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Page added on April 14, 2016
New Documents Show Oil Industry Even More Evil Than We Thought
In 1968, a pair of scientists from Stanford Research Institute wrote a report for the American Petroleum Institute, a trade association for America’s oil and natural gas industry. They warned that “man is now engaged in a vast geophysical experiment with his environment, the earth” — one that “may be the cause of serious world-wide environmental changes.”
The scientists went on: “If the Earth’s temperature increases significantly, a number of events might be expected to occur including the melting of the Antarctic ice cap, a rise in sea levels, warming of the oceans and an increase in photosynthesis.”
That 48-year-old report, which accurately foreshadowed what’s now happening, is among a trove of public documents uncovered and released Wednesday by the Washington-based Center for International Environmental Law. Taken together, documents that the organization has assembled show that oil executives were well aware of the serious climate risks associated with carbon dioxide emissions decades earlier than previously documented — and they covered it up.
Carroll Muffett, the center’s president, told The Huffington Post the documents not only reveal that the industry, including Humble Oil (now Exxon Mobil), was “clearly on notice” about the potential role of fossil fuels in CO2 emissions no later than 1957, but was “shaping science to shape public opinion” even earlier, in the 1940s.
“This story is older and it is bigger than I think has been appreciated before,” Muffett said.
ROGER HARRIS via Getty Images The Center for International Environmental Law, or CIEL, a nonprofit legal organization, said it traced the industry’s coordinated, decades-long cover-up back to a 1946 meeting in Los Angeles by combing through scientific articles, industry histories and other documents.
It was during that meeting that the oil executives decided to form a group — the Smoke and Fumes Committee — to “fund scientific research into smog and other air pollution issues and, significantly, use that research to inform and shape public opinion about environmental issues,” CIEL says on a new website devoted to the documents.
That research, CIEL says, was used to “promote public skepticism of environmental science and environmental regulations the industry considered hasty, costly, and potentially unnecessary.”
Muffett said in a statement that the documents “add to the growing body of evidence that the oil industry worked to actively undermine public confidence in climate science and in the need for climate action even as its own knowledge of climate risks was growing.”
Last year, InsideClimate News revealed that top executives at Exxon knew about the role of fossil fuels in global warming as early as 1977, then lobbied against efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. In January, the New York attorney general announced an investigation into ExxonMobil over allegations that it lied to the public and its investors about climate change.
A report that surfaced in February revealed the American Petroleum Institute knew about climate change in the early 1980s.
The industry group did not respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment Wednesday.
CIEL’s new documents, however, show that the cover-up has endured for a generation or more.
Story continues below…
Muffett said any document, viewed in isolation, has an element of plausible deniability. “But when you put all of the pieces to the story out there and see how they link, the zone of plausible deniability shrinks, and it shrinks substantially,” he said.
The new trove adds to a “robust body of evidence” available to the public showing what the industry knew, when, and what it did with that information, Muffett said.
“Once the companies learned this information, once they were aware of it, they can’t unlearn it,” he said. “This becomes the baseline.”
Muffett said the evidence warrants further investigation. CIEL plans to release additional documents in the near future.
“Oil companies had an early opportunity to acknowledge climate science and climate risks, and to enable consumers to make informed choices,” Muffett said in a statement. “They chose a different path. The public deserves to know why.”
Attorney Sharon Y. Eubanks, former lead counsel for the Justice Department in federal tobacco litigation, was among those who applauded CIEL for making the documents public.
“Just as was the case with the release through litigation of tobacco industry documents, these documents will shed light on the actions and inactions of a powerful and influential industry,” Eubanks said in a statement.
| Huffington Post |
48 Comments on "New Documents Show Oil Industry Even More Evil Than We Thought"
Davy on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 7:21 am
What dumbasses. No shit Sherlock. The real evil is modern man. Look in the mirror dumbass.
joe on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 8:08 am
I agree with Davy. In the 1950s London was hit by a fog that killed thousands, the kind that
China regularly gets. It happened in the context of a UK dispute with Muhammad Mossadech.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh
The uk tried to replace oil with coal, and 4000 people died
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog
When we do the same when oil is too expensive to get then the result will be about the same.
