For the Gas and Oil Guys, Might Enjoy This Article on How the EPA is Fudging Numbers

[LiveLaughLove]

I can't honestly say I understand it all, so maybe some of you can clarify, but interesting none the less.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/06/10/Blogger-Busts-EPA-Fake-Fuel-Figures

I love the EPA, not related to this article, but they are responsible for more deaths worldwide than all of our wars combined. See the outlawing of pesticides that kept mosquito and other disease carrying bug levels down.

Now they are making the car industry make less safe vehicles, so more people will die in traffic accidents that wouldn't have in heavier safer vehicles all for the sake of, well, nothing in reality.

[yermom]

not to mention the extra nasty processing involved in making batteries

[pphilfran]

If you are going to include transmission loss and power plant efficiency to calculate mileage on an electric.....then you should use refinery efficiency and trucking costs to calculate gas mileage...

[cleller]

I'm all for electric cars, if we weren't in the middle of a dangerously shaky worldwide economic scare I might even think it would be wise for the government to nudge things that way.
Right now we just can't afford it. At least not while we are buying wardrobes for job seekers in Detroit, etc.

[Turd_Ferguson]

I'm all for electric cars, if we weren't in the middle of a dangerously shaky worldwide economic scare I might even think it would be wise for the government to nudge things that way.
Right now we just can't afford it. At least not while we are buying wardrobes for job seekers in Detroit, etc.Big Rock Candy Mountain.

[okie52]

If you are going to include transmission loss and power plant efficiency to calculate mileage on an electric.....then you should use refinery efficiency and trucking costs to calculate gas mileage...

I wish they would do that as it would further enhance the value of NG.

[diverdog]

I can't honestly say I understand it all, so maybe some of you can clarify, but interesting none the less.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/06/10/Blogger-Busts-EPA-Fake-Fuel-Figures

I love the EPA, not related to this article, but they are responsible for more deaths worldwide than all of our wars combined. See the outlawing of pesticides that kept mosquito and other disease carrying bug levels down.

Now they are making the car industry make less safe vehicles, so more people will die in traffic accidents that wouldn't have in heavier safer vehicles all for the sake of, well, nothing in reality.

Well there is mixed issues with some pesticides and some of them are awfully dangerous.

It would be really nice if that article had a modicum of balance. Do you care to talk about how the EPA has reduced air and water pollution? Maybe you weren't around when rivers caught on fire or you could not see the sky because of the air pollution. And DDT is still in use today but not sprayed on every damn thing in sight. I am not going to say the EPA is perfect...far from it. But they have done a good job making things better on the whole.

Oh and the whole mantra that cars are being made less safe is complete BS. That dog has been around a long time and it simply won't hunt.


From 1979 to 2005, the number of deaths per year decreased 14.97% while the number of deaths per capita decreased by 35.46%. Traffic fatalities in 2010 were the lowest in 62 years.

[LiveLaughLove]

Well there is mixed issues with some pesticides and some of them are awfully dangerous.

And some of them have saved millions of lives.


It would be really nice if that article had a modicum of balance. Do you care to talk about how the EPA has reduced air and water pollution? Maybe you weren't around when rivers caught on fire or you could not see the sky because of the air pollution.

I was around, and I was around the last time you brought these same examples up on here. For arguments sake, let's say they did a great job on those items and were needed (I would dispute that as fact, but not here and now). At what cost to our freedoms does this agency exist today? Snail darters? Really? Farms are dying in California because of the heavy hand of the EPA. Ranchers are told how they must manage their own freaking land if some endangered mole or moss is found on their land (and they have drones spying on their land). The EPA uses "regulations" to enforce Democrat law that can't get passed through Congress.

The EPA is an unaccountable tyrannic arm of government that should not exist. Their overreach is staggering in it's breadth, and saddening in the lack of people being up in arms about them.


I am not going to say the EPA is perfect...far from it. But they have done a good job making things better on the whole.

Not perfect? They are as far from perfect as east is from west. On the whole, they suck and as I said before are responsible for more deaths than all of our wars combined. If you call that a good job, then I guess they are good at that for sure.


Oh and the whole mantra that cars are being made less safe is complete BS. That dog has been around a long time and it simply won't hunt.

It's a simple fact that to make cars get better fuel economy they will have to be made lighter and smaller. Smaller is lower to the ground for center of gravity. Lower to the ground and lighter in frame equals more deadly. I've seen these new hybrids up next to a semi. If the semi hits it, there is no way you survive it. Cars surely have been safer in recent years because of many many innovations. But the cars that will have to meet Obama's mandates will not be safer compared to the ones in the last few years. No way, no how. But hey, if you feel safe in 'em, have at it. I'll stick to my Expedition.

[Midtowner]

I was around, and I was around the last time you brought these same examples up on here. For arguments sake, let's say they did a great job on those items and were needed (I would dispute that as fact, but not here and now).

Before the EPA, we literally had burning rivers because of manufacturers using their "freedom" to dump toxic and flammable waste into said rivers.


At what cost to our freedoms does this agency exist today? Snail darters? Really? Farms are dying in California because of the heavy hand of the EPA. Ranchers are told how they must manage their own freaking land if some endangered mole or moss is found on their land (and they have drones spying on their land). The EPA uses "regulations" to enforce Democrat law that can't get passed through Congress.

Really? You're bringing the Endangered Species Act? So you'd say it's more important for ONE farmer or rancher to operate than for an entire species to exist? We're talking about an immeasurable impact in the food supply versus the extinction of a species. Are there a few cases where folks didn't like it being implemented against them? You bet. But the effect on the overall economy is negligible. The voters and Congress have decided that protecting endangered species is more important than some farmer or rancher getting to do whatever he wants on his land.


The EPA is an unaccountable tyrannic arm of government that should not exist. Their overreach is staggering in it's breadth, and saddening in the lack of people being up in arms about them.

This is just a dumb thing to say considering the vast amount of good the EPA has accomplished. We need an administrative agency to handle environmental regulation because Congress, the bought and paid for group that it is, cannot be trusted to regulate the businesses which legally bribe them. Also, the EPA and other agencies do let industry have quite a bit of input, but at the end of the day, the mission is to protect regular Americans from the significant harm polluters can do to us. There's also the benefit of stability with the EPA. Put these decisions directly in Congress' hands and things change every few years. At least with the EPA, industry can plan for the long term.


It's a simple fact that to make cars get better fuel economy they will have to be made lighter and smaller. Smaller is lower to the ground for center of gravity. Lower to the ground and lighter in frame equals more deadly. I've seen these new hybrids up next to a semi. If the semi hits it, there is no way you survive it. Cars surely have been safer in recent years because of many many innovations. But the cars that will have to meet Obama's mandates will not be safer compared to the ones in the last few years. No way, no how. But hey, if you feel safe in 'em, have at it. I'll stick to my Expedition.

Expeditions are safe, but interestingly, the most dangerous vehicle to be a passenger in is a small pickup (104 deaths per million). Small cars are pretty bad still, fortunately, there's a significant litigation regarding that issue, so perhaps car makers will be motivated to address these mortality issues.

[pphilfran]

First, I don't think there are many cars, light or heavy, electric or not, that would fair well when dealing with a semi...

Second, the consumer is driving the move to smaller vehicles...a non electric Camry was the number 2 seller in May...the non electric Civic was number 4...

[TheHumanAlphabet]

I wish they would do that as it would further enhance the value of NG.

What I don't understand is why the gubment is excluding NG (and LNG and CNG) from the "alternative fuels" debate. I know the reason, its not alternative enough and "Big Oil" has its hand in it, but NG can really be a game changer in this country and we should be running and screaming to get more and more NG infrastructure out there. It is the true bridge fuel until the pie in the sky alternatives can be brought on...

[TheHumanAlphabet]

First, I don't think there are many cars, light or heavy, electric or not, that would fair well when dealing with a semi...

Second, the consumer is driving the move to smaller vehicles...a non electric Camry was the number 2 seller in May...the non electric Civic was number 4...

Consumers are a poor judge of where the future is going. These are more a knee jerk purchase of vehicles either because people fear the government meltdown or the instability of the price of gasoline. As soon as either seem to be more stable, the bigger cars will be purchased - always has...

[okie52]

What I don't understand is why the gubment is excluding NG (and LNG and CNG) from the "alternative fuels" debate. I know the reason, its not alternative enough and "Big Oil" has its hand in it, but NG can really be a game changer in this country and we should be running and screaming to get more and more NG infrastructure out there. It is the true bridge fuel until the pie in the sky alternatives can be brought on...

Obama has acted in this election year like he is on the NG bandwagon yet he has done very little to advance its cause. In 2009 the house passed a cap and trade bill that would have punished NG while rewarding ethanol....a bill fully supported by Obama. If reduction of CO2 was Obama's real aim then NG would have seen the quickest reduction that was plausible. Instead the bill illustrated Obama's desire to push green energy when it not only wasn't feasible but couldn't approach the impact of NG in the next decade for the reduction of CO2 and, of course, there was that little thing about energy independence that seemed to have slipped Obama's mind.

