Climate Denialist Comments

I have found it necessary to begun deleting comments of a particular commenter who appears to be a climate change sceptic/denier.  On reflection, it seems worth saying a little more about that.

I certainly don't want to impose a litmus test on commenters broadly.  If I get the feeling that people are looking at my posts, or other comments, genuinely curious about the issues, thinking for themselves, and making whatever points about the issues occur to them in good faith, or asking questions, I have no problem with that.  There have been occasions when I thought a particular climate paper was overblown, and I've said so.

However, there is clearly a large climate denialist movement that is a) heavily funded by moneyed interests, and b) also supported by a bunch of people who don't have have a direct current pecuniary interest but are unable to admit even to themselves that (for example) their career in fossil fuel extraction was contributing to major harm to the climate, or are very ideologically rigid and cannot admit that maybe sometimes free markets and large businesses commit significant harm as well as causing much good.

I think the climate denialist movement is almost 100% in bad faith, and if I get the feeling that someone is basically parroting the standard talking points from it, bringing up all the bogus non-issues that it manufactures (eg Climategate) I just have zero interest in providing a forum for that.  It's my blog, I read all the comments, and I don't want to read ones like that (or the inevitable equally partisan backlash from the other side).  Find a different forum (there are plenty of both persuasions who will be happy to indulge you in endlessly rehashing that stuff).  There's clearly tremendous potential for comment threads here to devolve into yet one more long trollfest on those issues, and I will not allow that to happen.

My interest is to understand and evaluate the actual climate science - what is it saying, how much reliance on it can we safely place, what does it tell us about our future?  Anyone who, in my judgement, shares a genuine desire to do the same, and a commitment that finding out the truth is more important than promoting a particular ideology, is more than welcome to comment here.

Latest Ice Sheet Mass Balance Stats

This following post is incorrect because I misread the main graph (h/t to Mike Aucott for pointing this out). I have left it here for the historical record, but you should read this one instead.

Saudi Day of Rage Tomorrow

The Guardian has a good backgrounder:

Saudi Arabia shares many problems common to the Arab world – a youth "bulge," lack of opportunities for graduates, precious few political freedoms, plus an absence of transparency and accountability by an absolute monarchy that includes 8,000 princes. Restrictions on women – who are not allowed to drive and cannot travel abroad without the permission of a male relative – are another big negative. The notorious religious police are another. Torture is frequently used on detainees. Unemployment between the ages of 14 and 24 is 40% – in a country where almost 70% of the population is under 20.

Demands for change are relatively modest. Of three reform petitions circulating on the internet, one has gathered signatures from 1,500 prominent liberal and Islamist Saudis calling for a constitutional monarchy, an elected parliament and an accountable executive. Entitled Towards a Country with Rights and Institutions, it is couched in polite and formal language and starts by wishing the king good health. It is a far cry from the slogans heard in Tunis, Cairo and Tripoli. But online access was still quickly blocked.

A "youth petition" signed by 60 journalists and cyber-activists calls for political liberalisation and lowering the average age of ministers to 40 and of shura council members to 45. "There is a new generation of people who are more liberal," says a senior Saudi journalist, "but they still respect the old red lines."

Many Saudi liberals insist the king is a well-intentioned reformist, if one limited by his age and experience. Khaled al-Maeena, editor of the Jeddah-based Arab News, is one of them. "People are adamant that the day of rage will not be about throwing stones and shouting slogans, so there shouldn't be an over-reaction."

I don't feel like I have any insight here, as to whether tomorrow will be a total fizzle, or the first crack in the regime.  There's a great deal at stake.

Interpreting Recent Oil Price Moves

Working Age Employment/Population Ratios

Farm Prices, Food Prices, and Biofuels

Food Prices Rose Again in February

Global Biofuel Production

Hope for Libyan Oil Production?

This is interesting:

In Benghazi, rebels have said that Libyan soldiers had joined the rebels in securing vital oil industry facilities around that part of the country. Some oil industry workers fleeing across the Tunisian border in recent days said they had seen Libyan soldiers fire their weapons to drive off foreign mercenaries or other security forces who had approached oil facilities not far from here.

Hassan Bulifa, who sits on the management committee of the Arabian Gulf Oil Company, the country’s largest oil producer, said Sunday that the rebels control at least 80 percent of the country’s oil assets, and that his company, based in Benghazi, was cooperating with them. The company resumed oil shipments on Sunday, loading two tankers at a port in Tobruk, Mr. Bulifa said. The ships — one bound for Austria and the other for China — represented the company’s first shipments since Feb. 10.

Although the revenue from those sales goes the company’s umbrella organization, Libya’s National Oil Company, Mr. Bulifa said Arabian Gulf Oil had ceased any coordination with the national company, though it was honoring oil contracts. And he insisted the proceeds would ultimately flow to the rebels, not Colonel Qaddafi. “Qaddafi and his gangsters will not have a hand on them,” he said. “We are not worried about the revenues.”

Too soon to know how much emphasis to place on this, but certainly worth watching. If the rebels can keep society organized well enough for the oil to keep flowing, the externalities to the rest of the world will be a lot less severe.  Money to fund the rebellion, too. Qaddafi has certainly made himself a pariah at this point, and it's devoutly to be hoped that the rebels succeed both in displacing him, and in creating a better society afterwards.