People are people, and blaming oil companies for somthing we were willing to murder for decades ago even before anyone knew what would happen is hypocritical.
Do you want join the hypocracy (sic)?
Apneaman on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 8:38 am
Lying is lying. There is no “we” here at all. What is at issue is did they or did they not lie? Lie to their share holders, the government and the public. Did they lie or not?
It has nothing to do with modern man or fogs in London in the 1950’s.
Lie or no lie?
PracticalMaina on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 8:50 am
What gets me is when these corporations sell their message that there is no other way without them. Monstanto convincing people GMOs are the only hope for a growing population, even though they are really making us more vulnerable. ExxonMobil and all of these oil company’s that will use solar powered lights at a drilling sight, solar powered controls and management systems at a nodding donkey. Drill a hole with a diesel electric set up, and then tell us that renewables cannot support the economy without them, and they need to receive a free pass to pollute and take advantage of tax breaks. It is essentially the tactic the big banks took in the 2 big to fail fiasco. They were criminally irresponsible, negligent and corrupt. Yet threw threatening the consequences to our so called government “experts” we were told there was no other way. There is another way, take everything the executives who knowingly intended to steal from the coffers of the tax payer, put that towards the losses they are responsible for.
Some cross industry crony-ism here…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/19/the-truth-behind-peabodys-campaign-to-rebrand-coal-as-a-poverty-cure
makati1 on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 9:09 am
Practical, why do you think that I keep saying that the sooner the world financial system crashes and burns, the better for all of us? No reset. No recovery, just leveling the have and the have-nots.
Tomorrow would suit me just fine. Then they can run to their bunkers and I would use the last drop of diesel to move a mountain over top of them, sealing them in for eternity. But, hey, I’m just an old softy. LOL
sidzepp on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 9:23 am
“It doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world”
As we sit here in the anonymity of cyber space and condemn the world, preaching doom and gloom, admitting the occasional denier to the inner circle, attempts by the MSM to discuss the ravages of humanity on the biosphere that makes our existence possible are met with disdain and scorn. But yet, if we want positive change, it is necessary for the MSM and the average Joe and Jane to grasp the concept of the possible irreparable harm we as a species are committing.
It is possible to compare the growth of the environmental movement to the abolition of slavery movement in U.S. History. For several hundred years, from the arrival of the first slaves at Jamestown in 1619, a very negligible group of people questioned in the dark the problem. Even with the advent of the Liberty Party, whose primary focus was the abolition of slavery, very few people were attracted to its doctrines. Americans, both North and South, for the most part did not give a damn about slavery. It wasn’t until the opening of the plain states in the 1850’s did slavery become an issue as slave owners and free farmers began competing for land in the territories. The Republican Party was founded not to abolish slavery but to prevent its spread. When Fort Sumter was fired on, the call for volunteers was not to end slavery, but to preserve the Union. Even with the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments did slavery cease to legally exist, though it was replaced with share-cropping and then wage slavery.
Historically, change takes time. Even revolutions, the French and the Bolshevik come to mind, often just replace one tyranny with another. The question to be asked if we have time to make the changes or are we rapidly approaching the road to extinction.
Kenz300 on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 9:51 am
Climate Change is real….. we will all be impacted by it.
Oil Giants Spend $115 Million A Year To Oppose Climate Policy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oil-companies-climate-policy_us_570bb841e4b0142232496d97
ghung on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 9:54 am
It took technology (energy slaves) replacing human slaves before much of the populace got behind abolition. Until then, many folks saw slavery as a necessary evil, just as they see fossil fuels in the same light. Attempting to control the reactions of a reactionary populace is an ancient art. We’ll continue to have whatever the masses view is in their best interests, future be damned. It wasn’t hard for Exxon, et al, to lead generations around by the nose. Until Joe6P is presented with a viable alternative that doesn’t affect his lifestyle, or until the consequences become untenable, this whole argument seems moot. It’s all a risks vs. rewards system; always has been. Big Oil may or may not suffer a bit from this, but we’ll still be burning fossil fuels.
