons in that future, the future that seems inevitable with our economic extremism, and the changing climate that we continue to wish away.  There are only those who have, and those who have not.  And if the have-nots don't have enough to drink, so be it.  If they have to starve, so be it.  If they can't breathe the air anymore, too bad.  Shoulda pulled yerself up by your bootstraps, to become one of the monied elites.

Which reminds me of this recent story:

The multi-billionaire owner of luxury jewellery Cartier has said that the thought of the poor rising up and overthrowing the rich keeps him awake at night.

Speaking at a summit in Monaco, Johann Rupert said he fears that a poor uprising will mean the middle classes won't want to buy luxury goods in the future for fear of exposing their wealth.

The fashion tycoon was came up with the scenario as a bizarre way in which to make a point about social inequality in the world.

According to Bloomberg, he said he had been reading about changes in labour technology, as well as recent Oxfam figures suggesting the top one per cent of the global population now owns more wealth than the other 99 per cent.

He asked: 'How is society going to cope with structural unemployment and the envy, hatred and the social warfare?

'We are destroying the middle classes at this stage and it will affect us. It's unfair. So that's what keeps me awake at night.'

He also expressed concern that robots are replacing workers, suggesting that artificial intelligence will fuel mass unemployment.  

South African Rupert is estimated to have amassed a fortune of around $7.5 billion from brands including Cartier, Chloe and Vacheron Constantin.

Fear of the poor is what gave us the New Deal in the United States and the Social Democratic consensus of the post-war era in Western Europe.  But the elites have learned since then, and presumably are hoping that the populations today are sufficiently cowed by the powers that can be ranged against them by the government not to rise up.  After all, in today's order, they can just label anyone who questions authority a 'terrorist', at which point they can be disappeared, or even simply executed at the whim of the government.  And if the poor or the disaffected in general were to rise up en masse ?  Time for the machine-guns I suppose.

Pope Francis: The Encyclical

Would be perfect if only the guy with the eyepatch had an Aussie accent.

Probably Wouldn't Even Embrace the Money-changers, this Guy

Pope Francis will call for an ethical and economic revolution to prevent catastrophic climate change and growing inequality in a letter to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics on Thursday.

In an unprecedented encyclical on the subject of the environment, the pontiff is expected to argue that humanity’s exploitation of the planet’s resources has crossed the Earth’s natural boundaries, and that the world faces ruin without a revolution in hearts and minds. The much-anticipated message, which will be sent to the world’s 5,000 Catholic bishops, will be published online in five languages on Thursday and is expected to be the most radical statement yet from the outspoken pontiff.

However, it is certain to anger sections of Republican opinion in America by endorsing the warnings of climate scientists and admonishing rich elites, say cardinals and scientists who have advised the Vatican.

And why should we continue to pander to the denialists in the United States (or other places -- thinking of the likes of Tony Abbott here) ?  Since when was the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church answerable to America ?

In a recent speech widely regarded as a curtain-raiser to the encyclical, Turkson said: “Much of the world remains in poverty, despite abundant resources, while a privileged global elite controls the bulk of the world’s wealth and consumes the bulk of its resources.”

The Argentinian pontiff is expected to repeat calls for a change in attitudes to poverty and nature. “An economic system centred on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of consumption that is inherent to it,” he told a meeting of social movements last year. “I think a question that we are not asking ourselves is: isn’t humanity committing suicide with this indiscriminate and tyrannical use of nature? Safeguard creation because, if we destroy it, it will destroy us. Never forget this.”

The encyclical will go much further than strictly environmental concerns, say Vatican insiders. “Pope Francis has repeatedly stated that the environment is not only an economic or political issue, but is an anthropological and ethical matter,” said another of the pope’s advisers, Archbishop Pedro Barreto Jimeno of Peru.

“It will address the issue of inequality in the distribution of resources and topics such as the wasting of food and the irresponsible exploitation of nature and the consequences for people’s life and health,” Barreto Jimeno told the Catholic News Service.

...

The rare encyclical, called “Laudato Sii”, or “Praised Be”, has been timed to have maximum public impact ahead of the pope’s meeting with Barack Obama and his address to the US Congress and the UN general assembly in September.

It is also intended to improve the prospect of a strong new UN global agreement to cut climate emissions. By adding a moral dimension to the well-rehearsed scientific arguments, Francis hopes to raise the ambition of countries above their own self-interest to secure a strong deal in a crucial climate summit in Paris in November.

...

Francis, the first Latin American pope, is increasingly seen as the voice of the global south and a catalyst for change in global bodies. In September, he will seek to add impetus and moral authority to UN negotiations in New York to adopt new development goals and lay out a 15-year global plan to tackle hunger, extreme poverty and health. He will address the UN general assembly on 23 September as countries finalise their commitments.

However, Francis’s radicalism is attracting resistance from Vatican conservatives and in rightwing church circles, particularly in the US – where Catholic climate sceptics also include John Boehner, Republican leader of the House of Representatives, and Rick Santorum, a Republican presidential candidate.

Earlier this year Stephen Moore, a Catholic economist, called the pope a “complete disaster”, saying he was part of “a radical green movement that is at its core anti-Christian, anti-people and anti-progress”.

Erm, words have meaning.  Destroying the only planet we have in the name of a extremist version of a particular economic ideology is radical.  Calling for cooperation in preserving said planet is conservative.  And calling for the rich of the world to be willing to sacrifice (at least some of) their (largely ill-gotten) riches for the sake of the poor is Christian.  As in the first and only of that name.

Forget Yucca Mountain

WHEN you hear the words ‘nuclear facility’, Chernobyl and Fukushima spring to mind.

