Offshore drilling bill passes house - CONTACT YOUR SENATORS!

[radinator]

Changing fuels and reducing CO2 emissions will in no way destroy the world economy. That is complete nonsense. Every cost paid by one party is a profit made by another. Reducing oil industry profits by substituting a different fuel isn't "redistributing wealth". It's making the oil industry accountable for the true costs of using their products and encouraging other industries with less damaging profits to enter the free market for the enrichment of the citizenry. That's pure captialism.

You should try this little experiment with your own life.

Stop using oil products in your life, including gasoline, plastics, electricity, etc., and tell us in a month if it is not disruptive.

After all, any money you spend now on oil you will just spend elsewhere, right? It won't make any overall difference, just where the money is spent. And you'll get to stop enriching those evil oil companies you seem to resent.

Please put your actions where you mouth is.


Back to the topic. Personally I have dove oil rigs here in SoCal and thoroughly enjoyed them. I find they make excellent artificial reefs. And if the oil weren't being pumped into storage containers, it would bubble up through the seafloor anyway around here through natural processes.

 

[AlaskaDiver]

Trigfunctions: What's wrong with capitalism? Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual (human) rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.

 

[Rickg]

"Research: Rockfish Thrive Around Offshore Oil and Gas Platforms; 'Natural Reefs are Small'

Rockfish thrive with offshore platforms as their home base
by Underwatertimes.com News Service

Santa Barbara, California (Jun 29, 2006 20:35 EST) While some observers consider offshore oil and gas platforms to be an eyesore on the horizon, new data shows they are performing a critical function for marine life.

For the first time, scientists have documented the importance of oil and gas platforms as critical nursery habitat for some species of rockfishes on the California coast. Two articles documenting the importance of the platforms are published in the current issue of Fisheries Bulletin, with lead authors from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The rockfish species called bocaccio (Sebastes paucipinis), which can live up to 50 years, was, until recently, an economically important rockfish species along the West Coast of North America and was abundant from Oregon to northern Baja California. Overfishing has reduced the stock to less than one-tenth of its former population, according to Milton S. Love, a marine biologist with UCSB's Marine Science Institute (MSI). However, the platforms are helping to restore this species.

"This is the first time that we have solid evidence that platforms can be critical habitat for rebuilding some species of rockfishes," said Love.

Love's article reports that, in 2003, his research team conducted fish surveys around eight oil and gas platforms off Southern California in the Santa Barbara Channel using a manned research submarine. There are 27 oil and gas platforms along the California coast and approximately 6,000 worldwide.

From the 2003 surveys, the research team estimated that a minimum of 430,000 juvenile bocaccio took up residence at the eight structures. The researchers determined that the 430,000 juveniles equal about 20 percent of the average number of juvenile bocaccio that survive annually for the geographic range of the species. "When these juveniles become adults, they will contribute about one percent of the additional amount of fish needed to rebuild the Pacific Coast population," wrote the authors.

Through regional scuba surveys, the researchers found that in 2003 the population of juvenile bocaccio using natural reefs as near-shore nursery grounds was small by comparison to the populations at the platforms.

According to the researchers, juvenile rockfish need something hard, like a rock overhang or a man-made structure, to "settle out" and develop a home base. Then they join a school and swim around their structure. The school helps to protect them from predators. Staying in one place allows them to eat the plankton that drift by in the ocean currents. If the juveniles were to drift out to sea with the currents, they would likely be eaten by predators, or starve to death once they ate all the nearby plankton floating with them. The platforms provide structures that the rockfishes need to thrive.

"Natural reefs are small," said Love, "and before the time the fish finds one it often gets eaten." By contrast, platforms cover the entire water column.
Brian M. Emery, a physical oceanographer with MSI, is the lead author of a second paper which reports on ocean currents in the region of Point Conception to Point Arguello, north of the Santa Barbara Channel and near Platform Irene. The results of a study of ocean currents, using high frequency radar, show that Platform Irene almost certainly increases the survival of young bocaccio in this region. The study was conducted twice, in 1999 and 2002, from May through August, the season when young bocaccio settle out.

