Coalition of the Confused
Hosted by Jenifer (Zarknorph)
Confused malcontents swilling Chardonnay while awaiting the Zombie Apocalypse.
- 1236
MEMBERS - 62742
MESSAGES - 0
POSTS TODAY
Discussions
The debate on Climate Change General Confusion
From: Jenifer (Zarknorph)
3/30/18
SO much of that went completely over my head!
Can you summarise the science for me?
From: ElDotardo
4/2/18
You wish. I understand it only too well. Time for you to face the truth. Go ahead, you can do it.
Perhaps putting it in layman's term will help you make the infinitesimally tiny leap of logic . . .
Climate Alarmists May Inherit the Wind
They likened a courtroom ‘tutorial’ to the Scopes Monkey Trial. But their side got schooled.
Five American oil companies find themselves in a San Francisco courtroom. California v.Chevron is a civil action brought by the city attorneys of San Francisco and Oakland, who accuse the defendants of creating a “public nuisance” by contributing to climate change and of conspiring to cover it up so they could continue to profit.
No trial date has been set, but on March 21 the litigants gathered for a “climate change tutorial” ordered by Judge William Alsup —a prospect that thrilled climate-change alarmists. Excited spectators gathered outside the courtroom at 6 a.m., urged on by advocates such as the website Grist, which declared “Buckle up, polluters! You’re in for it now,” and likened the proceeding to the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial.
In the event, the hearing did not go well for the plaintiffs—and not for lack of legal talent. Steve W. Berman, who represented the cities, is a star trial lawyer who has made a career and a fortune suing corporations for large settlements, including the $200 billion-plus tobacco settlement in 1998.
“Until now, fossil fuel companies have been able to talk about climate science in political and media arenas where there is far less accountability to the truth,” Michael Burger of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University told Grist. The hearing did mark a shift toward accountability—but perhaps not in the way activists would have liked.
Judge Alsup started quietly. He flattered the plaintiffs’ first witness, Oxford physicist Myles Allen, by calling him a “genius,” but he also reprimanded Mr. Allen for using a misleading illustration to represent carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and a graph ostensibly about temperature rise that did not actually show rising temperatures.
Then the pointed questions began. Gary Griggs, an oceanographer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, struggled with the judge’s simple query: “What do you think caused the last Ice Age?”
The professor talked at length about a wobble in the earth’s orbit and went on to describe a period “before there were humans on the planet,” which “we call hothouse Earth.” That was when “all the ice melted. We had fossils of palm trees and alligators in the Arctic,” Mr. Griggs told the court. He added that at one time the sea level was 20 to 30 feet higher than today.
Mr. Griggs then recounted “a period called ‘snow ballers,’ ” when scientists “think the entire Earth was frozen due to changes in things like methane released from the ocean.”
From: Jenifer (Zarknorph)
4/2/18
Wonderful! Could you explain this to me..
Radiative forcing (in W m–2) is an exogenous perturbation in the net (down minus up) radiative flux density at the top of the atmosphere. Forcings become warmings via –
The Planck sensitivity parameter (in K W–1 m2: Roe 2009), the quantity by which a radiative forcing is multiplied to yield the reference sensitivity. To a first approximation, it is the first derivative of the fundamental equation of radiative transfer with respect to the Earth’s emission temperature and emission flux density. Its value is thus dependent on insolation and albedo. The first derivative is the change in temperature per unit change in flux density, i.e., at today’s values 255.4 / (4 x 241.2) = 0.27 K W–1 m2. However, owing to altitudinal variation, the modeled value today is 0.31 = 3.2–1 K W–1 m2 (IPCC 2007, p. 631 fn.).
Then we can move onto the next paragraph...
From: Jenifer (Zarknorph)
4/4/18
No, I honestly do not have the faintest idea what any of the article said.
We can all read the title, sure, but after that...
Wasn't even in my language!
From: Jenifer (Zarknorph)
4/4/18
Oh, for Fuck's sake!
