553 replies to this topic

[Dustoffer]

Goodbye, everyone! A massive hole has opened at the End of the World

By Eve Andrews
https://www.youtube....h?v=2kMs05VaOfE

"Tuesday, The Siberian Times reported that a massive hole measuring 262 feet in diameter suddenly appeared in the Yamal region of Siberia. Gee, what does Yamal mean in the language of the Nenets, the region’s indigenous people? “The end of the world.”
From The Siberian Times:
Anna Kurchatova from Sub-Arctic Scientific Research Centre thinks the crater was formed by a water, salt and gas mixture igniting an underground explosion, the result of global warming. She postulates that gas accumulated in ice mixed with sand beneath the surface, and that this was mixed with salt – some 10,000 years ago this area was a sea.
Global warming, causing an ‘alarming’ melt in the permafrost, released gas causing an effect like the popping of a Champagne bottle cork, she suggests.
There are a lot of alarming things happening in this excerpt, but let’s focus on the most terrifying: Global warming could be causing enormous chunks of the Earth to pop like champagne bottles.
There’s also the tiny matter that this hole has appeared roughly 20 miles away from the Bovanenkovo gas field, the largest in the Yamal region. The Yamal peninsula itself is a crucial component of Russia’s oil and natural gas production, which makes up approximately half of the national income. Last spring, Russia’s oil and gas giant Gazprom first started fracking on the peninsula.
Now, I’m not a religious gal, but if a giant abyss appears near a fracking site on a massive gas reserve, maybe — MAYBE! Just a suggestion! — it’s a sign that there’s something going on there that is not entirely advisable."
http://grist.org/lis..._campaign=daily

[yoder]

This has been an extremely interesting development, and one that I think will be repeated a few more times over the next few years.  Maybe not the exact same geologic event, but something new and eye-opening.  I've yet to see what the deniers are saying about this, but I'm sure it will be entertaining.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

They showed the newly revised earthquake list (of the states anyway) on the news tonight, and Oklahoma
has become a hot zone.
Fracking.......................
http://www.nbcnews.c...thquake-n159906

[Shortpoet-GTD]

(Not a real quote)
"Transparency? We don't need no stinking transparency!" -halliburton

http://www.dispatch....fter-spill.html

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Those living close to the tar sands operations can expect cancer.
http://www.earthtime...vastating/2647/

[yoder]

Another town being told that they don't have a say in whether or not fracking is done on their land.  Hmm.  This could be an important legal battle.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Lawyers and legal fee's. That's what the oil giants want you to hire and spend $$ on; so they'll win.

[Dustoffer]

Now, I've heard of Dr. Love-----but Dr. Frack?
In Pennsylvania, Dr. Frack will see you now

By Heather Smith   Daniel Foster
"People who live near fracking sites have been complaining for years about headaches, nosebleeds, and birth defects. Now one such population, in Washington County, Penn., is getting some help in the form of free medical consultations — but not from the usual suspects."
http://grist.org/cli..._campaign=daily

[Dustoffer]

Runaround: Three Months of Correspondence With the EPA


EPA's non-responsiveness in the Texas air pollution story is troubling because it keeps taxpayers in the dark about a critical issue.


By Lisa Song and Jim Morris

Jul 24, 2014

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy/Credit: U.S. EPA
353Share1
"For more than a year, InsideClimate News and the Center for Public Integrity have been reporting on air pollution caused by the fracking boom in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas. Despite hundreds of complaints from residents, many of them about noxious air emissions, we discovered that the state knows almost nothing about the extent of the pollution and rarely fines companies for breaking emission laws"
http://insideclimate...respondence-epa
Glad I don't live in Texas, and also glad I don't live in NoDak anymore.  It certainly is not like it was when I was a flight and ground instructor in Minot, late 1971-72.  I was familiar with the Bakken formation, and it was deemed too environmentally damaging to frack.
I guess big money corrupted the people and the state gov't---plus the fed---same-o-same ol'.
How a Sudden Flood of Oil Money Has Transformed North Dakota

The clout and swagger of the oil companies in politics has unsettled this traditionally amicable and moderate state of just 725,000 people.