Emery explained that the research team used radar equipment housed at three locations along the coast and provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the W.M. Keck foundation.

The results showed that, on average, about three-quarters of the young bocaccio settling around Platform Irene would not survive in the absence of the platform. Rather, the prevailing currents would move them offshore where they would have a very low probability of survival.

"Platform location, local current patterns, and natural habitat distribution determine the balance between settlement at a specific platform and settlement on natural habitat," wrote the authors. "These results indicate that knowledge of regional ocean circulation patterns is essential for evaluating the effects of oil production platforms or other artificial habitats on dispersal pathways of juvenile fishes."

Rickg

 

[Cacia]

And if the oil weren't being pumped into storage containers, it would bubble up through the seafloor anyway around here through natural processes.

At my old house in Santa Barbara, we had little oil droplets they said were natural at Summerland Beach. There is evidence in Indian lore (Chumash?)that it existed long ago. (I learned that on a field trip with my kids)

 

[lamont]

Just one more comment to hopefully clear up my stance on this issue:

I do believe that global warming is occuring. I hope that point is clear and understood.

My contention comes at what or who is causing it to happen. I find it very difficult to believe that we can take 'data' that has been gathered over an extremely small period of time, geologically speaking, and assign an enormous amount of responsibility to human actions and activity.

I also find it ludicrous that many posters here and elsewhere use the information they cite as being irrefutable and entirely conclusive, yet information opposiing their views is suspect and flawed.

To my understanding, none of us has been around long enough, nor has enough scientific data been passed down from previous generations of scientists, to be able to claim with certainty that one or another 'theory' is absolute and without contestation. Claims to those points are absurd and mark the maker of such claims as lunatic.

1. the radiation reaching the earth's surface has decreased
2. the earth has warmed up.
3. QED, something in the Earth's atmosphere has changed to produce a more insulating atmosphere in the spectra that that Earth radiates at.

now up until this point you had better agree. to take a scuba diving analogy, if you are excerting yourself less and producing a little less heat, yet you are warmer (while in the same temperature of water), your insulation must have gotten better.

4. compared to past geological data the CO2 levels we currently have are enormous

find any geological data which shows a similar concentration of CO2 to that of what we have now, or find a similar rate of change (d CO2 / dt) in geological history (ignoring the timeperiods early in the Earth's history when we didn't have a significant biomass -- 4.5 billion years ago doesn't count).

5. ...and are clearly rising due to human activity.

unless you'd like to speculate on another source of levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. i'm pretty certain that if i did the research i could nail this one down as well.

6. CO2 is opaque in the infrared and acts as a greenhouse gas.

we know this from basic physics that has been known for 100 years. we also have confirmation that CO2 levels and global temperatures tend to move in synch.

7. The hypothesis is therefore that human activity is increasing the CO2 levels in the atmosphere which is causing a global warming effect.

so far nobody on the other side of the debate has gotten past "biased scientists". if you want to doubt this:

- find alternative evidence that the Earth is not warming
- find alternative evidence that CO2 is not building up in the atmosphere
- find alternative evidence that the buildup in CO2 is not due to human activity
- find any evidence from the geological record that the current CO2 levels and rate of change in CO2 and temperature are 'normal'

if you've got any of that, cough it up -- and please something more substantial than just "i don't believe the biased scientists, i'm sure we're not responsible". the scientists actually have data and there's no published research out there which contradicts the current "standard model" of global warming.

oh yeah, and stop trying to beat up on Al Gore's political motivations like it invalidates anything -- the scientists 100 years ago that explained the IR absoption spectra of CO2 were not working for the democratic party.

EDIT: okay dammit, that's my last post...

EDIT2: and you guys can't come up with a single climatologist that made a bundle off the stock market in the 90s and got out at the right time and now votes republican who has concrete evidence to support any of your counter-claims? all of the climatologists really vote democrat?