[TitoMorelli]

Speaking of the EPA, not sure what to make of this:

EPA power grab to regulate ditches, gullies on private property

By: Audrey Hudson
6/11/2012 08:05 AM
867

Lawmakers are working to block an unprecedented power grab by the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Water Act (CWA) and control land alongside ditches, gullies and other ephemeral spots by claiming the sources are part of navigable waterways.

These temporary water sources are often created by rain or snowmelt, and would make it harder for private property owners to build in their own backyards, grow crops, raise livestock and conduct other activities on their own land, lawmakers say....(more)

http://www.humanevents.com/2012/06/11/epa-power-grab-to-regulate-ditches-gullies-on-private-property/

[LiveLaughLove]

Before the EPA, we literally had burning rivers because of manufacturers using their "freedom" to dump toxic and flammable waste into said rivers.

Yet again, I was quite alive during that. You are blowing it waaayyy out of proportion and it's something that the local municipalities could have and should have dealt with. It does not require a tyrannical bureaucracy. It requires the people to say to their local officials enough is enough and we will vote you out if you don't stop it. I trust the people, I don't trust the EPA and the almost limitless power it has.




Really? You're bringing the Endangered Species Act? So you'd say it's more important for ONE farmer or rancher to operate than for an entire species to exist? We're talking about an immeasurable impact in the food supply versus the extinction of a species. Are there a few cases where folks didn't like it being implemented against them? You bet. But the effect on the overall economy is negligible. The voters and Congress have decided that protecting endangered species is more important than some farmer or rancher getting to do whatever he wants on his land.

Uh, yeah. It's very smuggly easy for you to say the farmer or rancher is less important when it's not your farm or ranch. Species go extinct every single day and have since the Earth began. It's not the federal government's job to stop that process. Do I miss carrier pidgeons? Nah, not really. If some had been saved in zoo's that'd be cool, but no big loss that they weren't. I don't give a crap about some minnow either. Just as our planet is tougher than Gore et al gives it credit, so are our eco-systems.

And btw, it's not ONE farmer or rancher that the EPA effects and you know it. It is huge swaths of them such as in the valley in California. It's hundreds of families. Tombstone, AZ (the whole town) is being shut down because the EPA won't allow them to fix their water lines because of some bogus BS reason.

Am I surprised that you would choose the collective over the freedom and rights of the individual. Not at all. Now I know why Obama is your boy.


This is just a dumb thing to say considering the vast amount of good the EPA has accomplished. We need an administrative agency to handle environmental regulation because Congress, the bought and paid for group that it is, cannot be trusted to regulate the businesses which legally bribe them. Also, the EPA and other agencies do let industry have quite a bit of input, but at the end of the day, the mission is to protect regular Americans from the significant harm polluters can do to us. There's also the benefit of stability with the EPA. Put these decisions directly in Congress' hands and things change every few years. At least with the EPA, industry can plan for the long term.

This is just a dumb thing to say considering the powers given in the Constitution prescribes no such entity to exist and certainly to not have the power it has. Our framers trusted the people, not governmental bureaucracy. The Congress represents us and it should be the start and finish of such things.

Communist China is stable. Doesn't mean it's good.




Expeditions are safe, but interestingly, the most dangerous vehicle to be a passenger in is a small pickup (104 deaths per million). Small cars are pretty bad still, fortunately, there's a significant litigation regarding that issue, so perhaps car makers will be motivated to address these mortality issues.

Something has to give, safety or fuel mileage. Can't have both max'ed out. Obama and the EPA have set extreme fuel efficiency requirements. Safety will fall to the benefit of the environment. Long live Gaea! Humans should be willing to die for the greater good. As long as it's not you or your family, right? <wink wink>

[LiveLaughLove]

Speaking of the EPA, not sure what to make of this:

EPA power grab to regulate ditches, gullies on private property

By: Audrey Hudson
6/11/2012 08:05 AM
867

Lawmakers are working to block an unprecedented power grab by the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Water Act (CWA) and control land alongside ditches, gullies and other ephemeral spots by claiming the sources are part of navigable waterways.

These temporary water sources are often created by rain or snowmelt, and would make it harder for private property owners to build in their own backyards, grow crops, raise livestock and conduct other activities on their own land, lawmakers say....(more)

http://www.humanevents.com/2012/06/11/epa-power-grab-to-regulate-ditches-gullies-on-private-property/

Well, of course! How have we survived for this 200+ years without the ditches belonging to the government?

Look, the truth is the EPA is a left wing cudgel used to enact laws that could never pass otherwise, and power grab in ways that the people would never stand for from it's politicians.

When a right wing President is in office, they are left wing. When a left wing President is in office, they are extremely left wing.

I hope the jump the shark soon, so the people will wake up and not take it any more from this non elected entity that has as much power as any elected official has. It's absurd.

[Mississippi Sooner]

If my bar ditch is a navigable waterway, then I'm gonna turn my driveway into a toll bridge.

[Midtowner]

Yet again, I was quite alive during that. You are blowing it waaayyy out of proportion and it's something that the local municipalities could have and should have dealt with. It does not require a tyrannical bureaucracy. It requires the people to say to their local officials enough is enough and we will vote you out if you don't stop it. I trust the people, I don't trust the EPA and the almost limitless power it has.

Not really blowing it out of proportion at all. We've had to shut down entire towns because of those past environmental practices (Picher, OK). Smog and acid rain are way down because of clean air laws. Our children have a lower rate of asthma suffering as compared to other countries without clean air laws, etc. I'll put children over profits any day. Also, regulation creates jobs in the regulatory compliance industry. My sister-in-law is actually a regulatory compliance person at one of the big O&G companies in OKC. Thanks to the EPA, she has a job.


Uh, yeah. It's very smuggly easy for you to say the farmer or rancher is less important when it's not your farm or ranch. Species go extinct every single day and have since the Earth began. It's not the federal government's job to stop that process. Do I miss carrier pidgeons? Nah, not really. If some had been saved in zoo's that'd be cool, but no big loss that they weren't. I don't give a crap about some minnow either. Just as our planet is tougher than Gore et al gives it credit, so are our eco-systems.

Our scientists think otherwise. They as a collective seem to think that we're headed for a pretty serious calamity if we don't get a handle on our resource consumption issues. I'll take their word over that of the Koch brothers. And yes, it is the government's job. Congress passed the Endangered Species Act back in 1973. It was signed by Richard Nixon, a conservative. With the money in politics issue, the destruction of the environment in the name of profit has become the Republican mantra since then. Sad, really. You used to be the good guys in the environmental debates.

I mean, look at this list:

Bald Eagle (increased from 417 to 11,040 pairs between 1963 and 2007); removed from list 2007
Whooping Crane (increased from 54 to 436 birds between 1967 and 2003)
Kirtland's Warbler (increased from 210 to 1,415 pairs between 1971 and 2005)
Peregrine Falcon (increased from 324 to 1,700 pairs between 1975 and 2000); removed from list
Gray Wolf (populations increased dramatically in the Northern Rockies, Southwest, and Great Lakes)
Gray Whale (increased from 13,095 to 26,635 whales between 1968 and 1998); removed from list (Debated because whaling was banned before the ESA was set in place and that the ESA had nothing to do with the natural population increase since the cease of massive whaling [excluding Native American tribal whaling])
Grizzly bear (increased from about 271 to over 580 bears in the Yellowstone area between 1975 and 2005); removed from list 3/22/07
California’s Southern Sea Otter (increased from 1,789 in 1976 to 2,735 in 2005)
San Clemente Indian Paintbrush (increased from 500 plants in 1979 to more than 3,500 in 1997)
Red Wolf (increased from 17 in 1980 to 257 in 2003)
Florida's Key Deer (increased from 200 in 1971 to 750 in 2001)
Big Bend Gambusia (increased from a couple dozen to a population of over 50,000)
Hawaiian Goose (increased from 400 birds in 1980 to 1,275 in 2003)
Virginia Big-Eared Bat (increased from 3,500 in 1979 to 18,442 in 2004)
Black-Footed Ferret (increased from 18 in 1986 to 600 in 2006)

Without the ESA, we wouldn't have our own national bird today.


And btw, it's not ONE farmer or rancher that the EPA effects and you know it. It is huge swaths of them such as in the valley in California. It's hundreds of families. Tombstone, AZ (the whole town) is being shut down because the EPA won't allow them to fix their water lines because of some bogus BS reason.

http://www.fronterasdesk.org/news/2012/mar/30/tombstones-water-struggle/#.T9d2XtxYuKt

Basically, Tombstone is butthurt because they are required to follow the same law everyone else has to. Boohoo. And it sounds like the Forest Service is making some reasonable accommodations to the repairs, but there is some question as to whether the the city is even supposed to be receiving water from that source. Water laws in western states are very complicated because water in those states is scarce. This is not some grave injustice, but making sure that the interests of Tombstone are balanced with all of the other competing issues including other towns or end-users who may have superior rights to that water.