So it’s no wonder many Aussies baulk at the thought of producing this radioactive material, let alone storing it in our backyard.

But this scenario will soon become a reality as the Commonwealth pushes ahead with plans to build our first nuclear waste dump — just where it is to be located remains the sticking point.

Well, not in our backyard, certainly mate !  Damn foreigners forcing their nuclear waste us on sensible coal-burnin' Aussies !

...at the end of next month around 28 steel canisters of reprocessed nuclear waste is set to return home from France and the government needs to find somewhere to put it.

Australia produces nuclear waste in the form of medical byproducts, and spent nuclear fuel from its research reactor. We don’t have the facilities to process it here, so it is sent offshore. Under international agreements, the processed material has to be returned to Australia and stored here.

But speaking of which...a dump for nuclear waste in Australia, huh ?  An almost entirely desertified island-continent...

...with an almost uninhabited interior and the vast majority of its population on the coast...

Why aren't we sending ALL our nuclear waste to Australia ?  C'mon guys, you know you need a second economic outlet as China's economy starts to stall and they don't want quite so much coal and cattle anymore.  Win-Win !

And while the storage facility will only house Australian nuclear waste, Mr O’Neill said Gindalbie was open to storing international waste if the government allowed.

“If we can meet the requirements and there is a profit in it and it can be undertaken safely and everybody was on side, then yes we would (be open to it),” he said.

At present, a Royal Commission is being held in South Australia to examine the feasibility of developing a nuclear storage facility which would house not only our waste but international waste.

There ya go !

*For any Americans reading this, I didn't bother identifying Australia on the maps, but it's the big island in the lower right...No, no, those are New Zealand...No, that's New Guinea.  The.  Big.  One.**

**Just kidding.  I would never mock anyone based on national stereotypes.  Ever.  Honest.***

*** But apropos of nothing, what's up with the Brits. and their terrible teeth ?

Less Insane than it Sounds...

Scientists are planning to ship ice to the Antarctic. They're afraid that mountain glaciers around the world are melting as a result of climate change and want to store samples of ice in a new vault in the coldest place on Earth.

...after reading the story, but still fucking depressing.  Read it if you will.

Recycling...

Well, this (from the LA Times via Skippy) is not at all terrifying.

Central Valley's growing concern: Crops raised with oil field water

Here in California's thirsty farm belt, where pumpjacks nod amid neat rows of crops, it's a proposition that seems to make sense: using treated oil field wastewater to irrigate crops.

Oil giant Chevron recycles 21 million gallons of that water each day and sells it to farmers who use it on about 45,000 acres of crops, about 10% of Kern County's farmland.

State and local officials praise the 2-decade-old program as a national model for coping with the region's water shortages. As California's four-year drought lingers and authorities scramble to conserve every drop, agricultural officials have said that more companies are seeking permits to begin similar programs. The heightened interest in recycling oil field wastewater has raised concern over the adequacy of safety measures in place to prevent contamination from toxic oil production chemicals.

...

Until now, government authorities have only required limited testing of recycled irrigation water, checking for naturally occurring toxins such as salts and arsenic, using decades-old monitoring standards. They haven't screened for the range of chemicals used in modern oil production.

No one knows whether nuts, citrus or other crops grown with the recycled oil field water have been contaminated. Farmers may test crops for pests or disease, but they don't check for water-borne chemicals.

...

One environmental group has tested the irrigation water for oil field chemicals. Over the last two years, Scott Smith, chief scientist for the advocacy group Water Defense, collected samples of the treated irrigation water that the Cawelo Water District buys from Chevron. Laboratory analysis of those samples found compounds that are toxic to humans, including acetone and methylene chloride — powerful industrial solvents — along with oil.

...

Methylene chloride and acetone are used as solvents in many industrial settings. Methylene chloride is classified as a potential carcinogen.

One sample of the recycled Cawelo irrigation water, for example, registered methylene chloride as high as 56 parts per billion. Smith said that was nearly four times the amount of methylene chloride registered when he tested oil-fouled river at the 2013 ExxonMobil tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower, Ark. That spill was declared a federal disaster, spurred evacuations and resulted in a $2.7-million fine for the company.

Chevron told The Times it does not use acetone or methylene chloride in its oil extraction process. The company would not disclose the fluids used in drilling or well maintenance.

...

Microorganisms in soils can consume and process some impurities, Sanden said, but it's not clear whether oil field waste is making its way into the roots or leaves of irrigated plants, and then into the food chain.

It's unlikely that petrochemicals will show up in an almond, for example, he added, "But can they make it into the flesh of an orange or grape? It's possible. A lot of this stuff has not been studied in a field setting or for commercial food uptake."

Carl K. Winter at UC Davis, who studies the detection of pesticides and naturally occurring toxins in foods, said some plants can readily absorb toxins without transferring them to the leaves or the flesh of their fruit.

Still, he said, "it's difficult to say anything for sure because we don't know what chemicals are in the water."

So we don't know exactly what chemicals are being pumped into the ground for fracking (proprietary trade secrets, natch.), but the stuff we find when we bother to properly test the water that is now being recycled for agriculture contains massive amounts of potential carcinogens.  And we don't know to what degree the soil could filter out this shit, or to what degree these chemicals could end up in our food-chain, but...profit.  So, we'll just assume it's safe and continue shipping the produce grown thus all across America, and all across the world.

So, just in case you thought fracking didn't affect you, because it was happening somewhere else, ask yourself: have you ever eaten agricultural produce from California ?

And of course, expect more of the same, as we continue to try to squeeze the last dregs of fossil-fuels from the earth to sustain our unsustainable economy and lifestyles.  What a species we are.