Discovery News: Earth Impacts News

Undecided Voters & Global Warming

One of the great mysteries in America these days are the Undecided Voters (UVs). We Decided Voters wonder: Who are these UVs and what makes them tick? What on Earth will make them decide? Are they sentient beings and is there any hope we will ever find a way to communicate with them?

Researchers at Yale University and George Mason University think they have some answers. In their Oct. 14 national survey of 2,189 registered voters they found that two out of three of the undecided voters (who were 9 percent of the total) say that a presidential candidate's position on global warming will influence their vote.

Excuse me? Don't the candidates already have positions on global warming? In fact, don't they kind of agree on it? How is that going to help a UV? But perhaps my fever of decidedness has fogged my glasses. Let's just read directly from the Yale press release:      

   While few undecided voters rated global warming as the single most important issue that will determine their vote, 62 percent of undecided voters, 64 percent of voters leaning toward McCain and 75 percent of voters leaning toward Obama indicated that global warming is one of several important issues that will influence their vote. "Even in the midst of the nation's financial turmoil, global warming remains an important issue for large numbers of voters," said Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale University.

Okay. This is good. Maybe. My big worry has been that the economy would bury the overarching, but more difficult environmental issues facing humanity. So this gives me hope. Not much hope, mind you, but a dribble of optimism that the other issues which our beloved UVs rate as highly as global warming are not such things as UFO conspiracies and the national decline in palm readers. Alas, it still may not help...

          In the race to earn undecided voters' trust on the issue of global warming, the two candidates are in a dead heat. Fifty percent of undecided voters trust John McCain as a source of information about global warming and 51 percent trust Barack Obama. "In the closing days of this election, each of these candidates still has an opportunity to make their best case on global warming to these critical voters," said Edward Maibach of George Mason University.

...and neither candidate is likely to, IMHO, since neither one has anything new or strikingly different to say about it. But, really, it doesn't matter. Even if Obama or McCain were to say something significant, the same survey revealed that many UVs won't believe them....

         Surprisingly, however, 45 percent of McCain supporters distrust John McCain as a source of information about global warming, while only 15 percent of Obama supporters distrust their candidate on the issue.

So where does that leave an especially distrusting UV? Not only are you being pecked to death by competing issues, but you don't trust the candidates. You are alone, alone, alone in a vast wilderness of decisive people you don't understand. Where is a good palm reader when you need one?

The Impossible Bailout

While U.S. Lawmakers quibble over how to reward bankers and stockbrokers for their greed, stupidity and hubris, there is a far more perilous debt racking up on this planet that is utterly below the radar of most media outlets. It's the resource debt: How much humanity is consuming each year beyond the capacity of our planet to produce. Here's a nice website which explains what this is and how we are flirting with disaster in this regard.

One of the main differences between the Wall Street bailout and the resource debt or "overshoot," as it is called, is that there are always those poor saps, the U.S. taxpayers, to fall back on when the Wall Street falls apart (just please forget all those years of Wall Street preaching to us about the nearly divine form of capitalism they practice and how it is magically self-correcting and naturally just). The resource overshoot, on the other hand, has no fall-back position. There is no other verdant planet we can pillage to make up for what we are over-consuming here. There is no wiggle room, except to squeeze harder on our less fortunate bothers and sisters, which we're already doing. No, we overuse this planet and we and lose it. Period. End of species, or at least 10,000 years of civilization.

Despite this, most folks totally ignore the matter and proceed as if this small planet has unlimited resources. What else is a Hummer owner doing? What else could a gigayacht owner be doing? What other logical end is there to the irrational "Theology of Bling." Even worse, more and more people around the world even think it's just fine to hoard as much wealth (a.k.a. access to and control over resources) as they can. It's not fine, of course, because it only digs us deeper into the hole (besides being just plain vile and unethical). It's insane. It's disastrous. But it's going on at a greater and greater clip. It's the Tragedy of the Commons on a global scale. This is not alarmism. It's just common sense to anyone who remembers that we live on a pale blue dot.