Am I surprised that you would choose the collective over the freedom and rights of the individual. Not at all. Now I know why Obama is your boy.

I'm supporting a law which President Nixon stated didn't go far enough.


This is just a dumb thing to say considering the powers given in the Constitution prescribes no such entity to exist and certainly to not have the power it has. Our framers trusted the people, not governmental bureaucracy. The Congress represents us and it should be the start and finish of such things.

Oh, you're a lawyer now? Let's just say that numerous judges over the years have disagreed with you on that.


Something has to give, safety or fuel mileage. Can't have both max'ed out. Obama and the EPA have set extreme fuel efficiency requirements. Safety will fall to the benefit of the environment. Long live Gaea! Humans should be willing to die for the greater good. As long as it's not you or your family, right? <wink wink>

Maybe if everyone had to drive smaller cars?

With $10.00/gallon gasoline, big cars might become a moot point.

[Tulsa_Fireman]

This is just a dumb thing to say considering the powers given in the Constitution prescribes no such entity to exist and certainly to not have the power it has. Our framers trusted the people, not governmental bureaucracy. The Congress represents us and it should be the start and finish of such things.

Should be. Which is why if you're gonna be pissed at the EPA, be pissed at Congress. Our congressmen created this beast and have the power to restrain it but they haven't and they won't. And be pissed at every OTHER administrative agency Congress has created over the years because their power comes strictly from the power yielded to it by the very laws our Congress has passed.

In other words, Congress did EXACTLY what you want them to do. Dealt with these issues. By creating the EPA.

And yes, it IS a federal level concern, not a state or local issue. These concerns are often interstate, therefore making them the purview of the federal government.

[Midtowner]

It's unfortunate, but the unaccountable administrative state is pretty much the only way to reign in the power of corporations to do whatever the hell they want.

[soonercruiser]

Before the EPA, we literally had burning rivers because of manufacturers using their "freedom" to dump toxic and flammable waste into said rivers.


Yes, a few rivers, and Lake Erie could be crossed to Canada on foot!
(I was in PA and WV during those years.)

Before unions, we had some employers taking advantage of workers.
Look where the unions are now....trying to control the economy and Washington D.C..

And we have some Planned Parenthood employees encouraging women to break the law.
So, should we say that Planned Parenthood is a criminal organization? Makes as much sense!

The EPA is now the enemy of many Americans who would like to make decisions about their own property and businesses!
The EPA stands in the way of a robust economy and more jobs!

Government power corrupts government workers!
And, the EPA is being used by the Obama Administration to accomplish parts of Obama's "agenda" that they cannot get through Congress!

[East Coast Bias]

China is a good example of what industry can do to the environment and workers without controls. Pretty sure their rivers are close to catching fire. And all of this has global effects as well....

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Molten-steel-kill-32-workers,-industrial-accidents-multiply-9034.html

[Midtowner]

Yes, a few rivers, and Lake Erie could be crossed to Canada on foot!
(I was in PA and WV during those years.)

Before unions, we had some employers taking advantage of workers.
Look where the unions are now....trying to control the economy and Washington D.C..

Before unions, we had employers using machine guns to kill workers who spoke out. Before unions, there was no such thing as a 40-hour work week or a weekend. Before unions, employees died to sate their employers' greed. Of course, now we have various government agencies to take care of that and now instead of dealing with unions, employers just hire folks in China while the useful idiots on the Right keep reelecting their (R) buddies to make sure these employers' Chinese operations are tax deductible and that imports receive no duties. Good stuff.


And we have some Planned Parenthood employees encouraging women to break the law.
So, should we say that Planned Parenthood is a criminal organization? Makes as much sense!

It's an unconstitutional law. Planned Parenthood v. Casey is pretty clear on that one. But in this case, I support freedom of a woman to do what the hell she wants to do with her own body. It hurts no one else when she has an abortion and yes, I know that's a matter of philosophy, but that's where I stand on the issue. I also know I'm not changing anyone's mind, but the law is what it is constitutionally. No matter how many unconstitutional BS laws 'pubs pass, they will all be in the ash bin as soon as someone can say "TRO."


The EPA is now the enemy of many Americans who would like to make decisions about their own property and businesses!
The EPA stands in the way of a robust economy and more jobs!

No, the EPA stands in the way of landowners who scream "MINE!" like petulant children when they are required to play by rules which don't hurt others. Seriously, what an effed up way to think.


Government power corrupts government workers!
And, the EPA is being used by the Obama Administration to accomplish parts of Obama's "agenda" that they cannot get through Congress!

If the EPA has the power, Congress has already given it to them and Congress can also take it away.

[soonercruiser]

Before unions, we had employers using machine guns to kill workers who spoke out. Before unions, there was no such thing as a 40-hour work week or a weekend. Before unions, employees died to sate their employers' greed. Of course, now we have various government agencies to take care of that and now instead of dealing with unions, employers just hire folks in China while the useful idiots on the Right keep reelecting their (R) buddies to make sure these employers' Chinese operations are tax deductible and that imports receive no duties. Good stuff.



It's an unconstitutional law. Planned Parenthood v. Casey is pretty clear on that one. But in this case, I support freedom of a woman to do what the hell she wants to do with her own body. It hurts no one else when she has an abortion and yes, I know that's a matter of philosophy, but that's where I stand on the issue. I also know I'm not changing anyone's mind, but the law is what it is constitutionally. No matter how many unconstitutional BS laws 'pubs pass, they will all be in the ash bin as soon as someone can say "TRO."



No, the EPA stands in the way of landowners who scream "MINE!" like petulant children when they are required to play by rules which don't hurt others. Seriously, what an effed up way to think.



If the EPA has the power, Congress has already given it to them and Congress can also take it away.

Get a grip on reality Mid!
You know damn well that all the executive orders and EPA executive rules are NOT RUN THROUGH CONGRESS!

Same EPA as when it was under a Repug administration.
Just different uses of the POWER by the Czars!

And, now it's the community organizers, Occupy and union thugs that are threatening and hurting people!
And, Holder hasn't taken the New Black Panthers to court yet!
They were caught on video in violation of federal election laws!!!! DUH!
And Holder and his thugs are now chasing Florida for trying to clean up the dead Dem and illegal voters in Florida!
DUH!

All examples of misue of executive power!
NOT EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER THE LAW! No "fairness"!
Only the hypocrisy is transparent!
:disturbed:

[diverdog]

Speaking of the EPA, not sure what to make of this:

EPA power grab to regulate ditches, gullies on private property

By: Audrey Hudson
6/11/2012 08:05 AM
867

Lawmakers are working to block an unprecedented power grab by the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Water Act (CWA) and control land alongside ditches, gullies and other ephemeral spots by claiming the sources are part of navigable waterways.

These temporary water sources are often created by rain or snowmelt, and would make it harder for private property owners to build in their own backyards, grow crops, raise livestock and conduct other activities on their own land, lawmakers say....(more)

http://www.humanevents.com/2012/06/11/epa-power-grab-to-regulate-ditches-gullies-on-private-property/

Tito:

There are some really good reasons behind this regulation. I will use Delaware as an example. The state was a swamp 100-150 years ago. To make the land useful for agriculture the state built a huge network of ditches in Delaware to drain the land. There are so many of them that there is a county conservation organization dedicated to the upkeep and maintenance of these ditches. To pay for it they have tax ditch districts......hence in Delaware most ditches are called tax ditches.

One of the issues in Delaware is the amount of nutrients flowing from these tax ditches into coastal waters. A big source of these nutrients come from agricultural usage and in many cases the application of chicken manure from our large base of chicken growers. There is so much phosphorus from chicken manure in Delaware that it has caused our waters to become extremely polluted and has triggered outbreaks of pfisteria. Farmers had a bad practice of piling chicken manure next to these ditches and the rain would wash it away into the ditches and then into our estuaries, rivers and bays. Some of the pollution was so bad that a ditch became almost a point source pollution much like a drainage pipe. Because of the overuse of fertilizer and in particular chicken manure our bays have a nutrient problem and it is killing our fish and shell fish. I was the conservation chair of the Sierra Club when we sued the State of Delaware to force them to start regulating this pollution. When we finally went to court we won so handily that the court almost forced the federal government to take over our clean water enforcement.

The nutrient loading in Delaware is so bad that if all application of fertilizer were to stop today it would take 50 years before we would see a reduction of nutrient loading in our waters. To protect the waters the farmers have to come up with nutrient management plans, we got the state to build manure sheds for them and they have to keep a riparian area around the ditches to mitigate the migration of nutrients into the waters. While I am sympathetic to farming I do not think big industrial agriculture should be exempt from pollution control. The main pollutant in our rivers, streams, ponds and bays is from agricultural runoff. The Chesapeake Bay faces massive threats from cattle manure in feedlots in Pennsylvania and over fertilization of ag lands in all the states in its drainage area. I do not think anyone would want to see this resource die and to preserve it we must manage agriculture runoff and part of that management is regulating the areas around these drainage ditches.

I honestly do not think this regulation is about some 10 foot long ditch in Olevets front yard.

