Imagine paying over $300 for a gallon of gas. That was essentially what Exxon was paying in 1989 when their oil tanker, Valdez, split open and released over 10 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska. The cleanup alone is estimated to have cost roughly $2.5 billion and settlements over $1.1 billion. Divide $3.6 billion by 10 million gallons and Exxon paid well over $300 a gallon for oil they never even sold at the pump. Include all the bad PR and the total cost of the whole incident could easily double.

If current estimates are correct about BP’s monster oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico then there is roughly 5 to 6 million gallons of crude floating around in need of some immediate attention. And immediate is the key word because statistics show that the cost to clean up a gallon of oil on land can run 10 to 30 times more than it does at sea.

So what should BP do? Wait and hope the booms hold and the oil never makes it to land. But when it does, they can expect to start paying over $300 a gallon. This wait and hope is not the answer. The answer is in the backs, equipment and know-how of the Gulf area fisherman.

Imagine if BP gathered up all the out of work fishermen and said let’s start a line here. We are looking to get this monster cleaned up as fast as possible, and most importantly, at sea where you gentlemen have the equipment and fortitude to get it done. We will be paying two dollars for every gallon of floating crude you bring us.

What a bargain for BP. Cleaning up the crude at two dollars per gallon is astronomically cheaper than $300 plus. If 90 percent of the floating crude is recovered at sea by the local fisherman the cleanup cost to the company would only be somewhere around $10 million. The fishermen would have a source of income for awhile and BP could avoid years of litigation and settlement costs not to mention all the good PR they would surely get. But most importantly the Gulf area would avoid another catastrophe and get back to business as usual in a matter of no time.

This however is not likely to happen because the politicians and lawyers will surely get between BP and the fishermen. Have we lost the American spirit of self reliance and working together given to us by our freedom and only think lawsuit instead of team work. Forget the lawsuits. You may die before you see a penny. Let’s work together and get back to life. BP, where does the line start?

Author Randy Kubick is pursuing education in mechanical engineering, business and journalism. He teaches diesel power mechanics at Pickens Technical College in Colorado.

photo: cobalt123

Related posts:

• Oil Spill in Brazil Bigger Than Chevron Admits, NGO Says
• BP to Commit Up to $500 Million to Oil Spill Research
• Gulf Oil Spill Booms to be Recycled in Production of Chevy Volt
• Green Coalition Files Lawsuit Over U.S. Arctic Drilling Approval
• Interactive Resource Tracks Gulf Spill Response in Near Real-Time

For almost a month, BP monitored oil and natural gas gushing from the broken riser and blow-out preventer with remote operated vehicles (ROVs). And for almost a month, they kept all of that video to entirely to themselves. But that’s about to change.

In the hours and days immediately following the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drill rig in the Gulf of Mexico, the federal response was centered on firefighting, search and rescue. For nearly three days, although the rig was burning, the wellhead and riser assembly were still in tact and there was no leaking oil to speak of. And then, the worst-case scenario happened:  the Deepwater Horizon sank.

First reports were that the “only” thing leaking was the 700,000 gallons of diesel fuel from the Deepwater Horizon rig. But then a leak was found in the crumpled, broken riser; and another one at the end of the drill pipe; and yet another at the blowout preventer. All in all, BP was saying that an estimated 1,000 barrels of oil per day was leaking from those three points. That estimate was then bumped up to 5,000 barrels per day.

“We were comfortable with the estimate that was given, the 5,000 barrel per day estimate,” U.S Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry. Landry, the Federal On-Scene Coordinator for Unified Area Command, Deepwater Horizon Response said on a conference call on Monday.

“It’s only an estimate. I was comfortable with working from that. Did I think it was exact? No. I’ve never trusted that. I’ve never personally trusted that as an exact number,” said Landry.

“And the truth of the matter is we’ve always had to have in the back of our mind that it could be much worse… it could be 55,000 barrels per day, which is an extraordinary amount which would have tremendous impact.”