By Nicholas Kusnetz
" the state's modern history has been rewritten by the energy industry in just four short years. And while few want to argue with the prosperity—the cascading cash, the budget surplus, the new hospital wing, the abundant jobs—the clout and swagger of the oil companies, arguably the most powerful force in modern politics, has unsettled the traditionally amicable and moderate politics of this state of just 725,000 people. Whether through campaign cash, charitable donations or larger contributions to the economy, the industry has gained a level of influence that's hard to overstate. Each significant attempt to tighten regulatory oversight or restrict some of the industry's more wasteful practices in the last legislative session either failed or passed only after being stripped of its core. Any talk about clamping down on the pace of drilling has been quickly snuffed out."
http://insideclimate...ed-north-dakota
I think any emissions reductions have been snuffed out by this leaky oil and gas mining.  They are blinded by the dollar signs in their eyes.

Even Great Britain is not immune to this insanity;
Half of Britain to be opened up to fracking

The Department for Energy and Climate Change is expected to launch the "14th onshore licensing round", inviting companies to bid for fracking rights in previously untouched areas of the UK

http://www.telegraph...o-fracking.html

[Besoeker]

Dustoffer, on 18 July 2014 - 10:33 AM, said:

Goodbye, everyone! A massive hole has opened at the End of the World

By Eve Andrews
https://www.youtube....h?v=2kMs05VaOfE

"Tuesday, The Siberian Times reported that a massive hole measuring 262 feet in diameter suddenly appeared in the Yamal region of Siberia. Gee, what does Yamal mean in the language of the Nenets, the region’s indigenous people? “The end of the world.”
From The Siberian Times:
Anna Kurchatova from Sub-Arctic Scientific Research Centre thinks the crater was formed by a water, salt and gas mixture igniting an underground explosion, the result of global warming. She postulates that gas accumulated in ice mixed with sand beneath the surface, and that this was mixed with salt – some 10,000 years ago this area was a sea.
Global warming, causing an ‘alarming’ melt in the permafrost, released gas causing an effect like the popping of a Champagne bottle cork, she suggests.
There are a lot of alarming things happening in this excerpt, but let’s focus on the most terrifying: Global warming could be causing enormous chunks of the Earth to pop like champagne bottles.
There’s also the tiny matter that this hole has appeared roughly 20 miles away from the Bovanenkovo gas field, the largest in the Yamal region. The Yamal peninsula itself is a crucial component of Russia’s oil and natural gas production, which makes up approximately half of the national income. Last spring, Russia’s oil and gas giant Gazprom first started fracking on the peninsula.
Now, I’m not a religious gal, but if a giant abyss appears near a fracking site on a massive gas reserve, maybe — MAYBE! Just a suggestion! — it’s a sign that there’s something going on there that is not entirely advisable."
http://grist.org/lis..._campaign=daily

Or maybe unrelated.
Permafrost melting, methane being released, not good. and land sinking as a consequence.
Or, as we have seen here in UK, underground erosion by exceptional rain causing sink holes.

Maybe.

[yoder]

Dustoffer, on 27 July 2014 - 08:14 AM, said:

"For more than a year, InsideClimate News and the Center for Public Integrity have been reporting on air pollution caused by the fracking boom in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas. Despite hundreds of complaints from residents, many of them about noxious air emissions, we discovered that the state knows almost nothing about the extent of the pollution and rarely fines companies for breaking emission laws"
http://insideclimate...respondence-epa

The EPA has been attacked for decades and has become just an empty shell that is unable to do any real good unless given permission by the oil and coal industries.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Quote from the movie Promised Land (a flick on fracking)-
"I'm here because my farm is gone.
The land just turned brown and it died. It's happened to one of us. It can happen to all of us."

And-
"We have nothing left to sell and we can't afford to buy anything.
You came here to help us; offer us money...
All we had to do to get it was be willing to scorch the Earth under our feet."

I can't find the exact quote but paraphrasing
Matt Damon's character says- you can always move. Hal Holbrook's character says-where?

[Shortpoet-GTD]

From Mother Jones-Environment section via The Climate Desk-
(Also in link; map of the 1400+ uninspected wells.)

"In fact, of all 3,486 oil and gas wells drilled on federal and Native American land from 2009 to 2012
that were identified by the Bureau of Land Management as high risk for pollution,
40 percent were not inspected at the most important stage of their development,
according to records the BLM provided to Climate Desk."
http://www.motherjon...l-gas-wells-map

[yoder]

Someone is doing the EPA's job for them.
http://wellwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

"Currently, WellWiki.org contains data on over 250,000 oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania. By the end of summer, we expect to cover over 600,000 oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. Eventually, we plan to provide data on all oil and gas well ever drilled in North America – an estimated 4 million wells since the Drake well in 1859."

[yoder]

And Canada's Coastal First Nations appear to be successfully fighting back against the oil pipelines through their territory.