Humanity was born at the crossroads, and has been making Faustian bargains ever since.
JW on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 11:15 am
What many fail to realize is that the oil industry has done what it has done with the full knowledge and support of all governments involved. So when the US.gov jumps up and exclaims “Gee golly, we’ve been duped!”, there will be a lot of noise followed by a “huge” settlement. The oil industry will pass the cost on to the consumer and go about their business (check out big tobacco, they’re doing fine).
Once the dust settles and the token fines are paid for by the consumer (after all, we can’t have a modern society without at least some oil), then everyone will say, “well, that’s settled” and we’ll continue to do what we do, keeping our heads firmly planted in our posteriors. The oil companies will drill more, we’ll burn more, and history will take its course.
As they say, “Pass the popcorn.”
Plantagenet on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 11:22 am
The real scandal isn’t that the oil industry knew about global warming 38 years ago. The real scandal is that Obama and other world leaders know about global warming now, and yet produced a sham document at the UN climate meeting in Paris in 2015 that requires ZERO reductions in CO2 emissions.
The Paris Accord is so weak that companies like BP, McDonalds and Wal-Mart all endorse it—because it requires them to do NOTHING!!!!!
geopressure on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 12:40 pm
The Real scandal is that Western Governments have created the environmental movement as just another tool in the ongoing war against Russia… The West knows that if they are going to continue suppressing Russia over the longterm, then they will need ever tool at their disposal to limit demand growth for petroleum products…
The true scandal is how willing Western Governments are to use their own citizens as pawns in a war that they don’t even know exists…
Almost equally absurd is how easily people (often smart people) are to join movements such as the environmental movement without first understand what is really going on… People should not allow themselves to be used so easily…
Elmer on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 12:54 pm
The government needs to break up Exxon Mobil into little pieces. What they have done is antithetical to the public interest, and that’s an understatement. This is another example, maybe one of the most significant, of modern unmitigated greed and self-serving deception cursing the future of humanity. For decades, they have provided much of the ammunition that has gone so far to purposely misinform and confuse the public about our environmental limits. A paradigm shift in society has to begin somewhere and making Exxon Mobil finally pay for the consequences of their own sick actions is a real good place to do that. What’s the alternative?? More acquiescence to those corporate interests that absolutely don’t give a damn about anything but money??
geopressure on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 1:01 pm
Elmer; It sounds like you have been mislead…
Without ExxonMobil & companies like ExxonMobil, the United States would have never been able to retained their position as the world’s dominant superpower…
Your Quality of life is what it is thanks in part to companies like ExxonMobil.
—
Try not to allow the powers-that-be control your thoughts & opinions so easily… Please see my previous post… Don’t allow yourself to be a pawn, you are better than that!!!
Elmer on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 1:20 pm
Geo—-
Yeah, right. Go have a nice drink of tar on me.
Anonymous on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 1:31 pm
DO you mean breakup Exxon like they did AT&T? How did that work out? The empire’s ‘homeland’ is plagued by shoddy net and phone service, rising costs of service, poor service levels, and comically bad networks in many places. The ‘invisible’ hand did not work in breaking up AT&T because it simply resulted in a small group of slightly small versions of AT&T. LoL.
Not that Im suggesting EM be left alone. What it needs to be, is broken apart-as in disappear completely. OR at the very least, nationalized (and maybe some lengthy jail terms for selected peoples in the EM hierarchy…) Hey we can dream right?
Oh, wait, the uS DID break the oil industry before. Remember Rockefeller’s Standard Oil(Chevron these days). It was broken up as well back then. Again, I ask, how did that work out in the end? What goodness did it achieve exactly?
