A Call For Responsibility

Twenty Years Later: Tipping Points Near on Global Warming

James Hansen

Tomorrow I will testify to Congress about global warming, 20 years after my 23 June 1988 testimony, which alerted the public that global warming was underway. There are striking similarities between then and now, but one big difference.

Again a wide gap has developed between what is understood about global warming by the relevant scientific community and what is known by policymakers and the public. Now, as then, frank assessment of scientific data yields conclusions that are shocking to the body politic. Now, as then, I can assert that these conclusions have a certainty exceeding 99 percent.

The difference is that now we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb. The next President and Congress must define a course next year in which the United States exerts leadership commensurate with our responsibility for the present dangerous situation.

...

Special interests have blocked transition to our renewable energy future. Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, as tobacco companies discredited the smoking-cancer link. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming.

CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.

Who Says...

James E. Hansen (born March 29, 1941 in Denison, Iowa) heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, a part of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Earth Sciences Division. He is currently an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, and also serves as Al Gore's science advisor. Hansen is best known for his research in the field of climatology and his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue. He is also noted for publishing "an alternative scenario" for global warming which states that in the past few decades the warming effect produced by increased CO2 has been largely offset by the cooling effect of aerosols also produced in burning fossil fuels, and that most of the net warming so far is due to trace greenhouse gases other than CO2. He has been a critic of both the Clinton and current Bush Administration's stances on climate change.

My Apology 2

This from a local Louisiana news outlet:

"Aging infrastructure and the volume of oil either produced or moved through Louisiana is part of the reason the state saw an average 1,500 reported oil spills a year between 1991 through 2004.

That’s about four reported oil spills a day, most of which go unnoticed by the public.

Between 1991 and 2004, reported oil spills in Louisiana involved between 91,000 gallons and 701,000 gallons a year. In percentages, Louisiana accounted for between 5.8 percent and 53.6 percent of the reported oil spill volume in the United States, according to the U.S. Coast Guard and the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator’s Office."

When I first read this, I thought -- well, I wonder if this is a trend in looking around and seeing what a mess things are -- being honest about the state of drilling in this country before it gets more wide spread.

I read another article -- an editorial -- that said something to the effect of Gulf-Coast opinion outcry that the west and east coasts are trying to protect themselves from off-shore drilling.

"We on the Gulf Coast don't like to think about rig or refinery explosions, pipeline leaks or oily beaches, but we understand that even with the best safety measures in place, such things could happen.

What we don't understand is why we are expected to shoulder all the environmental and economic risks of exploration and production, while other coastal states — California, Florida and the entire Eastern Seaboard — get to say "no, thank you" to offshore drilling.

They are supported by a federal moratorium that dates back to 1981, when lawmakers from the East and West Coasts rallied to protect their pristine beaches, delicate wetlands and prized wildlife.

Nobody rallied to halt or lessen the amount of drilling off the Gulf Coast. Are our beaches, wetlands and wildlife somehow less pristine, less delicate, less to be prized?"

I suppose that sometimes that's all we can do. Get pissed for the mess we are in -- get pissed that someone else has the good sense to protect themselves.

Let's face it --
we need to find cleaner ways to live.
We need to live cleaner -- and take care of each other. It doesn't do anyone any good to add to the pollution for the sake of our own lousy lot.


This post is for M. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you live in ease.

The Land Beneath

There's an AP article in the Times today -- talking about how the first oil well ever drilled in Nigeria -- though closed -- may reopen.

OIL WELL NO. 1, Nigeria (AP) -- Three decades after pumping its last drop, the first oil well in Nigeria is marked by a decrepit signboard bearing what would seem an uncontroversial statement:

Oloibiri Well No. 1, drilled June 1956, 12,008 feet.

But this well, furred with rust, is at the center of an increasingly vitriolic feud between two villages over who owns the land beneath it. The conflict is fed by hopes that soaring prices will tempt big business to squeeze more oil from the well and give a pittance to the village that owns the land.

The tussle between Oloibiri and Otabagi brings into stark relief how villages that sit on the prodigious oil reserves in Nigeria, Africa's biggest producer of crude, have barely profited from the booming industry. Corrupt officials have hoarded the government's cut of profits, and energy firms have compensated locals with paltry payments worth a fraction of the hundreds of billions generated by drilling.

In both villages, children wander unclothed past heaps of burning trash. Oil spills have sullied the farmlands and spoiled the water. Fields once crammed with ears of corn, and nets full of flapping fish, have become distant memories.

''After destroying the area without anything to give in return, we have stepped maybe 50 times backwards. Pollution, both air and water,'' said Sunday Ikpesu, a sprightly 74-year-old Oloibiri chieftain. ''We didn't know crude oil was such a bad thing.''

Who could know that a time could yield such devastation?

Who could know that people would behave so badly? Or that the earth could break...

And what else is there to do -- once there is nothing left and no hope for change...

Exhausted

Exhaust -- on-line etymology dictionary:

1533, "to draw off or out, to use up completely," from L. exhaustus, pp. exhaurire "draw off, take away, use up," from ex- "off" + haurire "to draw up" (as water), from PIE *aus- "to draw water." Noun sense of "waste gas" (1848) was originally from steam engines. Exhaustion "fatigue," first recorded 1646, from sense of "drawing off" of strength.