Sex & Drugs for U.S. Oil

Need a good read? There is a new report out yesterday from the U.S. Department of Interior's (DOI) Inspector General's office about the sex, drugs and gifts that some DOI employees traded with people in the private oil biz. I'm not exaggerating one jot. This is not one of those dry, bureaucratic tomes. There's some incredibly bad and criminal behavior reported here and far too little punishment. Here's the opening paragraph. Notice especially the last two sentences:

"This memorandum conveys the final results of three separate Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigations into allegations against more than a dozen current and former Minerals Management Service (MMS) employees. In the case of one former employee, Jimmy Mayberry, he has already pled guilty to a criminal charge. The cases against former employees, Greg Smith and Lucy Querques Dennet, were referred to the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice (DOJ). However, that office declined to prosecute. The remaining current employees await your discretion in imposing corrective administrative action. Others have escaped potential administrative action by departing from federal service, with the usual celebratory send-offs that allegedly highlighted the impeccable service these individuals had given to the Federal Government. Our reports belie this notion."

The report goes on to describe a "culture of ethical failure" within the Mineral Management Service in which the top dogs went out of their way to NOT apply ethical standards to themselves and did all sorts of nefarious things to personally profit from domestic oil resources. It also mentions the refusal of one oil company, Chevron, to cooperate with the investigation. Here's some more:

"We also discovered a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity in the RIK (Royalty in Kind) program - both within the program, including a supervisor, Greg Smith, who engaged in illegal drug use and had sexual relations with subordinates, and in consort with industry. Internally, several staff admitted to illegal drug use as well as illicit sexual encounters. Alcohol abuse appears to have been a problem when RIK staff socialized with industry. For example, two RIK staff accepted lodging from industry after industry events because they were too intoxicated to drive home or to their hotel. These same RIK marketers also engaged in brief sexual relationships with industry contacts. Sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms-length."

So you see, our government really, literally, has been in bed with the oil companies. This brings to mind a critical principle I've observed in every organization I've ever been a part of (including a short time in the DOI) or watched closely: Ethics, or the lack thereof, always flow down from the top.

So after eight years of having extreme opportunists like Cheney and Rove at the top, is it really any wonder that our country is in the midst of a financial crisis caused by an ethical vacuum? Is it any wonder that oil companies have been given free reign to tear apart public lands at an unprecedented rate, without any concern for wildlife or future generations? And is it any wonder that Sarah Palin recently got Cheney's nod, since her record in Alaska reportedly shows she too supports this sort of scruple-free government (as well as some totally unfounded, ludicrous Bible prophecies that predict End Days any time now, which conveniently and perversely justify not preserving the planet for future generations).

Folks, it's like the bumper sticker says: If your not furious, you're not paying attention.   

Image: BLM

What's New:IMHO

Global Warming: The Cartoon
NPR
Great cartoon video series from National Public Radio. Learn about polygamous carbon and what carbon dioxide tastes like to trees (chicken).

August 26
Greenland: The Portrait
NASA
An astronaut shot this spectacular image of Greenland from the International Space Station. Makes the world's largest island looks like some sort of glazed pastry.

August 26
Earthquake at Earth's Deepest Lake
USGS
That's right, a 6.3 magnitude shaker struck Lake Baikal in Russia -- the largest and deepest body of freshwater on the planet. It's the sort of place where tsunamis could even be possible, if an underwater slope gave way in the shaking. Similar worries have been raised at Baikal's sister lake in California-Nevada, Lake Tahoe.

August 25
Irish Landslide
Irish Times
Not exactly where you'd expect a massive landslide. But here's a rare Irish event that has now cut off the water supply of 30,000 people in north of County Kerry. This slow-moving slide carried away at least one bridge, blocked a number of small roads, buried a river and leveled telephone poles. Erosion happens.

August 25
Wind Turbines Kill Bats Without Touching
Discovery News
It's the air pressure that does it. Weird and pretty hard to mitigate.

August 25
The Arctic Time Bomb
Discovery News
All it takes is a little more thawing and a whole lot more carbon is about to break loose and add to our global warming troubles. A good example of how the thawing of the Arctic matters to EVERYONE.