[still learning]

yoder, on 30 July 2014 - 08:11 AM, said:

Someone is doing the EPA's job for them.
http://wellwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

"Currently, WellWiki.org contains data on over 250,000 oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania. By the end of summer, we expect to cover over 600,000 oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. Eventually, we plan to provide data on all oil and gas well ever drilled in North America – an estimated 4 million wells since the Drake well in 1859."

   I tried the wellwiki site, couldn't get beyond the first page.  Nothing "clickable."   Regarding the EPA, the US EPA anyway, is it part of their job to keep track of all oil and gas wells?  Maybe it should be, but is it?

[yoder]

It's not written into their charter, and there is the Bureau of Land Management that is (on paper) responsible for these inspections, but the EPA's job is pretty darn clear.  Protect the environment (period).  The BLM is a small part of the Dept. of the Interior and is pathetically underfunded itself, where the EPA is a standalone agency with it's own funding and it's mission written directly into its name.

So in short, no you are right it's not their job to keep track of all oil and gas wells.  It's their duty and responsibility.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Denton, a small Texas town outside of Dallas is considering banning fracking.
http://america.aljaz...anfracking.html

[Dustoffer]

Colorado, full of healthy people wanting natural beauty---yet;
Colorado's Frack-Free Movement Sacrificed for Democrats Facing Re-election


Political compromise delivers a sudden slap in the face for green groups behind two ballot initiatives, now derailed.

By Zahra Hirji, InsideClimate News

Aug 8, 2014

"Shane Davis, a well-known fracking opponent in Colorado known by many as "the Fractivist," says "we were all betrayed" when Gov. John Hickenlooper made a deal with Rep. Jared Polis to drop two anti-fracking ballot initiatives the congressman was supporting. Credit: Steve Harbula
54Share0
Backed by a wall of suited supporters, Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper proudly announced Monday that it was game-over for two popular anti-fracking state ballot initiatives.
Among the supporters was Pete Maysmith, executive director of the green group Conservation Colorado. But notably absent from the Denver press conference, however, was the rest of the green scene—members of the state's dozens of environmental grassroots groups. Many had helped collect far more than the 86,105 signatures required to get the two fracking measures on the ballot by the Aug. 4 deadline. On Monday, they waited in their homes and offices to hear the good news—that the signatures numbering more than 250,000 combined–had officially been submitted.
Instead, they heard that their long fight was suddenly over.
For many, it was a slap in the face. "There is fury," said Kaye Fissinger, an anti-fracking activist from Longmont, a Boulder suburb that approved a fracking ban and was sued by the industry and the state. Many people "see it as a betrayal," she said."
http://insideclimate...ing-re-election
Then you have a new pipeline wanted for the frackers in NoDak through my old state;
Bakken Oil Pipeline Would Bisect Minnesota, Cross 144 Waterways


Enbridge says it consulted with regulatory agencies and communities for a year and a half to select the best route, which faces intense public opposition.

By David Hasemyer, InsideClimate News

Aug 6, 2014

Graphic credit: Paul Horn/InsideClimate News
79Share5
"Retired first grade teacher Beth Baker-Knuttila has so much she wants to tell the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission about why adding an oil pipeline near her beloved Portage Lake isn't a good idea.
On Thursday she'll have just three minutes to try to convince the PUC to reject a proposed Enbridge, Inc. pipeline that would cut across 144 lakes, streams and rivers, and skirt the shores of the Park Rapids lake that has been her home for 35 years.
The 616–mile Sandpiper pipeline is one of the first major pipelines designed to carry crude oil out of the booming Bakken Shale region of North Dakota.
It will begin in the northwest corner of North Dakota and cross into Minnesota then pass 299 miles through the heart of the state to Superior, Wisc. Once running, it could carry nearly 10 million gallons of crude oil a day—an estimated 20 percent of the oil produced in the Bakken—to refineries in the Midwest and East and Canada."
http://insideclimate...s-144-waterways
The entire route is through wild game and bird habitat, hundreds of recreational lakes, freeze/thaw ground movement, and numerous community water supplies.   It is bad enough Minnesota has become what it wasn't when I grew up, an overpopulated multi-cultural hell.

[yoder]

Overpopulated multi-cultural hell?  I sure hope you don't live here anymore because we certainly don't need that kind of thinking here.

The proposal for the Enbridge pipeline through Minnesota is pathetic.  A half-arsed slapped together plan that looks for all the world like an 8th grader did it for a class project.