Officials at NOAA told the Obama Administration that it was underestimating the rate and risk of spills before the President announced his controversial decision to open up coastal areas to drilling in March. Analysts also noted that there were serious problems in responding to spills.
For environmentalists, the dismissal of such concern reminds them of the Bush Administration, which tended to ignore advice that didn’t fit its political agenda. While the Bush Administration ignored data on weapons of mass destruction, the Obama Administration appears to have dismissed data on environmental mass destruction.
The White House is clearly not happy with the leaked warnings and NOAA officials have come out to stress that they were heeded on other warnings. Experts at the Congressional Research Service and other organizations are cited as warning that “[r]ecent annual data indicate that the overall decline of annual spill events may have stopped’ and that ‘[t]he threat of oil spills raises the question of whether U.S. officials have the necessary resources at hand to respond to a major spill. There is some concern that the favorable U.S. spill record has resulted in a loss of experienced personnel, capable of responding quickly and effectively to a major oil spill.”
For the story, click here.
Kudos: Elaine M.
I’ll say this real slow.
Rand. You might as well quote PNAC or a rabid animal to me if that’s your “proof”. There is a reason most adults abandon both Rand and Salinger to their teenage years. One is a model of selfishness and the other a handbook for sociopaths. Most teens grow out of that. Well. Many. Some. The words of Rand as anything other than a bad example lack any substantial credibility as an operating philosophy.
Locke. Personal property as a concept. Who’d have thunk it! Duh. Have I ever said we don’t need the concept of personal property? No. But thanks for the definition even if it’s logical application here is a non-sequitur.
Jefferson. A corporations property rights are as big a fiction as their personalty. You keep equating personal rights to corporate “rights” when you defend corporations and corporatist behavior. Jefferson was talking about real actual natural humans, not legal constructs or the mechanisms to hide behind them. Do you not understand the words “false analogy”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_analogy
Every time you quote Jefferson in defense of corporate “rights”, he spins in his grave. WHHhhhhrrrrr!!!!!
Slarti,
You are correct that standing requires a particularized damage in this instance. One cannot sue Company X over general environmental degradation, but if Company X’s actions rise to the level where a specific damage occurs to an individual or a populace then someone or some class (if certified for class action) damaged will have sufficient standing to bring suit.
Slarti:
I have been thinking about your contention.
If I live down wind of a plant that has some toxic chemical gas as a waste product and it blows across my land and makes me sick and I can prove it makes me sick, haven’t I been injured? Especially if the sickness leaves me unable to make a living or it deprives me of my life. It has violated my individual right to life and as such I should be able to sue that particular company for any injuries they may have caused.
But the company also has a right to exist (see John Locke 2nd Treatise on Government), which I don’t think you are denying, as it is the product of individual effort. But it also doesn’t have the right to infringe on my rights, just as I cannot infringe on your rights without some form of legal penalty.
The problem with what you propose, at least in my opinion, is that when you tax a company for polluting the money does not necessarily go to the individual harmed by the actions of the company. The individual harmed by the company is the one that has a claim on redress, not society. If I live in Montana and you live in North Carolina you are not harmed. Why do you have a claim of injury against that particular company?
And if the company can be punished by taxes and then also be sued how is that fair? Especially if they don’t cause any harm, they are then taxed on the possibility of harm.
Maybe I am looking at this in the wrong way, I don’t think I am (obviously), but don’t individual rights trump civil rights or human rights? Which is what taxation would be addressing.
It all, at least in my mind, boils down to the right of the individual to his own life to be free and to lead it the way he chooses. It is not about rich or poor or black or white or gay or straight, it is about the simple yearning of the human mind to be free. To deny that is to deny man his proper nature-a rational, reasoning being. I don’t want man or God telling me what to do, I can take care of myself and I respect other people enough to believe they have that capacity as well.