Seeing the leak

Bowing to public and media pressure, BP released two short video clips of oil and gas gushing from the broken riser pipe. Using those videos, scientists specializing in modeling liquid dynamics with video imagery have estimated the leak to be producing 5 to 10 times the volume of oil and gas as BP’s original estimates.

“I don’t see any scenario under which their estimates are accurate,” Steve Wereley, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University told the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee.

But the videos were not entirely satisfactory for many. They were short, of fair quality and one could conceivably argue hand-selected because they displayed some particularly favorable (in BP’s eyes) characteristics, like a more favorable gas-to-oil ratio.

Congressman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Senator Bill Nelson of Florida continued to press BP for more access to the video stream of the two remaining oil leaks and BP finally released three and half minutes of video. Still not satisfied, Rep. Markey demanded BP produce the real-time feed of the video, even saying he would host it on the sub-committee’s website .

“BP is going to have to pay for the cleanup of this spill and the long-term damage. Hosting this video on our website is the only freebie they’re going to get,” Markey said.

“This may be BP’s footage, but it’s America’s ocean. Now anyone will be able to see the real-time effects the BP spill is having on our ocean,” said Markey.

By the end of the hearing yesterday, BP officials agreed to provide the live streaming video of the subsea oil and gas leaks. And today, when the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming began streaming live video of the leak, overwhelming interest crashed the website, and as I write this, it is still not back online.

See Video below:

Article by Timothy B. Hurst appearing courtesy Celsias

Related posts:

• Oil Spill in Brazil Bigger Than Chevron Admits, NGO Says
• Questioning Electric Car Battery Safety
• Sierra Club Launches Oil Spill Action Center
• Van Jones Answers Questions on Green Jobs & Energy Efficiency
• Dutch Website Donates To Solar Power Projects

A federal study of hydraulic fracturing set to begin this spring is expected to provide the most expansive look yet at how the natural gas drilling process can affect drinking water supplies, according to interviews with EPA officials and a set of documents outlining the scope of the project. The research will take a substantial step beyond previous studies and focus on how a broad range of ancillary activity – not just the act of injecting fluids under pressure – may affect drinking water quality.

The oil and gas industry strongly opposes this new approach. The agency’s intended research “goes well beyond relationships between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water,” said Lee Fuller, vice president of government affairs for the Independent Petroleum Association of America in comments (PDF) he submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The “lifecycle” approach will allow the agency to take into account hundreds of reports of water contamination in gas drilling fields across the country. Although the agency hasn’t settled on the exact details, researchers could examine both underground and surface water supplies, gas well construction errors, liquid waste disposal issues and chemical storage plans as part of its assessment.

The EPA begins public hearings today in Washington to nail down the scope of the study.

Plans for the study have attracted international attention and have been the focus of intense debate among lawmakers and the oil and gas industry. The findings could affect Congress’ decision whether to repeal an exemption that shields the fracturing process from federal regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The EPA is undertaking the study in response to a wave of reports of water contamination in drilling areas across the country and a Congressional mandate issued in an appropriations bill last fall. The agency had previously examined hydraulic fracturing in a 2004 study that was limited in scope and was widely criticized.

“When we did the 2004 study we were looking particularly for potential for impacts from hydraulic fracturing fluid underground to underground sources of drinking water,” said Cynthia Dougherty, the EPA’s director of the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water. “So it was a much narrower focus.”

For the latest study, the EPA sent its scoping document to its Science Advisory Board asking for the group’s input in designing the fracturing study. In the document, the EPA explained that information gained from looking at the impact from the start to the end of the process, called a lifecycle assessment “can help policymakers understand and make decisions about the breadth of issues related to hydraulic fracturing, including cross-media risks and the relationship to the entire natural gas production cycle.”

