Laurel Whitney's blog

Thu, 2012-06-07 09:54Laurel Whitney
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States Continue To Push For Anti-Climate and Anti-Evolution Curriculum Laws

It looks like Tennessee can add another dumb law to join the ranks of other special ones such as being able to shoot whales out of a car, marrying your cousin, and not being allowed to carry skunks into the state or electrifying your trash. It now joins Louisiana in being one of the only two states to have anti-evolution and anti-climate laws in effect.

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) recently posted their yearly anti-science legislation scorecard. It tallies up all the bills that states tried to pass over the past year attempting to interpose more "objectivity" into science curriculum.

Normally objectivity in science isn't a bad thing, in fact it's quite necessary and essential. However, these state legislatures' brand of objectivity means questioning well-proven theories like evolution and climate change, which are supported by mounds of evidence and have earned consensus among (legitimate) scientists.

Recall that a "theory" in science has a different connotation than when everyday people use it. A scientific theory has been rigorously tested and reviewed by multiple experts by the time it's assigned that label.

Read more: States Continue To Push For Anti-Climate and Anti-Evolution Curriculum Laws
Fri, 2012-06-01 21:00Laurel Whitney
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400 PPM Carbon Dioxide Concentrations Breach The Arctic

There's a saying that trouble comes in threes. Earlier this week, the International Energy Administration announced that emissions reached a record high last year, increasing by 1 Gt worldwide. At the Bonn climate talks, experts have warned that the window to curb a global temperature rise of more than 2 degrees is swiftly drawing to a close.

To cap it off, NOAA released the news that carbon dioxide levels have reached a new milestone this spring, tipping the scales over 400 ppm, a concentration the world hasn't seen in the last 800,000 years.

Scientists are seeing these high concentrations at their northernmost stations in the Arctic. Remote sites measure the gas in Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Finland, Norway, and also an island in the North Pacific, Mauna Loa, which has been recording ambient CO2 concentrations since 1959 (and produced the now-famous Keeling curve).

The global average is still around 395 ppm, but the Arctic is seen as an important indicator for global conditions to come, since it is an ecosystem that is much more sensitive to changing conditions.

“The northern sites in our monitoring network tell us what is coming soon to the globe as a whole,” said Pieter Tans, an atmospheric scientist with NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) in Boulder, Colo. “We will likely see global average CO2 concentrations reach 400 ppm about 2016.”

Read more: 400 PPM Carbon Dioxide Concentrations Breach The Arctic
Fri, 2012-06-01 04:43Laurel Whitney
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Chesapeake Energy And Other Fracking Companies Squatting On New York Citizens' Land

New York landowners are having a hard time evicting an unwanted tenant, it seems. That's why over 200 people residing in the Marcellus Shale are suing energy companies such as Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Inflection Energy, arguing that the land leases they originally signed with the companies over 5 years ago are now expired.

Originally, land owners signed on with companies like Chesapeake thinking it was a way to earn much needed revenue from their lands. However, citing New York's moratorium and descending gas prices alongside emerging environmental and health complications, many want out. With many of the contracts past their end dates, you would think that wouldn't be such a huge problem.

Except with thousands of acres of land at stake, the oil and gas companies aren't releasing or renegotiating any new leases any time soon, invoking the act of God and natural disaster clauses of the leases.

In legal speak, it's called "force majeure." It allows the terms of a lease to continue based on unforeseen circumstances. Usually this counts for natural disasters or "acts of God", but in this case, the companies are arguing that the moratorium on fracking in New York state should fall under this clause and allow them to retain the land.

Read more: Chesapeake Energy And Other Fracking Companies Squatting On New York Citizens' Land
Mon, 2012-05-28 11:53Laurel Whitney
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Toothpaste More Dangerous Than Fracking, "Expert" Says

It's okay, people. We've been blowing this whole fracking thing way out of proportion. Dr. Barry Stevens of TBD America sets the record straight in hopes that we'll re-align our focus and concentrate on the real issues at hand, which, by the way, is not fracking (Spoiler Alert: it's toothpaste).

Over at OilPrice.com, Dr. Stevens has provided an exhaustive retort to some "environmentalist" who posed the question, “if hydraulic fracturing is so safe, why do drilling operators working in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale Play dispose the backflow out of state in Ohio?”

Let me summarize some of Dr. Steven's salient points for you:

Earthquakes really aren't that big a deal.

"…injection well seismicity typically ranges from 1 to 4 on the Richter scale and rarely cause damage."

Sure, Youngstown, Ohio, where the earthquakes happened, may have never had them before, but that doesn't mean anything. The State Representative there is just going way overboard in calling for an indefinite moratorium there. The citizens should really be thinking of it as a free city-wide massage. Besides, the D&L Energy said it will be conducting its own investigation. I’m sure they’ll find it’s nothing to worry about.

Read more: Toothpaste More Dangerous Than Fracking, "Expert" Says
Thu, 2012-05-24 11:08Laurel Whitney
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NRDC Report Predicts 150,000 Heat-Related Deaths Due To Climate Change

Chances are, if you're already concerned about being off'ed by climate change, it's probably because you imagine being swept away by a super-charged hurricane, drowned by rising sea levels, starved because of drought-induced crop failure, or set aflame by roaring wildfires. But as it turns out, your risk of perishing by the titans of extreme weather may be a ways off - because the heat may get to you first.

If you didn't already know, heat is actually the number one killer amongst its weather-related brethren, causing more fatalities than floods, lightning, tornadoes, and hurricanes combined, according to NOAA.

A new report released this week by the NRDC, "Killer Summer Heat: Projected Death Toll from Rising Temperatures in America Due to Climate Change" [PDF], estimates that 150,000 people could die because of heat-related deaths, with numbers increasing over the century as climate change continues to crank up the temperatures. And, predictably so, communities' ability to cope with the ordeal will depend on our efforts to reduce carbon pollution and employ life-saving adaptive measures.

Read more: NRDC Report Predicts 150,000 Heat-Related Deaths Due To Climate Change
Sat, 2012-04-07 11:57Laurel Whitney
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Spruce Mine Mountaintop Removal Coal Permit Restored

In late March, a federal court ruled to open the Spruce No. 1 mine in Logan County, WV, to mountaintop removal coal mining. The EPA had originally vetoed the permit back in January of 2011, explaining that the destructive practices of mountaintop removal would endanger communities' health and access to clean water.

The permit authorizes the largest single mountaintop removal site in West Virginia's history.

Federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the EPA overreached when it tried to revoke the permit using the laws of the Clean Water Act. Berman declared,

“It posits a scenario involving the automatic self-destruction of a written permit issued by an entirely separate federal agency after years of study and consideration. Not only is this nonrevocation-revocation logistically complicated, but the possibility that it could happen would leave permittees in the untenable position of being unable to rely upon the sole statutory touchstone for measuring their Clean Water Act compliance: the permit."

Read more: Spruce Mine Mountaintop Removal Coal Permit Restored

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