Here are some thoughts on human rights:
There is no such dichotomy as “human rights” versus “property rights.” No human rights can exist without property rights. Since material goods are produced by the mind and effort of individual men, and are needed to sustain their lives, if the producer does not own the result of his effort, he does not own his life. To deny property rights means to turn men into property owned by the state. Whoever claims the “right” to “redistribute” the wealth produced by others is claiming the “right” to treat human beings as chattel.
“The Monument Builders,” The Virtue of Selfishness,
Byron,
Pollution of the air, soil and water is detrimental to the health and welfare of all the people and we have no recourse to the courts – there is no particularized injury (this is something that the birthers have trouble grasping and why all of their cases are dismissed for lack of standing). If any of the lawyers on this site could elaborate on this issue (or correct me if I’m wrong) I’d appreciate it.
Byron,
The air is a material thing – therefore it is property. Who owns it?
Slarti:
and you and I have redress through the courts if we are harmed.
Buddha:
“All your talk about respecting civil rights and human rights is rendered moot by your worship of property is the prime right. You might as well open a temple to Mammon in your front yard. Or better yet, a wallow.”
========================================================
There are at least 3 people who agree with me:
“The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.
Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.”
“Man’s Rights,” The Virtue of Selfishness Ayn Rand
“Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men”
John Locke 2nd Treatise on Government
“The right to procure property and to use it for one’s own enjoyment is essential to the freedom of every person, and our other rights would mean little without these rights of property ownership. [It is also for these reasons that the government’s power to tax property is placed in those representatives most frequently and directly responsible to the people, since it is the people themselves who must pay those taxes out of their holdings of property.]”
Thomas Jefferson
Byron,
The logical extension of the principle that no one has the right to dump trash in your back yard is that no one has the right to dump pollutants into the air, the water or the land. I’m all for property rights if you’re willing to take it all the way and when it comes down to it, the government is the only one that can act to defend our common right to the air, soil and water. Any system that doesn’t recognize that there is a cost to pollution that is not being paid by those doing the polluting is not a free market system.
Buddha,
Once again – total agreement on the fundamentals, different perspective.
Buddha:
I think you need to re-evaluate what I meant in response to Slarti. Namely a company doesnt have a right to pollute my backyard because I own the property.
BP doesnt have a right to screw up the fishing rights of shrimp fisherman. The shrimp fisherman have been harmed by BP’s accident and in my opinion have a right to sue.
Never has your avatar been more appropriate since you’ve chosen to express ideals fit only for pigs.
Damn dat boy I tell you is good. Jus has a way wit words.
ROFLMAO you Capitalist Pig oink oink 🙂
Byron,
Spoken like a true materialist. That’s not a complement. One must only respect property rights so far as they don’t infringe upon the human and civil rights of OTHERS. Your selfishness in dogma is really showing today. Or perhaps you’d like to explain to all the out of work fishermen how BP’s property rights or those of the shareholders trump their rights? You can’t see past your own wallet. Which is sad. Property rights uber alles? Even for the false person of corporate legal personality? Really.
All your talk about respecting civil rights and human rights is rendered moot by your worship of property is the prime right. You might as well open a temple to Mammon in your front yard. Or better yet, a wallow.
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” – George Orwell. Never has your avatar been more appropriate since you’ve chosen to express ideals fit only for pigs.
Slarti:
One must above all else respect property rights.
Bdaman,
Not unless we can attribute everything said by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Bachman to every conservative.
Last month Al Sharpton claimed, “Americans overwhelmingly voted for socialism when they elected Barack Obama.”
On Sunday the Democratic Leader stuck to his socialist theme. Sharpton told a congregation in Connecticut, “The dream was to make everything equal in everybody’s house”
So, can we call them socialists now?
Byron,
Fine, don’t call it a pollution tax – call it a fee to purchase the right to pollute. Either corporations have the right to dump their garbage in your back yard or they should have to pay to purchase it. Which is it?