In past interviews with ProPublica, Fuller has explained that, in his view, hydraulic fracturing shouldn’t be blamed for any contamination unless the process of injecting fracturing fluids underground under pressure was “the sole” cause of contamination. If contamination seeped through cracks in a gas well’s protective casing under pressure of the fracturing process, for example, he wouldn’t attribute it to fracturing because the cracks may have existed before the fracturing process began and would be a well construction problem, not a fracturing problem.

Fuller’s definition of fracturing-related contamination helps explain the oil and gas industry’s steadfast claim that that there is not a single case in which hydraulic fracturing has been proven to have contaminated drinking water supplies.

An 18-month investigation by ProPublica, however, has shown more than 1,000 cases in which various aspects of the fracturing lifecycle have affected water supplies, including spills of fracturing fluid waste, cracking of underground cement and well casings meant to enclose the fracturing process, and methane gas traveling large distances underground through faults and fractures.

In planning its study, the EPA has made clear that for its purposes fracturing may play a role in many aspects of the drilling process and in many different environmental risks. The study could examine how well-construction activities have the potential to impact water, what specific materials or design practices would make a well suitable for fracturing, and what are the most effective methods for measuring well integrity.

The EPA hopes to complete its research by late 2012, the end of President Obama’s first term in office. Scientists say that may not be enough time to include substantial field monitoring and water analysis; policymakers say that is too long to wait for a decision from Congress.

The agency’s conclusions could have wide-ranging effects. Last month President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia said he would curtail natural gas production by the state company Gazprom until the study is completed. In part that’s because Medvedev isn’t sure there will be a viable market for Russian gas if the U.S. develops its domestic reserves, and because he believes that the regulations that could result from the EPA study could determine whether the U.S. drills its own gas, or imports it from overseas.

If the comments already submitted to the EPA by stakeholders are any indication, the research process will be contentious.

In Fuller’s comments (PDF) to the EPA, he said that the study shouldn’t focus on the harm fracturing could inflict on water supplies, but rather on whether current environmental regulations “effectively manage the environmental risks of the fracturing process.”

“If these risks are well managed, the other questions are meaningless,” he wrote. “The Scoping Materials Document fails to reflect this reality.”

In another letter (PDF), Ben Wallace, chief operating officer of Penneco Oil Co., wrote: “The clear historical record shows that hydraulic fracturing has been employed for decades successfully without incident. We are concerned that bureaucratic machinations have caused the EPA to hypothesize a problem and that EPA is now seeking research to justify a solution to a nonexistent problem.”

Environmental officials from New York City, who are concerned about how plans to drill for gas in the state’s Marcellus Shale will affect the city’s water supply, also submitted comments (PDF) to the EPA, urging the agency to follow through with its ambitious plans.

“The City concluded that horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing using the current technologies pose an unacceptable threat to the water supply of nine million New Yorkers, and cannot be safely permitted in the watershed,” wrote Caswell Holloway, commissioner of New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection. The city encouraged the Science Advisory Board and the EPA “to take a hard look at this activity and to recognize that the absence of contamination does not necessarily imply an activity is safe, but may actually reflect extensive gaps in monitoring information.”

Article by Abrahm Lustgarten appearing courtesy ProPublica

Related posts:

• U.S. Congress Tells EPA to Study Hydraulic Fracturing and Drinking Water
• EPA Launches National Study of Hydraulic Fracturing
• Hydrofracturing for Gas Also Releases Uranium from Shale, Study Says
• Drilling Chemicals Found In Drinking Water Near Natural Gas Sites
• Gas Drilling Companies Hold Data Needed by Researchers to Assess Risk to Water Quality

It takes brute force to wrest natural gas from the earth. Millions of gallons of chemical-laden water mixed with sand — under enough pressure to peel paint from a car — are pumped into the ground, pulverizing a layer of rock that holds billions of small bubbles of gas.

The chemicals transform the fluid into a frictionless mass that works its way deep into the earth, prying open tiny cracks that can extend thousands of feet. The particles of sand or silicon wedge inside those cracks, holding the earth open just enough to allow the gas to slip by.