PracticalMaina on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 1:36 pm
It kept the Rockefellers name out of it, they get to seem like heroes now, and pull their money from the stocks right as they continue to tank.
geopressure on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 1:42 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bYAQ-ZZtEU
I encourage board participants to watch this 10 min video… it will open your eyes as to how to view the media that you intake…
These methods are so powerful that they have been upscaled & utilized to create a fake oil glut that no one seems to question…
Don’t let yourself be played thusly…
Apneaman on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 3:41 pm
geo shows his hand. You are a denier. Ha ha. Getting to be a lonely stance eh retard? Guarantee ya in the not too distant future y’all deniers gonna get real quite. Like Peter denying Jesus you’ll be denying you were ever a denier. Why did it take you so long to reveal yourself? Looks like you have already been trying to conceal it eh? geo the right-wing conspiracy tard. It’s an amazing coincidence that all these global conspiracies just so happen to be against your particular world view. Must be very flattering believing all these nefarious groups are spending large and getting up extra early everyday just to fool you and your tribe.
Apneaman on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 3:47 pm
Too Close to Dangerous Climate Thresholds — Japan Meteorological Agency Shows First Three Months of 2016 Were About 1.5 C Above the IPCC Preindustrial Baseline
“Global policy makers, scientists, and many environmentalists have identified an annual average of 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial marks as a level of heat we should try to avoid. The Paris Climate Summit made a verbal pledge to at least attempt to steer clear of such extreme high temperature ranges. But even the strongest emissions reduction commitments from the nations of the world now do not line up with that pledge. And it’s questionable that they ever could given the massive amount of greenhouse gas overburden that has already accumulated and is already rapidly heating the world’s airs, waters, ice, and carbon stores.”
https://robertscribbler.com/2016/04/14/too-close-to-dangerous-climate-thresholds-japan-meteorological-agency-shows-first-three-months-of-2015-were-about-1-5-c-above-the-ipcc-preindustrial-baseline/
Scribble is that brand of ever hopeful progressive that needs to believe there is still a chance. I read him and link to him because he is an excellent science communicator, but his hopium is pure emotion.
It’s Too Late
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDm1xD_Kwyc
onlooker on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 6:06 pm
Yeah,like we were really going to stop using fossil fuels. The myth of human exceptionalism and progress was always too alluring to mankind. The really serious crime is not the Oil industries lying it is our lying to ourselves thinking we were and are masters of the Universe and limitations do not apply to us.
Sissyfuss on Thu, 14th Apr 2016 10:33 pm
To paraphrase Exxon,”Hey folks, it’s nothing personal, it’s just business. ”
Oh and Gee that’s pressure, kiss my Keeling Curve!
JW on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 9:40 am
So why do we need to call people names because they don’t toe the line? Is that what this board is about? Are you expecting everyone to spit out your specific talking points and cry “yes sir”?
There are more than a few holes in the AGW theory as well as the arguments against it. One very basic one is that the earth has and can be expected to continue to change climate naturally. The strength that the AGW side has is that it appears to be happening in a shorter time frame than would be expected, but at the same time there have been times when it appeared to changed very suddenly.
The climate has been warmer and colder than it is now and we don’t understand climate change well enough, but there is little doubt that humans are destroying the earth at a record pace and the climate is just one aspect of the things we’re scrambling to figure things out. It’s also one of the longer range issues that I think is getting way more attention than it warrants.
We’re over-fishing the oceans, we’re killing natural habitats and we’re facing every increasing energy challenges. There is no magic bullet and there is no quick cure. For myself, I’m doing what I can and encouraging others without resorting to names.
When I see people calling other people names, I tend to think they are just here for to feel self-important. I’ve been watching this for too long and it’s no way to hold a discussion. Further, it simply proves Godwin was an optimist.