Byron,
I neither want to coddle or punish corporations, I merely want to attach the proper cost to their actions so they can modify their behavior appropriately (you know – the free market). Your putative measures would be totally ineffective in lowering daily pollution and not all that effective in increasing safety in practice (unless you can give me an implementation plan that would actually work). Your ideas are so well thought out and reasoned in general, I don’t understand what is causing the blind spot you have here. If you can come up with a better policy (something that can actually be implemented) than my idea to tax pollution, I’d love to hear it – but so far you haven’t done that (you’ve just said ‘sue them when they screw up’ – which is neither efficient nor effective, in my opinion).
Slarti:
how can you respect a free market and tax companies? You cannot, the 2 are contradictory.
I am never going to agree with you and Buddha and you are never going to agree with me.
Political and economic freedom are corollaries to not have one is to not have the other. When I am not free to purchase what I want without coercion then I am not free.
The power of the state to tax a company impacts me as an individual not the company. And government has too many favors to dispense for that to ever be fair.
These concepts are quite simple, elementary really. You all say I have a blind spot, I say you have a blind spot. You haven’t/cant prove I am wrong. All I need to do is look out the window to prove you wrong, it is going on now and has been since 1913. Capitalism and socialism are incompatible, the problems you see are because of socialism. Look at Soviet Russia, shit look at Greece. Massive failures of socialism.
And that is where we are headed.
Obama Administration will probably ignore this too.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Testimony of The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley Before Congress May 6, 2010
The Select Committee, in its letter inviting testimony for the present hearing, cites various scientific bodies as having concluded that
1. The global climate has warmed;
2. Human activities account for most of the warming since the mid-20th century;
3. Climate change is already causing a broad range of impacts in the United States;
4. The impacts of climate change are expected to grow in the coming decades.
The first statement requires heavy qualification and, since the second is wrong, the third and fourth are without foundation and must fall. The Select Committee has requested answers to the following questions:
1. What are the observed changes to the climate system?
Carbon dioxide concentration: In the Neoproterozoic Era, ~750 million years ago, dolomitic rocks, containing ~40% CO2 bonded not only with calcium ions but also with magnesium, were precipitated from the oceans worldwide by a reaction that could not have occurred unless the atmospheric concentration of CO2 had been ~300,000 parts per million by volume. Yet in that era equatorial glaciers came and went twice at sea level.
Today, the concentration is ~773 times less, at ~388 ppmv: yet there are no equatorial glaciers at sea level. If the warming effect of CO2 were anything like as great as the vested-interest groups now seek to maintain, then, even after allowing for greater surface albedo and 5% less solar radiation, those glaciers could not possibly have existed (personal communication from Professor Ian Plimer, confirmed by on-site inspection of dolomitic and tillite deposits at Arkaroola Northern Flinders Ranges, South Australia).
In the Cambrian Era, ~550 million years ago, limestones, containing some 44% CO2 bonded with calcium ions, were precipitated from the oceans. At that time, atmospheric CO2 concentration was ~7000 ppmv, or ~18 times today’s (IPCC, 2001): yet it was at that time that the calcite corals first achieved algal symbiosis. In the Jurassic era, ~175 million years ago, atmospheric CO2 concentration was ~6000 ppmv, or ~15 times today’s (IPCC, 2001): yet it was then that the delicate aragonite corals came into being.
Therefore, today’s CO2 concentration, though perhaps the highest in 20 million years, is by no means exceptional or damaging. Indeed, it has been argued that trees and plants have been part-starved of CO2 throughout that period (Senate testimony of Professor Will Happer, Princeton University, 2009). It is also known that a doubling of today’s CO2 concentration, projected to occur later this century (IPCC, 2007), would increase the yield of some staple crops by up to 40% (lecture by Dr. Leighton Steward, Parliament Chamber, Copenhagen, December 2009).