Gas drilling is often portrayed as the ultimate win-win in an era of hard choices: a new, 100-year supply of cleaner-burning fuel, a risk-free solution to the nation’s dependence on foreign energy. In the next 10 years, the United States will use the fracturing technology to drill hundreds of thousands of new wells astride cities, rivers and watersheds. Cash-strapped state governments are pining for the revenue and the much-needed jobs that drilling is expected to bring to poor, rural areas.

Drilling companies assert that the destructive forces unleashed by the fracturing process, including the sometimes toxic chemicals that keep the liquid flowing, remain safely sealed as much as a mile or more beneath the earth, far below drinking water sources and the rest of the natural environment.

More than a year of investigation by ProPublica, however, shows that the issues are far less settled than the industry contends, and that hidden environmental costs could cut deeply into the anticipated benefits.

The technique used to extract the gas, known as hydraulic fracturing, has not received the same scientific scrutiny as the processes used for many other energy sources.

For example, it remains unclear how far the tiny fissures that radiate through the bedrock from hydraulic fracturing might reach, or whether they can connect underground passageways or open cracks into groundwater aquifers that could allow the chemical solution to escape into drinking water. It is not certain that the chemicals – some, such as benzene, that are known to cause cancer – are adequately contained by either the well structure beneath the earth or by the people, pipelines and trucks that handle it on the surface. And it is unclear how the voluminous waste the process creates can be disposed of safely.

“This is a field where there is almost no research,” said Geoffrey Thyne, a former professor at the Colorado School of Mines and an environmental engineering consultant for local government officials in Colorado. “It is very much an emerging problem.”

The lack of scientific certainty about hydraulic fracturing can be traced in part to the drilling industry’s success in persuading Congress to leave regulation of the process to the states, which often lack manpower and funding to do complex studies of underground geology. As a consequence, regulations vary wildly across the country and many basic questions remain unanswered.

ProPublica has uncovered more than a thousand reports of water contamination from drilling across the country, some from surface spills and some from seepage underground. In many instances the water is contaminated with compounds found in the fluids used in hydraulic fracturing. ProPublica also found dozens of homes in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Colorado in which gas from drilling had migrated through underground cracks into basements or wells.

But most of these problems have been blamed on peripheral problems that could be associated with hydraulic fracturing – like well failures or leaks – without a rigorous investigation of the entire process.

ProPublica has also found that drilling procedures that can prevent water pollution and sharply reduce toxic air emissions – another frequent side effect — are seldom required by state regulators and are mostly practiced when and where the industry wishes.

Another uncertainty arises from the enormous amounts of water needed for “fracking.” The government estimates that companies will drill at least 32,000 new gas wells annually by 2012. That could mean more than 100 billion gallons of hazardous fluids will be used and disposed of each year if existing techniques, which often involve 4 million gallons of water per well, are used.

Proposals for new regulations that might prevent many of these problems almost always lead to a fight. And more often than not, that fight devolves into stark, overdrawn choices between turning on the lights or having clean drinking water; getting rich or staying poor.

Energy lobbyists portray skeptics as hysterical and would-be-regulators as over-reaching. Environmentalists cast the dangers as more proven than is the case, and as unsolvable.

In less contentious settings, even the industry acknowledges the lack of science on key issues.

In a conference call with reporters this spring, American Petroleum Institute senior policy advisor Richard Ranger – an industry expert who has spoken frequently on the fracturing issue — was asked for evidence that fracturing is without environmental risk:

Related posts:

• Controversial Drilling Method Gaining Foothold Across Europe
• Drilling Chemicals Found In Drinking Water Near Natural Gas Sites
• Obama Proposal Would Allow Expanded Offshore Drilling
• Ukraine Eyes New Drilling Method as Key to Energy Independence
• Emissions from Shale Gas Exceed Those from Coal, Study Says

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said his department will no longer be the “handmaiden” of the oil and gas industry and will conduct tougher environmental reviews of proposals to drill on public lands. Criticizing the Bush and administration for turning federal lands into a “candy store” for the petroleum industry, Salazar told reporters, “The difference is in the prior administration the oil and gas industry essentially were the kings of the world.” He said lax leasing policies “ran afoul of communities, carved up the landscape, and fueled costly conflicts that created uncertainty for investors and industry.”