PRacticalMaina on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 9:53 am
JW, fish kills, dead coral, desertification of land, failed economys leading people to rely more on their local ecosystems and over tax them, can all be linked to climate change. Be specific in your theory of there being holes when it comes to AGW. The fact that the climate is supposed to change slowly over tens of thousands of years is no justification for the drastic change we are seeing in the very short time period we are witnessing it. The entire Arab Spring can be tied to food insecurity due to drought, we are having hurricanes and thunder storms during the winter, it was the warmest year on record, record low sea ice, record early thawing, people dying from heat by the thousands every year in the third world. on and on and on.
JW on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 10:34 am
I was not positing a theory for or against AGW, but was simply attempting to ask why we have to be impolite in the discussions that ensue and further attempted to point out that there are more questions than actual answers.
However, I admit my thought process will cause me to write imperfect prose that may require the reader to pass Telepathy 101 before clearly understanding my intent. Occasionally I am fortunate to write clearly enough so that my scribbling merely requires a firm grasp of logic.
While I am very happy to admit my lack of credentials any particular guild, I do think we should be able to discuss things rationally and allow there to be disagreement without recrimination.
I, for one, make no claim to absolute knowledge and hold that I too am capable of mistakes on a daily basis. What I do try to aspire to is to be one who does not belittle people for simply stating their opinions or their version of the truth.
After all, facts are facts, but truth is in the eye of the beholder. I do look forward to the day that truths we hold as self-evident can become accepted as factual, but I will not hold my breath.
PRacticalMaina on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 10:39 am
JW unfortunately the day that the fossil fuel industry finally stops funding bad science, and allows the truth to become widely known, is a day that it will most likely be too late to mitigate and substantial damage to our ecosystem.
PRacticalMaina on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 10:39 am
* mitigate any
Robert Spoley on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 11:28 am
We always seem to point the finger at “someone else” when in all reality, we are all to blame. Everyone wants to live the best life they can and the same for their families. This takes energy. The more of us there are, the more energy it takes to maintain the lifestyle we all want. Cut our numbers back and the amount of energy required will also be cut back. Outside of that, try living without any oil or its’ products with todays’ population size. I guarantee wars, starvation, plagues, and so forth will break out within weeks. If you think the environment is in trouble now, wait and see what happens then!
Apneaman on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 11:39 am
JW, there is no known natural process that explains what is happening now, but there is a ton of scientific evidence, that explains why the planet is warming – it’s a no brainer. The climate always changes argument has been thoroughly examined and tested by the people that study earth sciences. Those scientists are the ones who came up with it the first place and investigated it and many other explanations for what is happening – that’s how science works. All the work is freely available on-line for anyone to examine, but there seems to be a small group of non scientists who can’t except it and keep hauling out the same old tired, lame assed arguments. You know, like flat earthers centuries after it was proven the planet was spherical. What is interesting is that these doubters are almost exclusively white, male, conservative and mostly come from America with cohorts of the same description from a handful of other rich, high energy countries. Why do you think that is JW? What could possibly be their motive for clinging to an explanation that has already been thoroughly investigated and eliminated due to lack of evidence for it and loads of evidence to the contrary? Claiming we don’t know enough is either from your lack of knowledge of the science or some other reason. We have the evidence – we know.
Yes, “there have been times when it appeared to changed very suddenly” and we know why because the chemical signature is in the earth itself – mud, rocks, ice, etc. We know that when it was really bad for life on this planet – extinction events – it was massive releases of CO2 from volcanism that triggered GW which lead to a series of positive self reinforcing feedback loops, like major methane releases and ocean acidification that led to extinctions. The same thing is happening again except there are no volcanic traps that are currently spewing out CO2, but there is a 7.4 billion strong gang of techno industrial apes that have been burning ever greater amounts of fossilized carbon for the last 250 years and thus creating CO2 as a by product to the tune of 40 billion tons a year.
The speed at which this is happening blows any know releases from volcanisim out of the water. This includes the Permian mass extinction that was triggered by the Siberian traps.