Global mean surface temperature: Throughout most of the past 550 million years, global temperatures were ~7 K (13 F) warmer than the present. In each of the past four interglacial warm periods over the past 650,000 years, temperatures were warmer than the present by several degrees (A.A. Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, 2006).
In the current or Holocene warm period, which began 11,400 years ago at the abrupt termination of the Younger Dryas cooling event, some 7500 years were warmer than the present (Cuffey & Clow, 1997), and, in particular, the medieval, Roman, Minoan, and Holocene Climate Optima were warmer than the present (Cuffey & Clow, 1997). The “global warming” that ceased late in 2001 (since when there has been a global cooling trend for eight full years) had begun in 1695, towards the end of the Maunder Minimum, a period of 70 years from 1645-1715 when the Sun was less active than at any time in the past 11,400 years (Hathaway, 2004). Solar activity increased with a rapidity unprecedented in the Holocene, reaching a Grand Solar Maximum during a period of 70 years from 1925-1995 when the Sun was very nearly as active as it had been at any time in the past 11,400 years (Hathaway, 2004; Usoskin, 2003; Solanki, 2005).
The first instrumental record of global temperatures was kept in Central England from 1659. From 1695-1735, a period of 40 years preceding the onset of the Industrial Revolution in 1750, temperatures in central England, which are a respectable proxy for global temperatures, rose by 2.2 K (4 F). Yet global temperatures have risen by only 0.65 K (1.2 F) since 1950, and 0.7 K (1.3 F) in the whole of the 20th century. Throughout the 21st century, global temperatures have followed a declining trend.
Accordingly, neither global mean surface temperature nor its rates of change in recent decades have been exceptional, unusual, inexplicable, or unprecedented.
Ocean “acidification”: It has been suggested that the oceans have “acidified” – or, more correctly, become less alkaline – by 0.1 acid-base units in recent decades. However, the fact of a movement towards neutrality in ocean chemistry, if such a movement has occurred, tells us nothing of the cause, which cannot be attributed to increases in CO2 concentration. There is 70 times as much CO2 dissolved in the oceans as there is in the atmosphere, and some 30% of any CO2 we add to the atmosphere will eventually dissolve into the oceans. Accordingly, a doubling of CO2 concentration, expected later this century, would raise the oceanic partial pressure of CO2 by 30% of one-seventieth of what is already there. And that is an increase of 0.4% at most. Even
this minuscule and chemically-irrelevant perturbation is probably overstated, since any “global warming” that resulted from the doubling of CO2 concentration would warm the oceans and cause them to outgas CO2, reducing the oceanic partial pressure.
Seawater is a highly buffered solution – it can take up a huge amount of dissolved inorganic carbon without significant effect on pH. There is not the slightest possibility that the oceans could approach the neutral pH of pure water (pH 7.0), even if all the fossil fuel reserves in the world were burned. A change in pH of 0.2 units this century, from its present 8.2 to 8.0, even if it were possible, would leave the sea containing no more than 10% of the “acidic” positively-charged hydrogen ions that occur in pure water. If ocean “acidification” is happening, then CO2 is not and will not be the culprit.
2. What evidence provides attribution of these changes to human activities?
In the global instrumental record, which commenced in 1850, the three supradecadal periods of most rapid warming were 1860-1880, 1910-1940, and 1975-2001. Warming rates in all three periods were identical at ~0.16 K (0.3 F) per decade. During the first two of these three periods, observations were insufficient to establish the causes of the warming: however, the principal cause cannot have been atmospheric CO2 enrichment, because, on any view, mankind’s emissions of CO2 had not increased enough to cause any measurable warming on a global scale during those short periods.
In fact, the third period of rapid global warming, 1975-2001, was the only period of warming since 1950. From 1950-1975, and again from 2001-2010, global temperatures fell slightly (HadCRUTv3, cited in IPCC, 2007). What, then, caused the third period of warming? Most of that third and most recent
period of rapid warming fell within the satellite era, and the satellites confirmed measurements from ground stations showing a considerable, and naturally-occurring, global brightening from 1983-2001 (Pinker et al., 2005).