US Ethanol Production

Unrest in Oman

Some Basic Sanity Checks on the NYT Radioactivity Piece

Radioactivity in Shale Gas Drilling Wastewater

The New York Times has an extremely eye-opening investigative piece this morning, looking at the issue of radioactivity in wastewater from shale gas hydrofraccing, mainly in Pennsylvania.

The risks are particularly severe in Pennsylvania, which has seen a sharp increase in drilling, with roughly 71,000 active gas wells, up from about 36,000 in 2000. The level of radioactivity in the wastewater has sometimes been hundreds or even thousands of times the maximum allowed by the federal standard for drinking water. While people clearly do not drink drilling wastewater, the reason to use the drinking-water standard for comparison is that there is no comprehensive federal standard for what constitutes safe levels of radioactivity in drilling wastewater.

Drillers trucked at least half of this waste to public sewage treatment plants in Pennsylvania in 2008 and 2009, according to state officials. Some of it has been sent to other states, including New York and West Virginia.

Yet sewage treatment plant operators say they are far less capable of removing radioactive contaminants than most other toxic substances. Indeed, most of these facilities cannot remove enough of the radioactive material to meet federal drinking-water standards before discharging the wastewater into rivers, sometimes just miles upstream from drinking-water intake plants.

No, no, no, no!

Bloomberg:

Spain will lower highway speed limits, cut train ticket prices and use more biofuel under an emergency energy-saving initiative because of soaring oil prices brought on by unrest in Libya, an official said Friday.

and

Finally, oil companies will also have to add more bio-fuel to the gasoline and diesel they produce — from the current mandatory 5.8 percent proportion, up to 7 percent, the deputy prime minister said.

Emphasis mine. This is an unbelievably counterproductive thing to do. A significant part of the cause of the unrest in the Middle East is due to high food prices. The regimes are all rushing out buying food in an attempt to appease their populations. The unrest is now sharply increasing oil prices, and the geniuses in the Spanish government want to respond by calling for more food to be converted into biofuel, thus further increasing the strain on food prices?

Nine Million Barrels/Day?

Why Can't Saudi Crude Replace Libyan?

Libyan Oil Grinding to a Halt

Here's the latest:

At least 300kbd-400kbd of oil production are shut-in already, and likely more, but the situation is still confusing.

As much as a quarter of Libyan oil output has been shut down, Reuters calculations showed on Wednesday, as unrest prompted oil companies to warn of production cuts in Africa's third-largest producer.

Austria's OMV said on Wednesday it might be heading for a full production shutdown in Libya. Total, Repsol, Eni and BASF have also said they are either slowing or stopping output.

The latest comments point to a growing impact on oil output from Libya, which produces 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) of high-quality oil, or almost 2 percent of world output. About 1.3 million bpd is exported, mainly to Europe.

According to Time Magazine's Robert Baer, anonymous sources close to Gaddafi say he is now giving orders to sabotage Libya's oil industry:

There's been virtually no reliable information coming out of Tripoli, but a source close to the Gaddafi regime I did manage to get hold of told me the already terrible situation in Libya will get much worse. Among other things, Gaddafi has ordered security services to start sabotaging oil facilities. They will start by blowing up several oil pipelines, cutting off flow to Mediterranean ports. The sabotage, according to the insider, is meant to serve as a message to Libya's rebellious tribes: It's either me or chaos.

Libyan ports are shutting down:

Libyan cargo port operations have shut down due to increasing violence sweeping the country, Reuters has reported.

Operations at Tripoli, Benggazi and Misurata Mediterranean ports, which handle general cargo and container shipping, have closed.

In particular, oil exports appear to be halting completely:

Operations at Libyan oil ports were disrupted by a lack of communications, trade sources said, and flows from marine oil terminals in Libya were halted on Tuesday, an Italian government source said.

"The situation is worrying. This morning the oil terminals were blocked in Libya," the government source said.

It was not possible to get through by phone to Libyan oil ports or shipping agents on Tuesday.

"Everything is out," said a source with a major oil company. "We can't get through to anyone. Our operations people say contact is impossible with the shipping agents, port officials, anyone. The lines are all down."

The country appears to be descending into civil war:

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya kept his grip on the capital on Wednesday, but large areas of the east of the country remained out of his control amid indications that the fighting had reached the northwest of the country around Tripoli.

Libyans fleeing across the country’s western border to Tunisia reported fighting over the past two nights in the town of Sabratha, home of an important Roman archeological site 50 miles west of Tripoli. Reuters reported that thousands of Libyan forces loyal to Col. Qaddafi had deployed there.

“The revolutionary committees are trying to kill everyone who is against Qaddafi,” said a doctor from Sabratha who had just left the country, but who declined to give his name because he wanted to return.

Of course, as for the oil production losses, the Saudi's say they stand ready to make up the difference:

“OPEC is ready to meet any shortage in supply when it happens,” the Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, said at a news conference after a meeting of ministers of oil producing and consuming nations in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. “There is concern and fear, but there is no shortage.”

The next few months' oil statistics are going to be interesting, to say the least. It now seems increasingly likely that Libya's oil production (about 1.6mbd) is largely going to halt, or at least not get exported.  So we will see if Saudi Arabia's production really will rise to compensate. The problem, of course, is that Mr al-Naimi's idea of what constitutes a "shortage" may not be the same as the rest of us.

OPEC Stability Watch

Libyan Oil Production

Brent-WTI spread