Earth’s worst extinction “inescapably” tied to Siberian Traps, CO2, and climate change
“The link
Seth Burgess and Samuel Bowring confirmed the long-hypothesized link by comparing new, high-precision dates from volcanic rocks with equally precise dates for the mass extinction measured from volcanic ash in sediments spanning the end-Permian boundary in China. By ensuring the same labs and chemical tracers were used in both sets of measurements, they were able to compare the dates at an unprecedented precision of 0.04% or better, even though the rocks sampled were from locations thousands of miles apart.
The Siberian Traps are an example of a rare geological phenomenon called a “Large Igneous Province” (LIP) which has been linked to 4 out of the “big 5” mass extinctions since animals evolved. The new timeline enables science to zoom in to the details of the terrible events 252 million years ago, in which more than 90% of marine, and some 75% of land life went extinct.”
“Svensen et al showed in 2009 that these sills baked coal, oil and natural gas, salt, limestone, and organic-rich shales in the sediments, generating large volumes of methane and CO2, as well as a cocktail of noxious gasses, acids, ozone-eating chemicals and coal fly-ash. These gasses exploded into the atmosphere through thousands of pipe eruptions across Siberia, belching columns of gas and pollutants from vents up to 1.6 km wide, leaving behind mineral-rich pipes that are mined for iron ore today.”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Burgess-Bowring-2015-Siberian-Traps-Dates.html
JW, this site, “sceptical science” addresses every single alternative explanation that has come up and provides the evidence.
Here is the page for the “natural” claim.
What does past climate change tell us about global warming?
“Greenhouse gasses – mainly CO2, but also methane – were involved in most of the climate changes in Earth’s past. When they were reduced, the global climate became colder. When they were increased, the global climate became warmer. When CO2 levels jumped rapidly, the global warming that resulted was highly disruptive and sometimes caused mass extinctions. Humans today are emitting prodigious quantities of CO2, at a rate faster than even the most destructive climate changes in earth’s past.”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm
geopressure on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 11:41 am
Apneaman:
I have no idea what you are talking about…
Apneaman on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 11:46 am
Geo, you have no idea what you are talking about either. At least you are consistent.
Davy on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 12:27 pm
Climate change is a no brainer. It is increasingly looking like /abrupt/ climate change which is a new and more insidious threshold especially when considering 7plus BILLION people must be fed. One does not even have to elaborate much. One word sums it up “ARCTIC”. Those who wish to mention natural causes are just showing a lack of understanding of the huge amount of data collected and digested by scientist across a broad spectrum of disciplines. In any case those who will argue who is responsible I would say WTF does it matter. This is an oncoming extinction event now in progress but set to accelerate at non liner rate at any time. What we don’t know is the rate of change or the degree of change enough to make time predictions. I say this with the caveat things are shaping up worse not better.
Davy on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 12:36 pm
Geo, I don’t care for the Ape Hole but his climate credentials are sound.
PRacticalMaina on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 12:45 pm
http://www.pulseheadlines.com/paris-climate-deal-effect-years-earlier-expected/26167/
At least one person at the UN is recognizing that the situation is urgent, and dire.
“We are two minutes to midnight on climate change. If you ask me, the Paris agreement is 10 years too late,” said the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
JW on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 12:47 pm
Apneaman,
Thank you very much for the information. And while I’m sure it will be interesting reading, it really has nothing to do with the point which I appear to be failing to make in a spectacular fashion.
I was hoping I didn’t have to actually point this out directly, but I fear I have no choice.
As I tried to explain earlier and seem to be failing at is that I think it would be great if we could have these discussions without name calling.
Lest anyone have any doubt, I’m talking about when people, such as yourself, call someone a pig, shill, retard or other impolite name because they stated an opinion or fact that you don’t like. You do this and then you want others to listen to you? Do you not see the problem with that?