Allowing for the fact that Dr. Pinker’s result depended in part on the datasets of outgoing radiative flux from the ERBE satellite that had not been corrected at that time for orbital decay, it is possible to infer a net increase in surface radiative flux amounting to 0.106 Wm2year over the period, compared with the 0.16 W m-2 year-1 found by Dr. Pinker. Elementary radiative-transfer calculations demonstrate that a natural surface global brightening amounting to ~1.9 W m-2 over the 18-year period of study would be expected – using the IPCC’s own methodology – to have caused a transient warming of 1K (1.8 F). To put this naturally-occurring global brightening into perspective, the IPCC’s estimated total of all the anthropogenic influences on climate combined in the 256 years 1750-2005 is only 1.6 W m-2. Taking into account a further projected warming, using IPCC methods, of ~0.5 K (0.9F) from CO2 and other anthropogenic sources, projected warming of 1.5 K (2.7 F) should have occurred.
However, only a quarter of this projected warming was observed, suggesting the possibility that the IPCC may have overestimated the warming effect of greenhouse gases fourfold. This result is in line with similar result obtained by other methods: for instance, Lindzen & Choi (2009, 2010 submitted) find that the warming rate to be expected as a result of anthropogenic activities is one-quarter to one-fifth of the IPCC’s central estimate. There is no consensus on how much warming a given increase in CO2 will cause.
3. Assuming ad argumentum that the IPCC’s projections of future warming are correct, what policy measures should be taken?
Warming at the very much reduced rate that measured (as opposed to merely modeled) results suggest would be 0.7-0.8 K (1.3-1.4 F) at CO2 doubling. That would be harmless and beneficial – a doubling of CO2 concentration would increase yields of some staple crops by 40%. Therefore, one need not anticipate any significant adverse impact from CO2-induced “global warming”. “Global warming” is a non-problem, and the correct policy response to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.
However, ad argumentum, let us assume that the IPCC is correct in finding that a warming of 3.26 plus/minus 0.69 K (5.9 plus/minus 1.2 F: IPCC, 2007, ch.10, box 10.2) might occur at CO2 doubling. We generalize this central prediction, deriving a simple equation to tell us how much warming the IPCC would predict for any given change in CO2 concentration – ΔTS ≈ (8.5 ± 1.8) ln(C/Co) F.
Thus, the change in surface temperature in Fahrenheit degrees, as predicted by the IPCC, would be 6.7 to 10.3 (with a central estimate of 8.5) times the logarithm of the proportionate increase in CO2 concentration. We check the equation by using it to work out the warming the IPCC would predict at CO2 doubling: 8.5 ln 2 ≈ 5.9 F. Using this equation, we can determine just how much “global warming” would be forestalled if the entire world were to shut down its economies and emit no carbon dioxide at all for an entire year. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 is 388 parts per million by volume. Our emissions of 30 bn tons of CO2 a year are causing this concentration to rise at 2 ppmv/year, and this ratio of 15 bn tons of emissions to each additional ppmv of CO2 concentration has remained constant for 30 years.
Then the “global warming” that we might forestall if we shut down the entire global carbon economy for a full year would be 8.5 ln[(388+2)/388] = 0.044 F. At that rate, almost a quarter of a century of global zero-carbon activity would be needed in order to forestall just one Fahrenheit degree of “global warming”. Two conclusions ineluctably follow. First, it would be orders of magnitude more cost effective to adapt to any “global warming” that might occur than to try to prevent it from occurring by trying to tax or regulate emissions of carbon dioxide in any way.
Secondly, there is no hurry. Even after 23 years doing nothing to address the imagined problem, and even if the IPCC has not exaggerated CO2’s warming effect fourfold, the world will be just 1 F warmer than it is today. If the IPCC has exaggerated fourfold, the world can do nothing for almost a century before global temperature rises by 1 F. There are many urgent priorities that need the attention of Congress, and it is not for me as an invited guest in your country to say what they are. Yet I can say this much: on any view, “global warming” is not one of them.