[diverdog]

Yet again, I was quite alive during that. You are blowing it waaayyy out of proportion and it's something that the local municipalities could have and should have dealt with. It does not require a tyrannical bureaucracy. It requires the people to say to their local officials enough is enough and we will vote you out if you don't stop it. I trust the people, I don't trust the EPA and the almost limitless power it has.

Local communities could not have stopped this practice and it was not just confined to a few local communities. You clearly do not understand how wide spread the pollution was back then. To this day the Potomac River is so polluted that I was told not even source water from it on my backpacking trip and I was using one of the best ceramic filters on the market. The EPA was created because people did not have the power to fight these big companies. It is still an issue today.

I would also ask how would a state like Delaware be able to address the flow of air pollution from states likeM Ohio and Maryland which causes us to be in air quality non attainment areas? How do we address chemical pollutants that flow into our waters from Pennsylvania and New Jersey?






Uh, yeah. It's very smuggly easy for you to say the farmer or rancher is less important when it's not your farm or ranch. Species go extinct every single day and have since the Earth began. It's not the federal government's job to stop that process. Do I miss carrier pidgeons? Nah, not really. If some had been saved in zoo's that'd be cool, but no big loss that they weren't. I don't give a crap about some minnow either. Just as our planet is tougher than Gore et al gives it credit, so are our eco-systems.

Again you clearly do not understand some of these issues. The lawsuits were not just about the snail darter or a species of salmon. The lawsuits are over the fact that agriculture is sucking up so much water in areas to irrigate land that they are draining the rivers and aquifers of all their water. We are growing crops and animals in places that they should not be grown. Having cattle in Arizona or New Mexico is flat out nuts. They are creatures that require fast quantities of water to grown and it is not available in the west anymore. Some of the crops that grown in parts of California are so water intensive that they have almost drained rivers before they reach the ocean. Hell the Colorado no longer reaches the ocean. In Washington, Oregon and parts of California they have drained so much water they have killed entire salmon runs. Why should farmers have the sole use of water over the rights of native fisherman to make a living of salmon fishing. And just to be fair there are also issues with increased population in these states which have put additional strains on water in the west. So to the point. The snail darter is the canary in the coal mine. Once you kill some minnow you have most likely killed a river. And guess what in the future you have probably killed all businesses that depend on that river.


And btw, it's not ONE farmer or rancher that the EPA effects and you know it. It is huge swaths of them such as in the valley in California. It's hundreds of families. Tombstone, AZ (the whole town) is being shut down because the EPA won't allow them to fix their water lines because of some bogus BS reason.


Farmers and ranches are no different than any other business and there are times they should be regulated. There is no where in the Constitution that says you can do what the **** you please. For to long ranches and farms have had the final say over water rights in the west and this coming to end because of competing issues. Water is not an infinite resources and there must be allocations for all the competing uses including water for the fish and other wildlife.

As far as Tombstone goes and based on my reading they have not done all the work then need to do to get a permit to fix the pipeline which is on federal land. It looks like the government is trying to come to some sort of terms with them and they refuse to work through the process.


Am I surprised that you would choose the collective over the freedom and rights of the individual. Not at all. Now I know why Obama is your boy.


This has nothing to do with Obama. And the rights of an individual do not always supersede the rights of society. To claim as much is wrong. Do you think your neighbors would have the right to build a toxic waste dump in their yard next to your property? I bet not. Individuals rights are fine until they fringe on someone else's rights and then you have problems.



This is just a dumb thing to say considering the powers given in the Constitution prescribes no such entity to exist and certainly to not have the power it has. Our framers trusted the people, not governmental bureaucracy. The Congress represents us and it should be the start and finish of such things.

The Constitution does not prescribe the Air Force or the CIA or the CDC or the FBI or the SEC or the myriad of other agencies that we rely upon for commerce.

The framers of the constitution did not trust the people. In fact, they went to great lengths to make sure the people did not take away the vast holdings of wealthy landowners after the revolution.


Communist China is stable. Doesn't mean it's good.

Agreed




Something has to give, safety or fuel mileage. Can't have both max'ed out. Obama and the EPA have set extreme fuel efficiency requirements. Safety will fall to the benefit of the environment.

What is this based on? There are materials out there that a far lighter and stronger than steel.

Secondly, our biggest bang for our buck for becoming energy independent is conservation. That is why the recent hike in gas prices did not effect the economy as much because people had converted to more efficient means of transportation. Conservation is good for national security and it is good for our environment and guess what.....it is good for business.



Long live Gaea! Humans should be willing to die for the greater good. As long as it's not you or your family, right? <wink wink>

Without a healthy ecosystems then your family will have issues.

I am going to take a wild guess here....you are an Ayan Rand follower.

[Midtowner]

Get a grip on reality Mid!
You know damn well that all the executive orders and EPA executive rules are NOT RUN THROUGH CONGRESS!

I get it. You're not well versed in the affairs of the administrative state. Agencies can do whatever Congress authorizes them to do in their enabling statute. No more. Congress has given many agencies a very broad agenda. The EPA is one of them. The reason? Members of Congress want the environment to be clean, but they don't want their sponsors to be able to blame them. Agencies can promulgate rules and must follow the Administrative Procedure Act in doing so.

Also, the President is in charge of administrative agencies, so it's well within his power to direct them to behave a certain way so long as it is consistent with the agency's existing rules and the enabling statute.

So now you understand how you're wrong. I'm sure you're going to whine more about the imperial executive, at which point we'll collectively have a nice chuckle at your expense because you can't seem to grasp that agencies aren't just omnipotent bodies which can do whatever the hell they want to on a whim.


And, now it's the community organizers, Occupy and union thugs that are threatening and hurting people!
And, Holder hasn't taken the New Black Panthers to court yet!
They were caught on video in violation of federal election laws!!!! DUH!
And Holder and his thugs are now chasing Florida for trying to clean up the dead Dem and illegal voters in Florida!
DUH!

Want some cheese with that whine?


All examples of misue of executive power!
NOT EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER THE LAW! No "fairness"!
Only the hypocrisy is transparent!
:disturbed:

OMG politicians being hypocrites! It has never happened before!

[jkjsooner]

Yet again, I was quite alive during that. You are blowing it waaayyy out of proportion and it's something that the local municipalities could have and should have dealt with. It does not require a tyrannical bureaucracy. It requires the people to say to their local officials enough is enough and we will vote you out if you don't stop it. I trust the people, I don't trust the EPA and the almost limitless power it has.

In many cases the local municipalities are the ones getting the benefit of the polluter and not paying the price. It's the town down the river who pays the price. That's why local regulation of the environment is pretty much useless.

Have you ever watched a documentary about the state of the environment back in the late 19th century? It was a mess. West Virginia was a mess. The large cities were a mess. I'm glad we have regulation to keep that from happening again.

My parents lived in LA in the early '60s. The smog was horrible and at times it was almost unlivable.

[pphilfran]

It is all about balance....

[Midtowner]

It is all about balance....

That it is. The government has to regulate just about everything we do because just about everything we do has the potential to harm someone. We're all expected to obey traffic laws. We're all expected not to starve our children. Owning land or a business is the same as anything else. Now let's not pretend the EPA has actually stopped pollution. It still goes on. The EPA just manages it and forces companies to implement new technology as it comes along.

The ESA prevents landowners from killing off entire species merely for the pursuit of profit.

I don't object to you having a Lamborghini. I do object to you driving 200MPH down I-35 in it.

[yermom]

That it is. The government has to regulate just about everything we do because just about everything we do has the potential to harm someone. We're all expected to obey traffic laws. We're all expected not to starve our children. Owning land or a business is the same as anything else. Now let's not pretend the EPA has actually stopped pollution. It still goes on. The EPA just manages it and forces companies to implement new technology as it comes along.

The ESA prevents landowners from killing off entire species merely for the pursuit of profit.

I don't object to you having a Lamborghini. I do object to you driving 200MPH down I-35 in it.

:(

[Mississippi Sooner]

My Maserati will only do 185.

[yermom]

that's enough to lose your license

[diverdog]

It is all about balance....

The problem is there is no balance. By almost every metric nature is losing.

[Mississippi Sooner]

that's enough to lose your license

And why now I don't drive.

[Midtowner]

that's enough to lose your license

Nah.. probably a reckless driving which'll be a chunk of change plus required attendance of driving school and a six-month deferred sentence resulting in the charge being dropped to speeding 1-10. That's my experience in OKC (as counsel for the defendant, not the driver).

It's definitely not worth doing. Go to a track.

That said, I agree with what diver said, by almost ever metric, nature is losing. The EPA doesn't go nearly far enough. The trouble is, if it did, we'd be non-competitive in the global marketplace. So we'll just continue to do what our parents did--pile on the problems for some other generation to have to deal with them or be overcome by them.

[Mississippi Sooner]

Someone in this thread is not a Joe Walsh fan.

[dwarthog]

The problem is there is no balance. By almost every metric nature is losing.

From a human based time line perspective, it certainly seems that way.

From a time line based on the life of the planet, nature always wins. See the the dinosaurs...