Sissyfuss on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 1:09 pm
And you can kiss my Keeling Curve, too Jerkin Wildly
Apneaman on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 1:36 pm
No, I don’t see a problem with that when the opinions they are spreading have been proven to be false many times over and said opinions have already resulted in much death, suffering and destruction and it’s going to be go exponential soon. Some could have been avoided and definitely could have be minimized. I tend to think that we would have continued to burn fossil fuels and especially oil, but we will never actually know since that option was taken away by unabashed greed via political corruption and a yearly multi million dollar disinformation campaign. To avoid looking like hypocrites and exposing their guilt, leaders have made almost no preparations to shield the tax paying citizens from some of the consequence of climate change. Some are quietly spending large to protect the 1% ers property. If they were to sign legislation to protect regular folks it would be an admission and expose them as frauds. Instead they are still letting real estate developers build and sell homes and businesses on land that they/we have already been informed is going to be nailed with floods due to a greater amount of moisture in the atmosphere due to AGW. They had a flood in Calgary in 2010 and a 6 billion dollar one in 2013 and the mayor and city officals and provincial were warned years before that it would happen and why and they did not do anything. People have been killed and have had their property destroyed in many other places too. Major record breaking deluges in the last few years. Texas is a perfect example. Same deal in Miami with sea level rise. For now it’s only name calling, but someday someone is going to get wiped out and have their family killed in an AGW event and instead of swearing at the neighbourhood loud mouth denier they will take a fucking bat to the deniers head. A few of those and it could trigger an avalanche. I can already see the ground work for this vengeance and scapegoating being laid. I’ve been reading it in comments for a couple of years now and now it is starting to appear in news articles – like this one. Even if one choose to believe that GW was occurring without any help from humans, don’t you think it would be a good idea for your elected officials who took an oath to look out for the people to use some of that tax revenue to protect them from as much pain and destruction for as long as in possible? There are a number of measures that could be take to protect lives and property, but it’s not happening because of greedy 1% cocksuckers, the politicians they have corrupted and their army of true believer denier tards. Fuck em all. They don’t deserve any respect or civility. Won’t get any from me and I won’t shed a tear or lose a wink of sleep when the mob goes for them. Reap what you sow and all that.
geopressure on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 1:49 pm
Can anyone point me to a website where similar topics can be discussed with mature, intelligent, professionals who think for themselves & formulate their own opinions???
Apneaman on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 2:34 pm
geo, why? They would not put up with a conspiracy tard like you. People who think for themselves require evidence not just someone who keeps repeating “think for yourself” or “think about it” every time they are asked a legitimate question. Try infowars.
Apneaman on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 2:39 pm
JW, here is an perfect example of officials trying to protect their constituents from some of the consequences of AGW. And it appears to have worked and it’s a modest expense.
£500,000 tree-planting project helped Yorkshire town miss winter floods
Slowing the Flow scheme, which saw 40,000 trees planted, reduced peak river flow by 20%, after 50mm of rain fell in 36 hours
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/13/500000-tree-planting-project-helped-yorkshire-town-miss-winter-floods
JW on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 3:02 pm
Now you see? The Yorkshire project is a cool move in the right direction. Another one is the growing trend towards getting rid of lawns in favor of gardens. In the city I live in, front yard gardens were given a permanent zoning waver and more and more people are planting gardens instead of lawns.
Another smart move in the past few years is the rezoning of the largely empty commercial areas to mixed use. The result being that the buildings are being turned into apartments, condos, restaurants, micro-breweries and locally owned shops of various types. The only “corporate” move-in so far is a small Starbucks.
Little changes can do a lot of good, and all it took was a few changes in ordinances by the city and everyone else is doing the rest.
GregT on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 5:02 pm
JW,
“Now you see?”
Apnea can see just fine. It is you who is blind.
Apneaman on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 5:15 pm
I wish I was blind.
Ancient volcanoes could be key to predicting the impact of climate change
“If that much material erupted today, it would cover the contiguous United States with about 400 meters of lava—it was an enormous series of eruptions,” Corsetti said.
But the reason CAMP is suspected of being the culprit in the mass extinction has to do with carbon dioxide—the gas that climate change experts now worry is being released into the atmosphere in rapid and massive quantities.