August 25
Llaima Volcano Pops & Crackles
The Volcanism Blog
Chile is a busy place for volcanoes. This one is sending smoke signals. I think the message is: "I dare you to come closer." Any takers?

August 24
Four Twisters Near Dem Convention
Rocky Mountain News
If this is what God sends near the convention, just imagine the troubles in store if we elect Obama! Picture this: A wrecked economy, unresolvable wars, failing schools, international hatred of America and Americans dying for lack of health care. Oh, wait. Been there (are there), done that. It was the Republicans, not God. Never mind.

August 22
Polar Bears Try New Sport
NYT
Okay, so it's only a sport if someone like Mark Phelps does it. Ten Polar bears were observed swimming in open water swims in open water off the north coast of Alaska. They were not racing. They were not, in all likelihood, enjoying the exercise. This is not what bears prefer to do, we are told. But the lack of ice gives the bruins little choice.

August 22
Clue to Killer Tornadoes: Heavy Rain
Discovery News
So there may be a way to tell how bad tornadoes might be before they touch down. That's pretty good news in a field of research in which every minute matters.

Another Earth News Round-Up

August 14
The Filthy Rich Get Richer
Fortune
Saudi Arabia appears to have more than oil underground. This breathless article contends that minerals – including gold – are abundant on the Arabian Peninsula. Maybe so. Maybe not. Forgive my skepticism, but when it comes to minerals speculation, there is a centuries-long tradition of “salting the mine,” as they say.

August 14
Looks Like Mars, Smells Like Earth
NASA’s Earth Observatory
Maybe Beijing’s air is worse in terms of toxic substances but breathing can’t be much fun in the recent dust storms Pakistan and Afghanistan. To make a direct comparison from space, try this link to a recent view of eastern China’s mucky air.

August 14
Abiotic Oil & Conspiracy Theory
Huffington Post
This here is a great example of a topic which ought to be steered clear of by journalists who know nothing about geology. So far as I know, nobody has proven that crude oil comes from anything by decayed living matter, despite years of speculation and failed experiments to show that oil is made in limitless quantities by purely geological processes. Anyway, the whole damned argument is beside the point: Even if we found limitless oil, it’s planetary suicide to keep burning it the way we are.

August 13
Demand Destruction!
ABC News
Here’s a really good video about how the steep rise is energy costs in the U.S. could literally destroy demand for energy over the long-term. Imagine that! Keep your fingers crossed.

August 12
South American Saber-Tooth
Discovery News
Saber-toothed cats in Venezuela? Not exactly. This newfound fossil – first of its kind in S. America – is a trimmed-down version of the famous big cat. It was unearthed by oil prospectors. After failing to fit bones into a gas tank, they handed it over to paleontologists.

August 12
290,000,000-Year-Old Jellyfish Found
New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
And you thought you had old jelly in the frig. These quarter-sized jellies managed to be preserved in the mountains of New Mexico even without bones. Amazing stuff.

August 11
A Peace of Arctic
Canada.com
The U.S. and Canada are collaborating on geophysical exploration of the Beaufort Sea, way up in the Arctic. They say it’s a nice way for the two countries to get along until something of value is found – then all bets are off. Here’s a bargaining suggestion Canada: Give it all to the U.S. and then charge us $200/barrel for water when global warming starts the next Dust Bowl.

August 11
Google Your Walk 
Google Maps
Just in time for the oil crisis, Google is offering walking directions as well as driving directions via their Google Maps website. Okay, now how about some bicycling directions?

GeoNews Round-Up

Here is my delayed list of the latest, most tantalizing Earth news. We’ve been (sadly) moving house from Placitas, New Mexico, back into the city of Albuquerque, where my wife has a fine job teaching English at Albuquerque Academy. Moving has been so much fun that I couldn't tear myself away from the tape gun. On a related and gratuitously self-serving note, our sweet mountain-view home in Placitas is on the market, in case anyone out there wants to escape their urban wasteland or feels the need to break away from some oppressively green landscape for neatly spaced pinyon and junipers of the high desert. That said, on to the news.