[dwarthog]

Someone in this thread is not a Joe Walsh fan.

They must have those "All night Laundry Mat Blues"....

[pphilfran]

Someone in this thread is not a Joe Walsh fan.

He is an attorney...not some ordinary average guy...

[soonercruiser]

I get it. You're not well versed in the affairs of the administrative state. Agencies can do whatever Congress authorizes them to do in their enabling statute. No more. Congress has given many agencies a very broad agenda. The EPA is one of them. The reason? Members of Congress want the environment to be clean, but they don't want their sponsors to be able to blame them. Agencies can promulgate rules and must follow the Administrative Procedure Act in doing so.

Also, the President is in charge of administrative agencies, so it's well within his power to direct them to behave a certain way so long as it is consistent with the agency's existing rules and the enabling statute.

So now you understand how you're wrong. I'm sure you're going to whine more about the imperial executive, at which point we'll collectively have a nice chuckle at your expense because you can't seem to grasp that agencies aren't just omnipotent bodies which can do whatever the hell they want to on a whim.



Want some cheese with that whine?



OMG politicians being hypocrites! It has never happened before!

YOU are the one not well versed in the practial application of administrative rules.
Congress authorizes broad guidelines.....agencies can go well beyond what Congress ever expected the agency to do.
I don't believe that any Congress would authorize an administrative agency to covertly destroy the American economy.

[diverdog]

YOU are the one not well versed in the practial application of administrative rules.
Congress authorizes broad guidelines.....agencies can go well beyond what Congress ever expected the agency to do.
I don't believe that any Congress would authorize an administrative agency to covertly destroy the American economy.

Do you have examples?

[sappstuf]

Do you have examples?

I would say the EPA declaring the gas that you exhale and a gas that plants love being a pollutant is going beyond what congress intended.

[diverdog]

I would say the EPA declaring the gas that you exhale and a gas that plants love being a pollutant is going beyond what congress intended.

When the vast majority of scientist agree with the EPA I think they have a leg to stand on.

[sappstuf]

When the vast majority of scientist agree with the EPA I think they have a leg to stand on.

The vast majority of doctors/scientists thought ulcers were caused by stress... Until one guy proved them wrong.

Besides, the vast majority of plants think CO2 is delicious and wish there was much higher levels in the atmosphere so they could grow better and faster.

Why do you hate plants?

[Midtowner]

Oh look. Another internet lawyer who thinks he knows diddly about admin law.

SCOTUS has ruled multiple times on this issue, most recently, last year in American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut:


"It is altogether fitting that Congress designated an expert agency, here, EPA, as best suited to serve as primary regulator of greenhouse gas emissions," Justice Ginsburg wrote. "The expert agency is surely better equipped to do the job than individual district judges issuing ad hoc, case-by-case injunctions."

This is the second ruling supporting the EPA's regulation of CO2 this decade. The horse is dead. Stop beating it. Why do you hate dead horses?

[sappstuf]

Oh look. Another internet lawyer who thinks he knows diddly about admin law.

SCOTUS has ruled multiple times on this issue, most recently, last year in American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut:



This is the second ruling supporting the EPA's regulation of CO2 this decade. The horse is dead. Stop beating it. Why do you hate dead horses?

What the SCOTUS ruled on has nothing to do with if Congress intended for the EPA to regulate a gas that you exhale with every breath only that they could.

Try to keep up.

[Midtowner]

What the SCOTUS ruled on has nothing to do with if Congress intended for the EPA to regulate a gas that you exhale with every breath only that they could.

Try to keep up.

Say what you want, that's not how the Clean Air Act works.

The statute says:


"The Administrator shall by regulation prescribe (and from time to time revise) in accordance with the provisions of this section, standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines, which in his judgment cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”

Congressional intent is irrelevant. They have the ability to insert definitions into the statute. If they don't, courts are going to decide within the four corners of the statute. In this case, the Court found that there was enough evidence that CO2 qualifies as an air pollutant under the statute and therefore the EPA has no choice but to regulate it.

Internet lawyer fail.

[marfacowboy]

I can't honestly say I understand it all, so maybe some of you can clarify, but interesting none the less.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/06/10/Blogger-Busts-EPA-Fake-Fuel-Figures

I love the EPA, not related to this article, but they are responsible for more deaths worldwide than all of our wars combined. See the outlawing of pesticides that kept mosquito and other disease carrying bug levels down.

Now they are making the car industry make less safe vehicles, so more people will die in traffic accidents that wouldn't have in heavier safer vehicles all for the sake of, well, nothing in reality.

I don't read anything from that site. But the claim about outlawing of pesticides causing mass number of deaths is pure bunk. This myth arises from Rachel Carson's landmark book, Silent Spring, where she exposed the dangers of DDT use. There is a misconception that her book lead to a global ban of DDT and therefore "millions of deaths." Pure B.S.
First of all, there is no global DDT ban. DDT is only banned in the U.S. where there is no malaria problem. It’s perfectly legal in many other countries: Ten out of the seventeen African nations that currently conduct indoor spraying use DDT.
"DDT use has decreased enormously, but not because of a ban. The real reason is simple, although not one conservatives are particularly fond of: evolution. Mosquito populations rapidly develop resistance to DDT, creating enzymes to detoxify it, modifying their nervous systems to avoid its effects, and avoiding areas where DDT is sprayed — and recent research finds that that resistance continues to spread even after DDT spraying has stopped, lowering the effectiveness not only of DDT but also other pesticides." (Current Biology 8·9·05)

[sappstuf]

Say what you want, that's not how the Clean Air Act works.

The statute says:

Congressional intent is irrelevant. They have the ability to insert definitions into the statute. If they don't, courts are going to decide within the four corners of the statute. In this case, the Court found that there was enough evidence that CO2 qualifies as an air pollutant under the statute and therefore the EPA has no choice but to regulate it.

Internet lawyer fail.

I guess you are right.. I mean the guy who actually authored the Act doesn't know as much as you..


The author of the Clean Air Act, Democratic Congressman John Dingell has made clear that what the EPA is now proposing in no way reflects the intent or purpose of the Clean Air Act when it was written over 40 years ago. He said:

“This is not what was intended by the Congress and by those of who wrote that legislation... So we are beginning to look at a wonderfully complex world which has the potential for shutting down or slowing down virtually all industry and all economic activity and growth.”

The SCOTUS didn't rule that CO2 was a pollutant. It relied on the ruling from the EPA that it was a danger. The SCOTUS then ruled if it is a danger then it must be regulated.

How do you regulate something that is released naturally at levels much higher than we can ever create by burning fossile fuels?

[jkjsooner]

From a human based time line perspective, it certainly seems that way.

From a time line based on the life of the planet, nature always wins. See the the dinosaurs...

And that is the point that environmentalists need to emphasize. This is about us. It's about our survival. It's about our quality of life. It's about our enjoyment of nature.

As you say, nature will win. We shouldn't worry about ruining the planet in some abstract way. We can kill off 99% of the species on earth and in a million or so years the earth will have recovered with great biodiversity.

We should worry about ruining the planet as a habitat for humans. We can't protect our habitat without protecting the complex ecology that we live in.

[jkjsooner]

I guess you are right.. I mean the guy who actually authored the Act doesn't know as much as you..

Are you saying the author is the sole interpreter of a law? The interpretation of the hundreds who voted on and signed the law have no bearing?

If the author wanted to narrowly define a law he/she had that choice. It might not have been approved and/or might have been superseded by a more wide ranging law.

[marfacowboy]

And that is the point that environmentalists need to emphasize. This is about us. It's about our survival. It's about our quality of life. It's about our enjoyment of nature.

As you say, nature will win. We shouldn't worry about ruining the planet in some abstract way. We can kill off 99% of the species on earth and in a million or so years the earth will have recovered with great biodiversity.

We should worry about ruining the planet as a habitat for humans. We can't protect our habitat without protecting the complex ecology that we live in.

Humans are animals and are part of the ecosystem. We all live in a tenuous balance. For ecosystems to function properly, you need this balance. Take out all of the natural predators, and deer populations get out of control and disease sets in. Get rid of the snakes, and you have a rodent problem. No bats? Mosquito problem. Ruin too much habitat, and you have mountain lions and bears in your backyard waiting on joggers and rummaging through the garbage. Or, you end up having fewer places to hunt, hike and get away from urban madness. But you absolutely have to worry about "ruining" ecosystems. In Oklahoma, for example, it was myopic, poorly informed farming practices that contributed to the dust bowl (killing off native grasses in the great plow-up in the 1920's, which eliminated the tangled roots that held the soil in place).
The idea that you can kill off 99% of the species on earth has absolutely zero basis in scientific fact. There is no data, nothing whatsoever to support this claim.

[sappstuf]

Are you saying the author is the sole interpreter of a law? The interpretation of the hundreds who voted on and signed the law have no bearing?

If the author wanted to narrowly define a law he/she had that choice. It might not have been approved and/or might have been superseded by a more wide ranging law.