“By some estimates, it rose nearly as rapidly as we’re putting CO2 into the atmosphere today,” Corsetti said. “We wanted to see how the Earth system responded from a rapid rise of CO2. The spoiler alert is that there was a mass extinction. What we’ve been able to do is use this mercury as a fingerprint to tie the event to the volcanos, and therefore the emissions.”
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-04-ancient-volcanoes-key-impact-climate.html#jCp
Apneaman on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 5:20 pm
Unprecedented rainfalls cause flood in 11 provinces
“Drastic addition of water to the rivers after years of drought and water scarcity have resulted in overflow of the rivers in different provinces, Alireza Da’emi, deputy energy minister for planning, said on Thursday.
Years of drought have made it possible for illegal constructions in riversides and now massive damages occurred due to overflow of rivers, Da’emi explained.
“It must be shocking and difficult to believe if I tell you that 8,000 cubic meters of water has entered Dez Dam (in Khuzestan province) last night (Wednesday night), while normally this amount fluctuates between 60 to 600 cubic meters,” he stated.”
http://www.tehrantimes.com/news/300601/Unprecedented-rainfalls-cause-flood-in-11-provinces
Apneaman on Fri, 15th Apr 2016 5:23 pm
We Just Crushed The Global Record For Hottest Start Of Any Year
“NASA reports that this was the hottest three-month start (January to March) of any year on record. It beat the previous record — just set in 2015 — by a stunning 0.7°F (0.39°C). Normally, such multi-month records are measured in the hundredths of a degree
Last month was the hottest February on record by far. It followed the hottest January on record by far, which followed the hottest December by far, which followed the hottest November on record by far, which followed the hottest October on record by far. Some may detect a pattern here.
We reported two weeks ago that “Last Month Was The Hottest March In The Global Satellite Record.” It was also the hottest March on record — by far — in the dataset of the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), as the World Meteorological Organization tweeted Thursday.”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/04/15/3769847/hottest-3-month-record/
theedrich on Sat, 16th Apr 2016 4:29 am
Priority №1 for mankind is destroying competitors. The sporadic nicey-niceness enjoyed in the West since 1945 is merely an inter-war lull enabled by a combo of economics, science and technological breakthroughs. That lull is now coming to an end. The lower-IQ types (Negroes and other microcephalics of various genres) are screaming for “their share” of what they see on TV. However, despite the bitching of the banshee, the socialist outgassings of the Vermont whacko, and various magicians vociferating on other stages, this will not happen, because one cannot pour a gallon of water into a thimble. BAU will not, cannot, be stopped. More Of The Same simply results in diminishing returns and a regression to Priority №1, whose ultimate consequence historically has been war. Not even the Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning burrhead in the White House with his ministry of propaganda can halt this inexorable progression, of which ISIL is only a small part.
Kenz300 on Sat, 16th Apr 2016 10:06 am
Too many people demand too many resources……yet the worlds population grows by 80 million every year…..
How many charities are dealing with the same problems they were dealing with 10 or 20 years ago with no end in sight. Every problem is made worse by the worlds growing population. IF you can not provide for yourself you can not provide for a child.
Rescuing Homeless Children From the Streets of India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpaR_pTVeBk
Poverty in the Philippines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M5PAS8Lr10
denial on Sat, 16th Apr 2016 12:06 pm
The human species is not cable of acting in the best interest of future generations….the current generation in control will probably be dead in 20 years or less time…as that number gets smaller because of environmental conditions…maybe things will be done…but it will be too late by then…
Most wealthy elite I talk to have no idea! They are brain dead…to the storm coming
Kenz300 on Sun, 17th Apr 2016 8:21 am
Wind and solar are safer, cleaner and cheaper forms of energy…………..
Electric cars, bikes and mass transit are the future…..fossil fuel ICE cars are the past…………..
Think teen agers vs your grand father………………….
cell phones vs land lines…….
NO EMISSIONS……..climate change is real………