Salazar said he was ordering federal land managers to get out from behind their desks and to visit proposed leasing sites to evaluate the environmental and social impacts of drilling. The stricter review process would not reduce the amount of oil and gas extracted from federal lands, Salazar said, but would ensure that drilling was done in a more responsible manner.

A more through review process will also reduce the number of costly court challenges to leasing decisions, said Salazar, noting that in 2008 roughly 40 percent of federal decisions to permit or deny drilling rights were challenged by one or more parties, compared with only 1 percent in 1998.

Article appearing courtesy of Yale Environment 360

[photo credit: Michelle Meiklejohn]

Related posts:

• No Recycling for Candy Wrappers – Plastic Diet Day 16
• Scientists Back Reduction in Coastal Drilling
• Gifts, Sex and Drugs: Energy Agency to be Split as Result of Oil Spill
• U.S. Commits $50.5 Million to Promote Offshore Wind Industry
• Controversial Offshore Wind Farm Approved

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have recommended dramatically scaling back oil drilling plans off U.S. coasts and have proposed a ban on oil and gas exploration in the Arctic until oil companies significantly improve their ability to prevent and clean up oil spills.

The non-binding recommendations to U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar represent a stark reversal from the pro-drilling policies of the Bush administration; the new administrator of NOAA, Jane Lubchenco, is an oceanographer who has vowed to restore science to federal environmental policy.

The NOAA scientists recommended excluding large tracts of coastline off Alaska, the Atlantic seaboard, the Gulf of Mexico, and California from a proposed 2010 to 2015 drilling plan that had been pushed by the Bush administration.

The scientists said the previous plan understated the risks that oil exploitation posed to marine life and coastlines. In recommending the temporary Arctic drilling ban, the scientists expressed concern about the impact of potential oil spills on commercial and subsistence fisheries in the North Aleutian Basin and Chukchi Sea.

In the video below, NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco talks about how public attitudes toward climate change are shifting. She spoke at the conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists last weekend.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Article appearing courtesy of Yale Environment 360.

[photo credit: Flickr]

Related posts:

• Drilling Chemicals Found In Drinking Water Near Natural Gas Sites
• Oil Spill Adds to Environment Insults on Gulf Coast
• Nuclear Power Debate: 350 Movers, Pragmatic Greens & Fearful Opponents
• What’s the Return on Investment on Solar Thermal?
• Big Support, Potential for Mid-Atlantic Wind Power

For the first time, scientists have discovered chemicals used in a controversial natural gas drilling technique in water wells near the gas sites.

Scientists for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), testing wells near a major gas drilling area in Wyoming, have found traces of drilling chemicals in three wells, and other contaminants — including oil, gas, and heavy metals — in 11 of 39 wells recently tested, according to the Web site Pro Publica.

The chemicals are used in a process called hydraulic fracturing, in which drilling fluids and sand are injected under high pressure to break up rock and release gas.

Using the fracturing technique, abundant gas reserves are being developed in 31 states, although officials in New York have imposed a moratorium on the process — which uses large amounts of water — until its environmental impact can be assessed.

Congress is also considering a bill to regulate the process, but the gas industry has said regulation is unnecessary because it is impossible for fracturing fluids to contaminate underground water supplies. The recent tests, which may refute the industry’s claim, are continuing.

Appearing courtesy of Yale Environment 360.