Slarti:
if pollute for free is corporate welfare, which by definition is government subsidization of corporations then to pollute for free is a form of government involvement in business and as such is rightly called fascism or socialism.
Which I am totally against.
The funny part of all this is that my way would cause much more pain to corporations than your way. I would actually require them to compete with no government assistance of any kind and the courts would be the referee in the case of a wrong or deleterious action on the part of a corporation. There would be companies going out of business right a left or getting stronger because of the need to actually compete.
You all want to coddle them I want to engage in survival of the fittest. Competition it’s what’s good for society.
Obama Administration will probably ignore the American Cancer Society as well, Why? because A cover letter urges President Obama “most strongly to use the power of his office to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our nation’s productivity, and devastate American lives.” but the American Cancer Society says government experts are overstating their case.
Here’s the Story
U.S. Panel Criticized as Overstating Cancer Risks: the President’s Cancer Panel report on cancer risks from chemicals and other hazards in the environment has drawn criticism from the American Cancer Society, which says government experts are overstating their case. The government’s 240-page report, published online Thursday says the proportion of cancer cases caused by environmental exposures has been “grossly underestimated.” It warns of “grievous harm” from chemicals and other hazards, and cites “a growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer.”
Dr. Michael Thun, an epidemiologist from the cancer society, said in an online statement that the report was “unbalanced by its implication that pollution is the major cause of cancer,” and had presented an unproven theory — that environmentally caused cases are grossly underestimated — as if it were a fact.
The cancer society estimates that about 6 percent of all cancers in the United States — 34,000 cases a year — are related to environmental causes (4 percent from occupational exposures, 2 percent from the community or other settings).
Suggesting that the risk is much higher, when there is no proof, may divert attention from things that are much bigger causes of cancer, like smoking, Dr. Thun said in an interview.
“If we could get rid of tobacco, we could get rid of 30 percent of cancer deaths,” he said, adding that poor nutrition, obesity and lack of exercise are also greater contributors to cancer risk than pollution.
But Dr. Thun said the cancer society shared the panel’s concerns about people’s exposure to so many chemicals, the lack of information about chemicals, the vulnerability of children and the radiation risks from medical imaging tests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/health/research/07cancer.html
May 5, 2010 – Chicago – What is it with Illinois Democrats and failing banks? Recently, the bank owned by the family of Illinois State Treasurer Alex Giannoulias failed. Broadway Bank was shut down by the feds and was absorbed by MB Financial on April 23. Giannoulias is running for U.S. Senate against Republican Mark Kirk.
This week, we get word of another pending failure of a Chicago area bank – this one favored and coddled by U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (photo).
On May 4, Crain’s Chicago Business reported that “Federal banking regulators have begun the process of accepting bids for ShoreBank Corp. in the event the community lender can’t raise the $200 million it needs to avoid failing.” (The failed Broadway Bank needed something like $90 million to avoid failing.) Crain’s also reported that “Under an amended regulatory order with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Illinois Division of Banking, ShoreBank has until May 21 to raise the needed equity. But regulators have been known to seize banks before their capital-raising deadlines.”
This story is about much, much more than just ShoreBank. It’s about corruption, the $10 Trillion cap-and-trade scam, the continuing attempt by Schakowsky and the Democrats to seize control of America’s energy policies, and more. It’s about the Joyce Foundation, which is a major shareholder of ShoreBank and also a major player in the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). CCX trades in “greenhouse gases.” Franklin Raines, George Soros, Al Gore, Goldman Sachs, Barack Obama and others are big players in this story.
ALOT MORE HERE
http://rogersparkbench.blogspot.com/2010/05/failing-shorebank-cap-and-trade-and-jan.html