Narrowly? I don't think categorizing a gas that you exhale with every breath as a danger to human life is narrow.. I would call it broad.. Very broad.

[dwarthog]

And that is the point that environmentalists need to emphasize. This is about us. It's about our survival. It's about our quality of life. It's about our enjoyment of nature.

As you say, nature will win. We shouldn't worry about ruining the planet in some abstract way. We can kill off 99% of the species on earth and in a million or so years the earth will have recovered with great biodiversity.

We should worry about ruining the planet as a habitat for humans. We can't protect our habitat without protecting the complex ecology that we live in.

Well said.

[marfacowboy]

For humans to survive, they have to learn how to live within limits. Again, the Dust Bowl is a good example of how environmental mismanagement affects humans. Another example from history is the fall of the Comanche empire. A major part of their decline was related to environmental mismanagement. They had massive horse herds, in the thousands, that used most of the water supplies during a period of extreme and prolonged drought. This drove the buffalo north, out of their range, and when they did, they drove out the single most critical element necessary for their survival. This weakened them and contributed heavily to their demise. Live in balance or cease to live.

[Midtowner]

[QUOTE=sappstuf;3483680How do you regulate something that is released naturally at levels much higher than we can ever create by burning fossile fuels?[/QUOTE]

Ask the EPA. They're doing a decent job of it.

[Midtowner]

Are you saying the author is the sole interpreter of a law? The interpretation of the hundreds who voted on and signed the law have no bearing?

That's why most courts don't consider the legislative record. Congress' "intent" is a moving target. The Clean Air Act didn't have a single author. It was written and rewritten many times by many different experts, lobbyists, aids and other folks. Then the intent of who voted for it and why becomes even more subjective. That's a silly standard and has no place in the law. For quite some many years now, Marbury v. Madison has made the SCOTUS the final arbiter of what the law means.

It appears the statute was written in such a way as to allow the EPA to continue to expand its mission as our understanding of the environment expanded without getting caught up too much in congressional politics. That's a good thing.


If the author wanted to narrowly define a law he/she had that choice. It might not have been approved and/or might have been superseded by a more wide ranging law.

I'd actually agree with what sappstuf said. I know more about that act today than whoever authored it. It was designed that way apparently, or that's at least how it's being interpreted.

At this point, arguing that something is unconstitutional when the SCOTUS has twice in five years said otherwise is just plain 'ol wrong.

[Midtowner]

Narrowly? I don't think categorizing a gas that you exhale with every breath as a danger to human life is narrow.. I would call it broad.. Very broad.

Water is a danger to human life if you inhale it and the clean water act is still pretty good law. Your point is almost too idiotic to even address. CO2's harmful effects in mass quantities are scientifically very well established. If you believe otherwise, go ahead and publish your paper and prepare to collect your Nobel Prize.

Here's an idea. Let's hook you up to pure CO2 and see how long you last. It's harmless, right?

[sappstuf]

Ask the EPA. They're doing a decent job of it.

Of course they are doing no such thing, not really. All they are doing is making the cost of business higher in the US. Nature produces about 750 gigatons of CO2 every year. If CO2 is as dangerous as the EPA claims, how can they allow nature to emit CO2 at 10 times the levels that burning fossil fuels create?

The EPA should just pass a regulation requiring all plant life to stop dying and if they do die, not to decay. They probably already think they have the power...

[Midtowner]

Like I said, publish your paper and be done with it. The Nobel Prize is within your grasp!

[sappstuf]

Water is a danger to human life if you inhale it and the clean water act is still pretty good law. Your point is almost too idiotic to even address. CO2's harmful effects in mass quantities are scientifically very well established. If you believe otherwise, go ahead and publish your paper and prepare to collect your Nobel Prize.

Here's an idea. Let's hook you up to pure CO2 and see how long you last. It's harmless, right?

Talk about idiotic.

CO2 is currently 0.039% of the atmosphere up from 0.028% at the beginning of the industrial age. If trends continue they think it will reach 0.056% by the end of the century. Explain how this increase has limited your daily life. Can you still walk?

With posts like yours, the high CO2 level you are so worried about is obviously causing decreased brain functions..

[sappstuf]

Like I said, publish your paper and be done with it. The Nobel Prize is within your grasp!

Facts are hard to dispute aren't they?

Please share with us how you think the EPA should regulate Mount St Helens when it starts to spew massive amounts of CO2 in the air again?

[marfacowboy]

Of course they are doing no such thing, not really. All they are doing is making the cost of business higher in the US.

This is a false statement. Little more than an oft repeated lie by myopic, self interested people (with insufficient historical knowledge) that want businesses to operate with no oversight whatsoever. The historical record is pretty clear on what happens when you allow corporations to police themselves.
Our economic system is most successful when there is a BALANCE (there's that word again) between regulation and free enterprise. Corporations can't be overburdened, but they can't operate without oversight.

[Midtowner]

http://nas-sites.org/americasclimatechoices/sample-page/panel-reports/87-2/

Peer-reviewed published materials trump idiot blogs and email forwards.

--Waiting for the inevitable list of non-climate scientists who don't support the global climate change hypothesis.

[marfacowboy]

http://nas-sites.org/americasclimatechoices/sample-page/panel-reports/87-2/

Peer-reviewed published materials trump idiot blogs and email forwards.

--Waiting for the inevitable list of non-climate scientists who don't support the global climate change hypothesis.

Dadgum liberal elitist academic commie propaganda!

[sappstuf]

http://nas-sites.org/americasclimatechoices/sample-page/panel-reports/87-2/

Peer-reviewed published materials trump idiot blogs and email forwards.

--Waiting for the inevitable list of non-climate scientists who don't support the global climate change hypothesis.

You posted several posts about how dangerous CO2 is and that people are will be suffering from CO2 poisoning and that I should breath 100% CO2 and see how I like it.

It has been rather amusing because you will not find anything like that in the SCOTUS ruling. No one was dumb enough to say that CO2 was causing a direct danger to humans.. Well.. Until you.

And I was incorrect earlier.. I said that natural CO2 is 10 times more than human emissions.. It is more than 100 times more.

So now you fall back on climate change, which is at least in the right ballpark. But you still haven't explained how only man made CO2 is dangerous, but the much larger naturally released CO2 isn't.

Speaking of non-climate scientists is the head of the IPCC still a train engineer?

[sappstuf]

This is a false statement. Little more than an oft repeated lie by myopic, self interested people (with insufficient historical knowledge) that want businesses to operate with no oversight whatsoever. The historical record is pretty clear on what happens when you allow corporations to police themselves.
Our economic system is most successful when there is a BALANCE (there's that word again) between regulation and free enterprise. Corporations can't be overburdened, but they can't operate without oversight.

Who is talking about no oversight whatsoever? Oh, that's right.. No one.


All they are doing is making the cost of business higher in the US.

You call that a lie? You think that if the EPA slaps any mandate on CO2 emissions that it won't raise the cost of doing business? Any additional step will cost time and money. It might be small and cost a penny, it could be large and cost $1000 per car. The only thing that is certain is it will cost something. You cannot call my statement a lie.

[pphilfran]

I am not sold on CO2 driving global warming...others seem to be changing their stance..

James Lovelock

James Ephraim Lovelock, CH, CBE, FRS, Ph.D (born 26 July 1919) is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurologist who lives in Devon, England. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling the chemical and physical environment.

Writing in the British newspaper The Independent in January 2006, Lovelock argues that, as a result of global warming, "billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable" by the end of the 21st century.[24] He has been quoted in The Guardian that 80% of humans will perish by 2100 AD, and this climate change will last 100,000 years. According to James Lovelock, by 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been culled by floods, drought and famine. Indeed "[t]he people of Southern Europe, as well as South-East Asia, will be fighting their way into countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain".[25]

"By 2040, parts of the Sahara desert will have moved into middle Europe. We are talking about Paris – as far north as Berlin. In Britain we will escape because of our oceanic position."[25]

"If you take the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictions, then by 2040 every summer in Europe will be as hot as it was in 2003 – between 110F and 120F. It is not the death of people that is the main problem, it is the fact that the plants can't grow – there will be almost no food grown in Europe."[25]

"We are about to take an evolutionary step and my hope is that the species will emerge stronger. It would be hubris to think humans as they now are God's chosen race."[25]

He further predicts, the average temperature in temperate regions will increase by as much as 8°C and by up to 5°C in the tropics, leaving much of the world's land uninhabitable and unsuitable for farming, with northerly migrations and new cities created in the Arctic. He predicts much of Europe will become uninhabitable having turned to desert and Britain will become Europe's "life-raft" due to its stable temperature caused by being surrounded by the ocean. He suggests that "we have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act, and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can".[24]

He partly retreated from this position in a September 2007 address to the World Nuclear Association's Annual Symposium, suggesting that climate change would stabilise and prove survivable, and that the Earth itself is in "no danger" because it would stabilise in a new state. Life, however, might be forced to migrate en masse to remain in habitable climes.[26] In 2008, he became a patron of Population Matters, (formerly known as the Optimum Population Trust), which campaigns for a gradual decline in the global human population to a sustainable level.[27]

In a March 2010 interview with the Guardian newspaper, he said that democracy might have to be "put on hold" to prevent climate change.[28] He continued:

"Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."

