Tweet

Despite the evidence of significant potential risks presented in a recent report by the Tyndall Centre, the British government says it will forge ahead with plans for shale gas development in the UK. The Tyndall Centre’s study, “Shale gas: a provisional assessment of climate change and environmental impacts” [PDF], urged the UK to place a moratorium on shale gas in light of serious risks associated with shale gas development, including the contamination of ground and surface waters, the expected net increase of CO2 emissions, and substantial monetary costs which could delay major investments in clean energy technologies.

Shale gas extraction involves drilling into shale formations followed by a rock fracturing process which uses heavily polluting chemicals. Especially in the US with the introduction of drilling “refinements” known as hydrofracturing or “fracking,” shale gas extraction has become highly divisive, and ever more popular among natural gas producers (making up nearly 10% of production by some estimates). The significant water contamination and public health risks associated with shale gas are well documented in last year’s “Gasland” film.

Paul Monaghan, the Co-operative’s head of sustainability describes shale gas as “like tar sands in your backyard, both in terms of local pollution and in terms of carbon emissions.”

Tweet

Sea level rise. It’s been the subject of myth, legend and pop culture for millenia. It is going to be one of the major destructive effects of global climate change. So naturally, its something that makes deniers do and say crazy things.

Here’s the updated, remixed video on a misunderstood topic.

Tweet

One of the enduring myths of climate denialism is that global warming stopped sometime in the last decade. I see it in the blaring headlines of pseudoscience websites, in comments on my videos, even some of our most “distinguished” journalists have been taken in.

Tweet

Sea level rise will be one of the most important and destructive effects of climate change, so naturally, Deniers have something grossly in error to say about it.

We’ll look, as always, at the source documents.

Tweet

It’s no surprise that Sen. James Inhofe’s (R-OK) take on the recent EPA decision (that carbon dioxide is a danger to public health and must be regulated) is negative.

Inhofe, ranking minority member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, doesn’t believe in anthropogenic global warming, and has called the EPA’s stance the beginning of a regulatory climate which will destroy American jobs, raise consumer energy prices, and make it impossible for the U.S. to complete in a global economy.

Inhofe’s position, that Congress should pass legislation to stop the EPA ruling in its tracks, is typical of global warming deniers, who prefer bombast, manufactured evidence and creating hysteria to actual fact. All have, at one time or other, parroted their misinformed “proof” that Obama’s green economy plan will cost every American family $3,128 per year in rising energy costs.