[photo credit: Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica]

Related posts:

• Obama Proposal Would Allow Expanded Offshore Drilling
• Contaminated Tap Water Calls for Urgent Improvement of Water Systems
• U.S. Company Halts “Fracking” While It Investigates Causes of Blowout
• Controversial Drilling Method Gaining Foothold Across Europe
• EPA Launches National Study of Hydraulic Fracturing

Oil exploration and production technology may hold the key to secure CO2 storage, a report published by the CO2 Capture Project (CCP) today highlights. The report provides a definitive treatment of the CO2 storage subsurface technical issues and how oil and gas experience technology and protocols are available now to address them.

Entitled “A Technical Basis for Carbon Dioxide Storage” it provides guidance on how to assess and manage industrial-scale CO2 Geological Storage (CGS) projects through appropriate site assessment, operational parameters and monitoring. The report covers four main areas: site selection; well construction and integrity; monitoring programs; and development, operations and closure.

Scott Imbus, CCP Storage Team Leader said: “With this report, the oil and gas industry is transferring decades of experience and nine years of technology development to the fledgling industry of CCS. We hope this will provide the critical boost to turn the potential of CCS into a practical reality.”

The report draws on the shared expertise of the CCP participants, including research from more than 50 academic institutions, and feedback from leading environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). CCP members include BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, Petrobras, Shell, StatoilHydro, Suncor. ”

The work spans several phases:

• Phase One of CCP (2000-2004) involved research to identify technologies that have the potential to deliver a significant reduction in the cost of CO2 capture while qualifying and reducing risk associated with CO2 storage. This first phase of research also led to the development of a robust risk- based approach for geological site selection, operation and closure and new CO2 monitoring tools .

• Phase 2 (2004-2009) continued the development of the most promising capture and storage technologies for CCS identified in Phase 1. It focused on the advancement of cost-effective, next-generation capture technologies and on ensuring the framework for the CO2 Geological Storage, monitoring and long-term verification tools and processes. It also confirmed that the major cost and barrier to deployment of CCS continues to be the capture process. Of the three major technologies, only post-combustion de-carbonization is commercially available.

Building on CCP Phase 1 and 2 R&D and the collective experience of the eight member companies, the new report details technologies and protocols applied for decades in oil and gas exploration and production and comprises the basis for efficient and secure CO2 storage now.

The CCP facilitates the sharing of expertise to advance the development of next-generation capture technologies, transport and the development of a certification framework for geological storage.

Appearing courtesy of ENN.

Related posts:

• Carbon Capture Project is Launched at UK Yorkshire Plant
• Proposed Rules Shed Light on Future of CO2 Sequestration
• Report: Carbon Capture Adds 50%+ To Power Cost
• Cleaning Up Coal
• Carbon Storage Projects Expanded in 2010 Despite Economic Challenges

In my continuing effort to launch the CleanTechies community to the forefront of the clean energy debate – and perhaps, in some small part, because I am an insatiable gadfly – I dashed off the following letter to the New York Times yesterday.

It is tough to give much nuance to the argument in less than 200 words, but to me, there are clear connections and contradictions between the the two energy/environment Op-Eds they ran yesterday, one by Gregg Easterbrook, the other by Paul Krugman. The letter follows:

To the Editor:

Given the cataclysmic future that Paul Krugman outlines (Op-Ed, June 29) should our “betrayal” of the climate continue unchecked, I agree with Gregg Easterbrook (Op-Ed, June 29) that it is not “forward-thinking” to oppose even piecemeal progress on carbon reduction.

Yet, as a nation, we have prevented the expansion of nuclear power and the construction of hydroelectric dams. The recently-passed Waxman-Markey legislation keeps those technologies in purgatory. It favors wind, solar, biomass and tidal technologies that remain unprepared for the kind of large-scale, reliable, cost-competitive deployment sufficient to allow retirement of fossil fuel plants. Even looking longingly in the rear view, it is impossible to predict the level of US carbon emissions today if we relied on more hydro and nuclear in place of coal, oil or gas.