"Exhaust gas is flue gas which occurs as a result of the combustion of fuels such as natural gas, gasoline/petrol, diesel, fuel oil or coal. It is discharged into the atmosphere through an exhaust pipe or flue gas stack" Wikipedia

"Today, motor vehicles are responsible for nearly one half of smog-forming volatile organic compounds (VOCs), more than half of the nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, and about half of the toxic air pollutant emissions in the United States. Motor vehicles, including nonroad vehicles, now account for 75 percent of carbon monoxide emissions nationwide."
EPA

Carbon monoxide can cause harmful health effects by reducing oxygen delivery to the body's organs (like the heart and brain) and tissues.

Cardiovascular Effects. The health threat from lower levels of CO is most serious for those who suffer from heart disease, like angina, clogged arteries, or congestive heart failure. For a person with heart disease, a single exposure to CO at low levels may cause chest pain and reduce that person's ability to exercise; repeated exposures may contribute to other cardiovascular effects.

Central Nervous System Effects. Even healthy people can be affected by high levels of CO. People who breathe high levels of CO can develop vision problems, reduced ability to work or learn, reduced manual dexterity, and difficulty performing complex tasks. At extremely high levels, CO is poisonous and can cause death.

Smog. CO contributes to the formation of smog ground-level ozone, which can trigger serious respiratory problems.

EPA Link


photo link

Permanent Lung Damage

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- New Jersey officials have issued a health alert saying six people have been sickened by mistaking lamp oil for apple juice, including one person who died.

Bruce Ruck of the state Poison Information and Education System says the six drank small amounts of the oil, which resembles apple juice in color and is packaged in a similar container. Health officials haven't identified the brand.

Ruck said Wednesday that the victims ranged in age from 18 months to 84 years. The 84-year-old died Monday.

Three of the survivors were hospitalized but have been released.

Ruck said an 8-year-old suffered permanent lung damage from drinking the oil.

A report by the Illinois poison control center identified 70 cases of torch oil poisonings nationwide during a two-year period ending in December.

Seems we are always mistaking the one thing for the other.

Still, our bodies are fragile.

And when what we use to light our lives are poisonous... seems it's only a matter of time.

Healing Time

Found this on www.helium.com:

Petroleum jelly or petrolatum is made by refining a by product of oil drilling.Vaseline is a well-known brand of petroleum jelly originally produced by Chesebrough-Ponds, which was purchased by Unilever in 1987.

Vaseline has become a genericized trademark meaning petroleum jelly.The raw material for petroleum jelly was discovered in 1859 in Titusville, Pennsylvania where it was sticking to some of the first oil rigs in the U.S. The riggers hated the paraffin-like material because it caused the rigs to seize up, but they used it on cuts and burns because it hastened healing.

Petrolatum is a semi-solid mixture of hydrocarbons, having a melting-point usually ranging from a little below to a few degrees above 100° F (37° C). It is colorless, or of a pale yellow color, translucent, and devoid of taste and smell. It does not oxidize on exposure to the air, and is not readily acted on by chemical reagents.

It is insoluble in water. It is soluble in chloroform, benzene, carbon disulphide and oil of turpentine. It also dissolves in warm ether and in hot alcohol, but separates from the latter in flakes on cooling.uses.The finest grade of petroleum jelly is also adapted for use as a pomade for the hair. It is also used for treating chapped hands or lips, toenail fungus, and nosebleeds.

Because the oil protects skin from the atmosphere and air-borne bacteria it may shorten healing time.



Also from this morning's reading:

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of bandits. They stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. By chance, a priest was traveling along that road. When he saw the man, he went by on the other side. Similarly, a Levite came to that place. When he saw the man, he also went by on the other side. But as he was traveling along, a Samaritan came across the man. When the Samaritan saw him, he was moved with compassion. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them.

Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If you spend more than that, I'll repay you when I come back.’

Development

I started out reading about a huge oil field in Saudi Arabia.

The Times front page story reads:

Khurais, about 90 miles east of Riyadh, the Saudi capital, is one of the planet’s last giant oil fields. The Saudis say that it holds 27 billion barrels of oil — more oil than all the proven reserves of the United States — and that it will significantly bolster the kingdom’s production capacity once it starts pumping a year from now, easing global need.

It gets tiring -- listing to my own voice sometimes -- and sometimes it gets tiring listening to the collective voice of our society.

Maybe it's the current language of reporters to report everything in relation to the current crisis. We need to find a new language -- a new perspective -- for the change we are undertaking...

Easing global need.

Can you ease need?
Maybe you ease desire...
Maybe you can ease the cost momentarily...
Maybe you comfort yourself for an an instant. Maybe it makes sense that we look to what we know where we come from for some respite -- even if we know it isn't really any help at all.

In the meantime, back in the Virgin Islands, plans for a carbon free resort are in the works. An article in the International Herald Tribune reports:

"'It is actually inexcusable for the Caribbean to need to use dirty fuels anymore when it has all these natural resources on its doorstep,' said Richard Branson, after pointing out Necker Island's thatched-hut villas, cascading infinity pools and a pond occupied by pink flamingos."

Yes!
And that's the kind of language we need too -- inexcusable -- natural resources --

"Earlier this year, Branson's Virgin Atlantic carried out the world's first flight of a commercial aircraft powered with biofuel in an effort to show it can produce less carbon dioxide than normal jet fuels. The flight was partially fueled with a biofuel mixture of coconut and babassu oil (from a type of palm nut) in one of its four main fuel tanks.

Branson said he believes soaring global oil prices can be the catalyst to spur governments worldwide to develop their own eco-projects."

Catalyst. Spur.
Yes.