In an April 2012 interview Lovelock stated that he had previously been "alarmist" about the timing of climate change, but not about climate change itself: he still believes the climate should be warming although the rate of change is not as once thought:

"The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said…The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time ... it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising - carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that . . . There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now," he said.[39]

[jkjsooner]

Humans are animals and are part of the ecosystem. We all live in a tenuous balance. For ecosystems to function properly, you need this balance. Take out all of the natural predators, and deer populations get out of control and disease sets in. Get rid of the snakes, and you have a rodent problem. No bats? Mosquito problem. Ruin too much habitat, and you have mountain lions and bears in your backyard waiting on joggers and rummaging through the garbage. Or, you end up having fewer places to hunt, hike and get away from urban madness. But you absolutely have to worry about "ruining" ecosystems. In Oklahoma, for example, it was myopic, poorly informed farming practices that contributed to the dust bowl (killing off native grasses in the great plow-up in the 1920's, which eliminated the tangled roots that held the soil in place).
The idea that you can kill off 99% of the species on earth has absolutely zero basis in scientific fact. There is no data, nothing whatsoever to support this claim.

I think you totally misunderstood my comment. Everything I said was in direct agreement with your first paragraph. We must protect our ecosystem. The point I was trying to make was that even if you are human-centric, protecting the complex environment is in your best interest. Too often environmentalists don't position their argument as such and allow others to label them as protecting the environment at the expense of humans.

As for the 99% of the species on earth comment, I'm just saying that evolution favors biodiversity. We can destroy it but in the long run it will return. New species will evolve that have adapted to the conditions that the earth is in. We can destroy our environment and our own ability to survive but the earth will remain a biologically dynamic planet long after we're gone.

I never said killing off 99% of the biodiversity was a good thing. It darn sure wouldn't be good for us. I was only saying the concept of "mother earth" dying is in the long run a flawed concept.

[marfacowboy]

I think you totally misunderstood my comment. Everything I said was in direct agreement with your first paragraph. We must protect our ecosystem. The point I was trying to make was that even if you are human-centric, protecting the complex environment is in your best interest.

As for the 99% of the species on earth comment, I'm just saying that evolution favors biodiversity. We can destroy it but in the long run it will return. New species will evolve that have adapted to the conditions that the earth is in.

I never said killing off 99% of the biodiversity was a good thing. It darn sure wouldn't be good for us. I was only saying the concept of "mother earth" dying is in the long run a flawed concept.

Well, maybe I did. I apologize for misunderstanding. But there's no reason to think we can just live as we wish and the earth will take care of itself. It's in our best interest to live intelligently now. It's smart economically, as well.
One of the best examples of this is Ducks Unlimited, one conservation organization conservatives support. We nearly decimated the northern breeding grounds and the duck population went to hell in a handbasket. I grew up hunting in Eastern Arkansas as kid in the late 60's and early 70's and saw it first hand.

[jkjsooner]

Nature produces about 750 gigatons of CO2 every year. If CO2 is as dangerous as the EPA claims, how can they allow nature to emit CO2 at 10 times the levels that burning fossil fuels create?

It's about balance. Before we started burning fossil fuels the CO2 levels were relatively in balance - at least on a human time scale.

And please read the last phrase in the above sentence before spouting about historic CO2 levels over hundreds of thousands of years...


So now you fall back on climate change, which is at least in the right ballpark. But you still haven't explained how only man made CO2 is dangerous, but the much larger naturally released CO2 isn't.

See above. We've disrupted the natural balance.


Speaking of non-climate scientists is the head of the IPCC still a train engineer?

Imagine that. How about check out how many CEO's of tech companies don't have science or engineering degrees? Generally speaking the executives aren't the ones solving equations or writing software or whatever...

[marfacowboy]

Who is talking about no oversight whatsoever? Oh, that's right.. No one.

There's an active movement to abolish EPA. That pretty much equals no oversight. And you said, "All they are doing is making the cost of business higher in the US," which implies the agency is basically worthless. It's not a leap to assume you would therefore support dramatic changes or perhaps even the elimination of the agency. Which, more or less, equals no oversight.
You know as well as I do, there are a lot of people that would love little or no oversight.


You call that a lie? You think that if the EPA slaps any mandate on CO2 emissions that it won't raise the cost of doing business?
It's a lie to suggest, as you did, that it's all they do. Regulations may raise the cost of doing business. Unless it involves hiring additional people to insure compliance, the costs are probably soft costs and negligible. And frankly, most of what they're required to do to insure compliance are things that they should be doing regardless.


You cannot call my statement a lie.

Again, your statement is false. It's intentionally misleading and reductive, and it's because you stated that's all EPA does.

[sappstuf]

It's about balance. Before we starting burning fossil fuels the CO2 levels were relatively in balance - at least on a human time scale.

And please read the last phrase in the above sentence before spouting about historic CO2 levels over hundreds of thousands of years...

Balance? Who decides what the right balance is? How do we know CO2 wasn't out of balance 200 years ago?

[pphilfran]

How many really believe, without any doubt, that CO2 levels are driving the current long term trend in world temps?

As far as short term....Does the last 12 years of flat world temps,while CO2 levels continue to climb, cause you concern if you are a believer in CO2 being the driver?

We are in a long term uptrend that will probably climb another degree or two just to meet past temp peaks...probably take about 5k years without any outside influences...

[marfacowboy]

Balance? Who decides what the right balance is? How do we know CO2 wasn't out of balance 200 years ago?

Well, let's say we don't know. Let's say we don't know how much man's activities contribute, if at all, to climate change. There are still plenty of good reasons to change certain behaviors. One, we have an entire society, including a growth based economic model, that's completely dependent on a non-renewable resource. Then you have energy costs. Traffic issues. Light pollution. It's a quality of life for me, as well as an economic issue.
You can't grow infinitely in a world of finite resources.

[sappstuf]

There's an active movement to abolish EPA. That pretty much equals no oversight. And you said, "All they are doing is making the cost of business higher in the US," which implies the agency is basically worthless. It's not a leap to assume you would therefore support dramatic changes or perhaps even the elimination of the agency. Which, more or less, equals no oversight.
You know as well as I do, there are a lot of people that would love little or no oversight.

Let us look at what I said in context instead of pulling one sentence out, shall we?


Of course they are doing no such thing, not really. All they are doing is making the cost of business higher in the US. Nature produces about 750 gigatons of CO2 every year. If CO2 is as dangerous as the EPA claims, how can they allow nature to emit CO2 at 10 times the levels that burning fossil fuels create?

The EPA should just pass a regulation requiring all plant life to stop dying and if they do die, not to decay. They probably already think they have the power...

Pretty clear that I am talking about the EPA and specifically CO2 isn't it?

Nice job with the strawman though..

[sappstuf]

Well, let's say we don't know. Let's say we don't know how much man's activities contribute, if at all, to climate change. There are still plenty of good reasons to change certain behaviors. One, we have an entire society, including a growth based economic model, that's completely dependent on a non-renewable resource. Then you have energy costs. Traffic issues. Light pollution. It's a quality of life for me, as well as an economic issue.
You can't grow infinitely in a world of finite resources.

There are absolutely good reasons. Having a clean enviroment and something to pass to the kids is a good thing. Maybe instead of wasting billions on a trace gas that we should focus more on those things..

[marfacowboy]

Let us look at what I said in context instead of pulling one sentence out, shall we?



Pretty clear that I am talking about the EPA and specifically CO2 isn't it?

Nice job with the strawman though..

No, it wasn't clear. For it to be clear, you should have stated, "With respect to CO2 levels, all they're doing is...."
But I still don't believe that's all EPA is doing with respect to climate change. We'll just have disagree.

[pphilfran]

Well, let's say we don't know. Let's say we don't know how much man's activities contribute, if at all, to climate change. There are still plenty of good reasons to change certain behaviors. One, we have an entire society, including a growth based economic model, that's completely dependent on a non-renewable resource. Then you have energy costs. Traffic issues. Light pollution. It's a quality of life for me, as well as an economic issue.
You can't grow infinitely in a world of finite resources.

I agree 100%

The problem is we have done basically nothing that really affects the things that could reduce pollution...

We have tossed a whole lot of money into the electric car..but it will take another decade before they are really cost effective...so in the meantime we sit on our hands and ignore NG that would significantly reduce CO2 levels over gas...and electrics are not going to do chit for long haul trucking but NG could help in all time ranges...

We have also tossed a bunch of bucks into carbon capture..once we capture it what are we going to do with it? Compress it and store it underground? A couple of square miles of compressed CO2 (US, yearly) that will need to be stored for eternity...while we can't figure out a way to store a relatively small amount of nuke waste for 50,000 years...clean coal is a joke...

I believe there are far too many people using CO2 and global warming as a money grab with environmental concerns being a secondary concern....