An Indonesian oil company has denied responsibility for a major oil slick off the coast of Borneo, which appears to be spreading and contaminating new stretches of coastline and local fisheries.
At least four fishermen died in Balikpapan Bay on the weekend when part of the slick ignited. A fifth fisherman is missing.
The toxic slick is at least 4 kilometres long and fishermen say it has already killed at least one protected dugong that washed up on a local beach yesterday.
Fishermen in the town of Balikpapan, in the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan, said they would hold a protest on Wednesday over the lack of responsibility shown by the Indonesian Government and the state-owned oil company Pertamina.
"We demand the stakeholders investigate and punish the culprit who's caused this ecological disaster and caused the loss of lives," Maspele said.
Pertamina said the spill had nothing to do with its nearby refinery or undersea pipeline.
The general manager of the nearby Pertamina Unit V Refinery said the company's divers had not been able to find any pipeline leaks.
"That's the reason why we're still running the refinery facility normally," manager Togar Manuring said.
The fishermen and environmentalists were sceptical about Pertamina's claim it was not responsible for the slick.
"We think there must be a leak from the Pertamina pipe because it's located very close to the oil — maybe 100 metres," Pradarma Rupang, from the local environmental group Jatam, said.
"There is no shipwreck, no collision, no sinking ship, no burned ship, nothing. Suddenly oil appears in the middle of the sea.
"People in the coastal area smelt oil at midnight on March 31, then there was a fire at 10:00am. There's an offshore refinery of Pertama nearby."
From: Jenifer (Zarknorph)
4/4/18
Turns out there was a ship.
Indonesian police are questioning the crew of a bulk coal carrier over an oil spill off the island of Borneo that killed four fishermen and continues to pollute local waters.
Police have taken fuel samples from the Panama-flagged MV Ever Judger, which remains in Balikpapan Bay.
The ship, which is crewed by Chinese nationals, had been due to take a load of Indonesian coal to Malaysia.
The spill continues to affect the bay, with aerial footage showing it has spread across a wide area.
A police forensic team has taken fuel samples from the ship as well as from a nearby refinery operated by state-owned oil company Pertamina, East Kalimantan provincial police chief Inspector General Priyo Widyanto told ABC News.
Pertamina pipelines run across the bay.
"We're questioning some witnesses including the boat crew of MV Ever Judger, also the local residents, workers from Pertamina — and we're waiting for all the results," Inspector General Widyanto said.
I don't care who's fault it is, I care about who is cleaning it up!
From: Jenifer (Zarknorph)
4/5/18
Nope! Turns out they were lying.
Indonesia's state-owned oil company Pertamina has finally admitted it is responsible for a major oil spill on the coast of Borneo.
Key points:
- The admission by Pertamina follows four days of denials by the company
- It says one of its undersea pipelines was severed and crude oil poured into the bay
- The refinery continued operating as normal for several days after the initial leak
Pertamina said one of its undersea pipelines was severed last week, causing crude oil to pour into Balikpapan Bay.
Five fishermen died when the oil spill ignited last week.
The pollution spread throughout the bay killing local marine life including protected dugongs and dolphins, and has caused an overpowering stench across Balikpapan, a city of 700,000 people.
The admission by Pertamina follows four days of denials by the company.
Until Tuesday the company continued to claim that Pertamina's own testing showed the oil was marine fuel, not the crude oil that runs through the company's pipelines.
The company also claimed that it had sent down divers and they had not spotted any damage to their pipes.
The refinery continued operating as normal for several days after the initial leak.
But now Pertamina says its sonar equipment revealed a punctured pipeline as the source.
It said it knew this information on Tuesday but it did not make it public until late on Wednesday.
The tests showed that one of its pipes had shifted 100 metres from its original position.
Togar said the pipeline had been dragged out of position and ruptured "by a heavy force".
He didn't elaborate but the bay is used by bulk coal vessels.