The legitimate concerns of abutting communities, local ecosystems, and native wildlife populations cannot be ignored. But, as we stare down double-digit temperature increases worldwide, it begs the question: what will be our priority?

Joe Walsh
Boston, Mass., June 29, 2009

In other words, this renewable energy revolution is about innovation, policy, political will, and investment.

But, it is also about deciding that the local skink population may need to take a backseat. You may have to see a new transmission line out your front door. I may have to hear a wind turbine hum when I’m in the backyard.

As Gatorade might ask: Is it in us?

Related posts:

• More Americans Believe Climate is Warming, Poll Finds
• War Against Climate Change: There Will Be Some Collateral Damage
• National Irresponsibility in Energy Policy — It’s Contagious
• Three Strikes! Why Cap-and-Trade is Dead for 2009
• Politicians Play Ping Pong Over Energy Policy

Is the world warming, cooling or does it matter? Most of us will say it matters, a lot, at least in public anyway. And especially if you are hoping to pay rent or retire one day with a career based around the belief that Amsterdam, New York and Dubai will no longer exist unless we cut greenhouse gases and stop the icecaps from melting. But what has happened now that the earth cooled over the past year? Not to mention former NASA Chief Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson’s claim last year that now that she is “no longer affiliated with any organization nor receive any funding” that she can publicly say that she “remains skeptical.” Recently the name was changed from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’ – what is really going on? Or does it matter?

This blog, by the way, is not about proving or disproving global warming, global cooling, or that the earth’s warming and cooling cycles over the past 6 ice ages really were the fault of mankind. This is about the fact that it does not matter what is happening with temperatures but that reducing both greenhouse gas emissions and energy use and creating renewable energy makes complete sense even without climate change political debates.

Republican, democrat, socialist or communist, the following 3 ideas for cutting greenhouse gases without relevance to climate change are hard to argue, but if you can I welcome you to comment below:

1. Releasing black substances that cause cancer into the air in which we breath is not healthy. As if it weren’t obvious enough, the EPA finds greenhouse gases pose a danger to health. That’s for any skeptics out there that think that ‘the solution to pollution is dilution’ and that puffing on a tailpipe is good for your skin. No reference to climate change here.
2. It costs money to put these black cancerous gases into the atmosphere. It is our extreme use of carbon based fuels, oil and coal, for transportation and electricity that our money is going to instead of being used for health care, education, infrastructure and your dividend payout. Who can argue that energy efficient policy and using energy efficient products, therefore, reduces the amount of these black gases that enter the atmosphere while basically paying you to do it. More legitimate reasons with no reference to climate change.
3. Politically and financially we cannot afford to continue to use finite sources of fossil based fuels, that create greenhouse gases, to power our lives. Some believe it is the left’s fear factors that say the earth is running out of oil to push their agenda. Even if true, definitely not the whole picture by any means. Briefly, China and India’s population and need for energy is skyrocketing while oil discovery is steadily declining (left). Therefore the most simple supply/demand curve from your first economics class will explain what that means for our future cost of energy. Renewable energy that does not create pollution nor depend on other nation’s economies and that does not put gases into the air solves more than one problem without the mention of climate change.

Simple enough? So depending on your argument there is a way to curb climate change for some, put money in the pockets of others and finally if neither of those are your flavor, how about not breathing poisonous gases? By using common sense and not trying to pinpoint who is right and wrong, we can appease the masses in one way or another by decreasing energy use and turning to renewable sources of energy. If you are able to think of it, what is a way to argue climate change that does not touch on the topics of health, immediate financial benefits or protecting us from the future cost of energy?

Related posts:

• Deforestation in Boreal Region Has Net Cooling Effect, Study Says
• New Global Warming Survey is First to Include Tea Party Members
• Younger Americans Disengaged About Climate Change, Survey Says
• Concern About Global Warming Continues to Drop, Poll Shows
• US Chamber of Commerce Wants A Global Warming Trial