[marfacowboy]

I believe there are far too many people using CO2 and global warming as a money grab with environmental concerns being a secondary concern....

I agree.
I'm seeing more communities reconstruct themselves to support mixed use. Residential and commercial all within a four mile radius, so you can walk to ride your bike to work. Or even if you drive, you're driving less. No more 20 mile commutes, horrible traffic. Have grocery, pharmacy, doctors offices, schools, parks, libraries and other retail all within walking distance. The last time I drove through Dallas to DFW, it was unbearable. I don't see how people live that way, day in and day out. And it's insane to just keep building more interstates or widening them.
There's certainly a lot we can do to make our cities more livable, and in doing so, save money and help the environment.
This is also a way to save another cultural characteristic that's threatened in America: our sense of community. We've drifted so far from how communities were constructed before the Second World War, when people bought homes and lived in communities for long periods of time. All we have now are bedroom communities where people see their houses (or used to) as investments, not homes.

[sappstuf]

No, it wasn't clear. For it to be clear, you should have stated, "With respect to CO2 levels, all they're doing is...."But I still don't believe that's all EPA is doing with respect to climate change. We'll just have disagree.


A paragraph (from the Greek paragraphos, "to write beside" or "written beside") is a self-contained unit of a discourse in writing dealing with a particular point or idea.

A paragraph.. Interesting concept.

[pphilfran]

A paragraph.. Interesting concept.

Come on Sap...play fair...

[sappstuf]

How many really believe, without any doubt, that CO2 levels are driving the current long term trend in world temps?

As far as short term....Does the last 12 years of flat world temps,while CO2 levels continue to climb, cause you concern if you are a believer in CO2 being the driver?

We are in a long term uptrend that will probably climb another degree or two just to meet past temp peaks...probably take about 5k years without any outside influences...

Solar cycle 24 is shaping up to be the smallest in a hundred years and 25 could be smaller yet leading to solar 'grand minimum' and much colder temperatures.

I think the next decade will be very interesting in regards to the climate. We might actually be able to answer what is a bigger driver of temperatures on earth: 0.037% of a gas or the large ball of fire at the center of the solar system.

Get your popcorn!

[marfacowboy]

A paragraph.. Interesting concept.

You can have the last word. Fine with me.

[SCOUT]

You can have the last word. Fine with me.
Starting...Now

[jkjsooner]

Balance? Who decides what the right balance is? How do we know CO2 wasn't out of balance 200 years ago?

First off I answered your question. For a long time we had a balance where plants were consuming carbon dioxide at roughly the same rate that animals were producing it.

to answer your new question, I'd be careful to use the term right. As I've said before, over very long periods of time the CO2 levels will change so in that respect no level is "right." Nature will evolve to handle the change just as it did to handle the ice age. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be destructive to us as a species or our economies.

And this gets to my pet peeve when the anti-global warming folks use historic periods of higher temperature or high CO2 levels and say, "See it's always changed." What they willfully ignore are the time scales of those changes.

We very likely might have another ice age in a few hundred thousand years. We might have a natural spike in CO2. Am I worried about it? Nope. The chances that humans are around in the numbers we have right now in a few hundred thousand years are slim at best. In the slim chance that we are around, we could more easily handle the more gradual changes that nature throws us.

What worries me is what we're doing to impact us in a hundred (or less) years.

[diverdog]

First off I answered your question. For a long time we had a balance where plants were consuming carbon dioxide at roughly the same rate that animals were producing it.

to answer your new question, I'd be careful to use the term right. As I've said before, over very long periods of time the CO2 levels will change so in that respect no level is "right." Nature will evolve to handle the change just as it did to handle the ice age. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be destructive to us as a species or our economies.

And this gets to my pet peeve when the anti-global warming folks use historic periods of higher temperature or high CO2 levels and say, "See it's always changed." What they willfully ignore are the time scales of those changes.

We very likely might have another ice age in a few hundred thousand years. We might have a natural spike in CO2. Am I worried about it? Nope. The chances that humans are around in the numbers we have right now in a few hundred thousand years are slim at best. In the slim chance that we are around, we could more easily handle the more gradual changes that nature throws us.

What worries me is what we're doing to impact us in a hundred (or less) years.

I am actually worried about that big *** volcano blowing in Yellowstone. When that f**ker goes off it's Katie bar the door. The blast wave should kill about everyone in the West. The good news is most progressives live on the coast so the Red state issue is solved pretty quickly. :)


1Vn6kxfD3Ek

[sappstuf]

First off I answered your question. For a long time we had a balance where plants were consuming carbon dioxide at roughly the same rate that animals were producing it.

to answer your new question, I'd be careful to use the term right. As I've said before, over very long periods of time the CO2 levels will change so in that respect no level is "right." Nature will evolve to handle the change just as it did to handle the ice age. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be destructive to us as a species or our economies.

And this gets to my pet peeve when the anti-global warming folks use historic periods of higher temperature or high CO2 levels and say, "See it's always changed." What they willfully ignore are the time scales of those changes.

We very likely might have another ice age in a few hundred thousand years. We might have a natural spike in CO2. Am I worried about it? Nope. The chances that humans are around in the numbers we have right now in a few hundred thousand years are slim at best. In the slim chance that we are around, we could more easily handle the more gradual changes that nature throws us.

What worries me is what we're doing to impact us in a hundred (or less) years.

The temperature has risen, on average, .008 degrees per year over the past 100 years and no one is claiming that human activities are responsible for 100% of that.

How much more gradual do you want?

I say sit back and enjoy CO2 the way nature intended... In a nice cold beer.

[jkjsooner]

Solar cycle 24 is shaping up to be the smallest in a hundred years and 25 could be smaller yet leading to solar 'grand minimum' and much colder temperatures.

If this happens it says nothing about the theory of global warming. It just means that external events changed the situation.


I think the next decade will be very interesting in regards to the climate. We might actually be able to answer what is a bigger driver of temperatures on earth: 0.037% of a gas or the large ball of fire at the center of the solar system.

Nobody doubts that the sun is driver in our climate. If we have significant changes is solar output everyone would agree that that would take precedence.


But all of this is like saying that we'll see what plays a larger role, the sun or the windows in my car. Well, nobody doubts that keeping the windows rolled up will result in a much higher internal temperature than keeping them rolled down.

Leave a dog in a closed car on a 70+ degree day for a few hours and then tell the cops about how it's not the car but the sun that is the biggest driver of the temperature...

[sappstuf]

If this happens it says nothing about the theory of global warming. It just means that external events changed the situation.

Nobody doubts that the sun is driver in our climate. If we have significant changes is solar output everyone would agree that that would take precedence.

But all of this is like saying that we'll see what plays a larger role, the sun or the windows in my car. Well, nobody doubts that keeping the windows rolled up will result in a much higher internal temperature than keeping them rolled down.

Leave a dog in a closed car on a 70+ degree day for a few hours and then tell the cops about how it's not the car but the sun that is the biggest driver of the temperature...

Yes they do. And if you keep saying stuff like that you will eventually be called a denier. But I will give you a recent example and a not so recent example.

The recent study came out in April and the findings were that CO2 is what ended the last ice age.


"At the end of the last ice age, CO2 rose from about 180 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere to about 260; and today we're at 392," explained lead author Dr Jeremy Shakun.

"So, in the last 100 years we've gone up about 100 ppm - about the same as at the end of the last ice age, which I think puts it into perspective because it's not a small amount. Rising CO2 at the end of the ice age had a huge effect on global climate." (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17611404)

There are many issues with this paper, way too long to expound on here, but the inference is clear. CO2 rose 80 ppm and that ended the ice age, the sun had nothing to do with it.

James Hansen, of NASA GISS fame, released one of his famous papers back in 1988. He predicted that as CO2, the primary driver of temperature, rose so would temperatures.

How is that prediction going? Not well Brian, not well.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/admin/ed-assets/2012/06/Hansen00654.jpg

He is only off by 150% after 24 years...

Firm believers of AGW believe that CO2 is the primary driver of warming because output from the sun does not vary enough to account for the changes in temperature. That is why it is all man's fault. It isn't the sun or anything that is beyond our control. Their models have never matched up with reality like the one above because they don't include solar cycles or much of anything else. When you think CO2 is the problem and then you program your models that CO2 is the problem, it shouldn't come as any surprise that the answer is that CO2 is the problem.

So called 'skeptics' also believe that CO2 increases temperatures, but instead of being the primary driver that it is a smaller percentage. A much smaller percentage.

There is a LOT of money from research, to carbon credits, green energy subsidies.. Billions upon billions. There is money to be made in raising the issue that man is at fault. There is no money is saying the sun is the primary driver in temperature.

[soonercruiser]

Solar cycle 24 is shaping up to be the smallest in a hundred years and 25 could be smaller yet leading to solar 'grand minimum' and much colder temperatures.

I think the next decade will be very interesting in regards to the climate. We might actually be able to answer what is a bigger driver of temperatures on earth: 0.037% of a gas or the large ball of fire at the center of the solar system.

Get your popcorn!

Will the Sun accept carbon credits???