July 31
Saving Great Migrations
Discovery News
Last spring my son and I were waiting in a parking lot near Albuquerque’s Old Town when we heard a strange droning noise. It seemed to come from every direction. Then we looked up and saw endless Vs of geese following the Rio Grande north. That week I saw thousands of birds on the same course -- while the humans below were mostly oblivious. Here’s a story about protecting the last remaining great migrations.

August 1
Naked Earth
BBC News
Getting a lot of buzz this week is the OneGeology project, which will soon be supplying the world with a free global digital, online, interactive database of geological mapping. For the vast majority of humanity who find geological maps darn pretty but downright impenetrable: Let the fun begin.

August 1
The Year After
Discovery News
Okay Hollywood, so you were only off by 300 or 400 days. In the movie The Day After an ice age literally chased the heroes down the street. That’s what movie makers call “rapid climate change.” The reality is that rapid climate change is generally though of in terms of decades, at fastest. Here’s a bit of research that cuts that down to a single year. 

August 2
Earthquakes Don’t Kill People…
CNN
…buildings do. But not in California, thanks to tough building codes. Here’s the only remaining “second day” news angle that hasn’t been thoroughly excavated from last week’s mediocre California quake. Will someone PLEASE find a seven-legged deer now?

August 4
Hurricanes: Quality or Quantity?
Discovery News
As it is with beer, wine, chocolate or sex, so it is with hurricanes. Sort of. In this story some researchers find evidence that no matter how much we fear hurricanes may be multiplying because of global warming, they aren’t. But global warming does appears to help hurricanes get better at hurricaning, i.e, those tropical cyclones we have are getting stronger. 

August 4
11 Killed on K2
AFP
This story made me feel cold, despite the summer heat.

August 4
Drill This Dude!
LA Times
A two-acre patch of ground near Fillmore, Calif., has heated up to 800 degrees. Firefighters and other emergency personnel are monitoring the situation and a local commercial bakery has asked permission to bury three tons of raisin bread dough on the land (okay, I made that last part up). So clearly there is an alien spacecraft under the ground there. Okay, okay, it’s not that either. Most likely it’s naturally-occurring hydrocarbons slowly smoldering away, say experts at the scene while discreetly pushing the antennae back into their heads. Seriously though, this latter explanation seems especially likely to me. Way back when I actually practiced geology I did a lot of drilling around Fillmore and struck a lot of “dinosaurs,” as my chemist always described the oil after he analyzed the soil samples. Alas, it was never my Texas Tea. 

Summer of Our (Geo) Discontent

The biggest news of the summer could be an Earth science story, but you'll probably never hear about it. Not here or in any other media, anyway. The reason has something to do with that summer news drought I mentioned in a previous post. That's the dearth of meaningful news which causes the media to sometimes focus on the most bizarre and mundane stories this time of year. The Earth science media drought, however, is more specific.

Having covered the science of our planet in one way or another for almost two decades now, I can say with some measure of authority that the dog days of summer are desperate times for geoscience writers. It's not that there's no Earth science research underway in the summer. It's just the opposite. There's scads of research underway as almost every geologist and their cousin charges out to squeeze in field work time between teaching duties and/or while the weather is fine. And by field work I mean they could be anywhere from the Arctic Circle to the Namib Desert. Their favorite places to poke and prod the Earth for answers (and questions) tend to be beyond the curve of the Earth from any cell towers. 

For the geo-writer trying to cover some lately published paper on last year's field work, it's just heck trying to reach and interview folks. A season of hand wringing. As a result, the writer sometimes loses the story -- and you, dear reader, lose it as well. Keep it in mind the next time you read about another six-legged deer. Somewhere in the shadow of that deer is a whole lot of real news that never made it out.

 

BTW: Come back soon for a belated review of the week's most interesting Earth news (that which managed to get covered, of course). I'm moving house, so pardon the delay. 

TGIF Earth Potluck

For your enjoyment, here's a Friday gathering of interesting Earth science-related news from the week:

July 21
Can You Spell E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N?
KansasCity.com
Not in Kansas you can’t. Seems the Sunflower State is having trouble recruiting science teachers. They say it’s because of the low pay. I dunno, I think there may be a bit more to it.