EDIT3: okay, really, this is the last thing I have to say now. the last thing that has been bugging me is all the people who claim that global warming is just a "normal" geophysical process. this is semantically a poor argument because other examples of "normal" geophysical phenominon include: the K-T comet that took out the dinosaurs, the complete resurfacing of venus due to volcanic activity around a billion years ago, and the climate change caused by the supervolcano eruptions in yellowstone. the correct argument to make is one based on the actual harm caused by the temperature increase on the human condition and economy. and i guarantee you that if a james bond movie had a villian that was pointing a heat ray from the moon that would warm the earth up 10 degrees and melt the ice caps that james would be up there banging the bad guy's babes and blowing up the heat ray and we'd all be cheering him on. but raise it 10 degrees over the next century due to human activity in the aggregate then its just "normal" and we'll adapt to it...

EDIT4: okay, really, i'm going to go play oblivion now... i'm done with this thread...

 

[ChillyWaters]

Also, is there a global oil or suv tax out there that I am unaware of, or do you just see this being imposed on Americans? Surely it would be applied across the board As Americans run screaming from the service stations, nobody else is going to buy the stuff we don't?

Ahhh... I see your problem now. If Bob in China can have an SUV, it is your god (er, American) given right to do so as well? We should start to be proactive, not reactive (do you know what that means?). If your country started to reduce emissions, others may soon follow -- probably through political pressure and technology. Obviously there are many other countries that do more harm than the U.S. (countries such as India and Iran come to mind), but does that mean you shouldn't, as a country, try to improve things?

Why should you have the "right" to an SUV? Why should you have the right to bear-arms? Why do smokers think they have the right to smoker where-ever, whenever they want? Perhaps should start to think about the big-picture and your effect on your surrounding, not just about your apparent "rights."

Luckily society (at least here) is starting to change about their views on the environment and health. I'm amazed at how healthy and conscious my city is (in general), and I find it very encouraging. The number of active people, the small number of smokers, the number of smaller cars, etc. All-in-all, I'm proud.

- ChillyWaters

 

[deeper thoughts]

the constitution gives us the right to bear arms

 

[Cacia]

Well, I explained why I need (and deserve) the SUV but no anti-SUV people addressed my points.

I explained that I only drive about 8K a year, well below most average per annual miles driven. My kids take the bus. I have them and their friends, so when you do the math it comes out less than if we were all tooling around in little cars, vs doing things together or taking the bus. I get the distinct impression for some reason a lot of these anti-SUV people are barren malcontents. (smile)

I would like to hear from some people who have actually managed to procreate talk about dragging children and sports gear around in Yugos....oh, I know--you are going to strap it on the moped!
dogs, skateboards, soccer, hockey gear, surfboards, dive gear, teamates....think about it. they are not in day care, you know? ...and I only had my quota.

 

[TheRedHead]

the constitution gives us the right to bear arms

Unfortunately, constitutional freedom of speech is a double-edged sword so we also have to bear Chilly's rants. :lol:

 

[dlndavid]

Ahhh... I see your problem now. If Bob in China can have an SUV, it is your god (er, American) given right to do so as well? We should start to be proactive, not reactive (do you know what that means?). If your country started to reduce emissions, others may soon follow -- probably through political pressure and technology. Obviously there are many other countries that do more harm than the U.S. (countries such as India and Iran come to mind), but does that mean you shouldn't, as a country, try to improve things?

Why should you have the "right" to an SUV? Why should you have the right to bear-arms? Why do smokers think they have the right to smoker where-ever, whenever they want? Perhaps should start to think about the big-picture and your effect on your surrounding, not just about your apparent "rights."

Luckily society (at least here) is starting to change about their views on the environment and health. I'm amazed at how healthy and conscious my city is (in general), and I find it very encouraging. The number of active people, the small number of smokers, the number of smaller cars, etc. All-in-all, I'm proud.

- ChillyWaters

Kind of busy right now, but would love to respond to many of your statements, maybe I'll find some time to waste another day. Your statements are so invalid and not even close to being true, but they are amusing.