July 21
Boehner for Arctic Drilling
National Review
Hot diggety dog! Here’s an enlightened new argument for sticking to the same marvelous energy policies that have given us the perfect world we live in today! Thank you Republican Congressman John Boehner!

July 22
Bears Hold Geologists Captive
Reuters
Geologists have a rough and tumble reputation, but this is just too much: About 30 very hungry bears trapped Russian geologists in Kamchatka after killing two of the field workers on July 18.

July 22
Volcano Chaitén Still At It
geology.com
News, imagery and videos about the greatest geological show in Chile. Funny how little of this stuff gets into the mainstream media. It’s like nobody is interested in volcanoes. Is it any wonder no child ever wins the science fair with one of those messy volcano models?

July 23
Dolly Does Texas
NASA’s Earth Observatory
As hurricanes go, she’s more ladylike than Katrina, but that ain’t saying much. Great color satellite imagery and the storms life from cradle to Death’s doorstep are here for all you hungry hurricane aficionados.

July 24
Giant Camels Were Really Dinosaurs
BBC News
I wrote a Discovery News bit on this same dino track discovery a couple of months back. But this new BBC piece adds local color from Yemen -- the sort of color that’s impossible to get from my desk in New Mexico. A fun read.

July 24
Northern Enlightenment
New York Times
This one is for those of you who just can’t get enough of those “snapping rubber bands” analogies about the Earth’s magnetic fields and the creation of the northern (and southern) lights. New data reveals some secrets of the aurora just in time to help space weather forecasters as the Sun starts shifting into high gear over the next few years.

July 24
Arctic Circle Commits Suicide 
Science Daily
The US Geological Survey guestimates the Arctic Circle contains 90 billion barrels of “undiscovered, technically recoverable oil, 1,670 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas, and 44 billion barrels of technically recoverable natural gas liquids.” Yippee! Let’s all go buy Hummers and run over Al Gore! But seriously, this all reminds me of the infamous question asked at Carlsbad Caverns: “Mr. Ranger, how many miles of caverns haven’t been discovered yet?” Answer: “Next question please.”

The Price of Oil: 2018

This is not a political blog, and I'm not pointing this out for political reasons. But I do have some sense, knowledge and experience on the matter of natural resources and where we, as a species and as Americans, are heading in that regard. It's abundantly clear to anyone with any vision and clarity of thought (or perhaps just a gasoline-powered vehicle and a budget) that we need to change course -- and the hour is getting very late. That's why I urge every reasoning person to listen to this speech by former vice president Al Gore. It's one of the clearest statements I've heard about where we are and where we need to be in ten years. I know some of you will label me a Gore lover for posting this, which would be utterly silly and untrue. I'm a reason lover. And when I heard this speech, I heard a whole lotta reason. I found myself thrusting my fist into the air saying "damn right" over and over again (which is not something I do a whole lot). America and the world need exactly what Gore is proposing.

New Martian Mineral: Water

Unless you've been hiding under a rock on Mars, you have probably heard of the news that NASA's Phoenix Lander has scratched the surface of Mars and found frozen water two inches (five cm) underneath. I suppose this is good news to the Mars Society and others who are wild about sending people to Mars. I agree that it makes things easier if we should ever send anyone to Mars: No need to carry as much heavy water along. But I can't join in on the celebration when folks start jabbering about future colonies on the Red Planet.

On Mars water is not really water. It's more of a mineral that sublimes away when exposed to the air. That's because Mars is both extremely cold and has a very thin atmosphere. It's also a dim place, because it's further from the Sun than old Terra.

Poking around Mars would be great fun. I admit that. Expensive fun. Perhaps the most expensive fun in history (which would make me nervous about having too much fun geologizing up there.) But Mars is a miserable place to live. Anyone who says otherwise is shooting up too much science fiction.

Imagine, if you will, spending the rest of your life in the most severe part of Antarctica. Then triple or quadruple the harshness. That's Mars. If the 4th planet is such prime real estate, why aren't there squatters pig-farming in Antarctica? I'll tell you why: They need to get those pigs flying first.