First, do you know what ANWR is? ANWR = Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Now, a comparison (ANWR in orange, drill area in yellow):
And some perspective.
The parts of ANWR they show you in pictures.
The real ANWR coastal plain where drilling is proposed.
But what about the effect on the wildlife?
Read the real story in words and pictures here.
The USGS estimates that there is a 95 percent probability (a 19 in 20 chance) that at least 5.7 billion barrels of oil may be technically recoverable from the ANWR Coastal Plain of the Alaska North Slope. The original oil in place corresponding to this recovery is at least 15.6 billion barrels. EIA scheduled daily production rates for postulated yearly development rates of 250 and 400 million barrels per year. The production rate peaks at 650,000 barrels per day for the development of 250 million barrels per year and at 800,000 barrels per day for the 400 million barrels per year development case. Geologists say there could be less or much more.
By Jad Mouuawa, New York Times
The record storms and floods that swept through the Midwest last month struck at the heart of America’s corn region, drowning fields and dashing hopes of a bumper crop. They also brought into sharp relief a new economic hazard. As America grows more reliant on corn for its fuel supply, it is becoming vulnerable to the many hazards that can damage crops, ranging from droughts to plagues to storms.
The floods have helped send the price of ethanol up 19 percent in a month. They appear to have had little effect on the price of gasoline at the pump, as ethanol represents only about 6 percent of the nation’s transport fuel today. But that share is expected to rise to at least 20 percent in coming decades. Experts fear that a future crop failure could take so much fuel out of the market that it would send prices soaring at the pump. Eventually, the cost of filling Americans’ gas tanks could be influenced as much by hail in Iowa as by the bombing of an oil pipeline in Nigeria.
“We are holding ourselves hostage to the weather,” said John M. Reilly, a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an ethanol expert. “Agricultural markets are subject to wide variability and big price spikes, just like oil markets.”
But concerns that the floods could tighten corn supplies this year have pushed up both corn and ethanol prices. Ethanol, which was already rising before the floods, has nearly doubled from its low of $1.50 a gallon in September. “Our energy policy is like playing Russian roulette with every chamber loaded,” said Lawrence J. Goldstein, an energy analyst at the Energy Policy Research Foundation, a group backed by the oil industry. “We’ve doubled up on the weather risk.” Read more here.
See the Corn and Ethanol Production here
This is the precipitation April to June. See larger map here.
By John Brignell
He made a prediction and it did not happen (also shown here). Fair enough, that is how science progresses, but any relationship between the Hansen phenomenon and science is rather remote. His latest calling down of fire and brimstone is upon the wicked oil executives, who are allegedly stoking up infidel opposition to the true gospel of the global warming catastrophe to come. That this is not true is evident from the greener-than-thou advertisements put out by that industry. They know a good racket when they see one and if there are a few billion taxpayers’ dollars on offer they want their share of them. They are, however, likened to the tobacco giants who so misled the public.
Yes those were liars; but so were their opponents, led by the EPA, and they turned out to be better at it. The current big lie is that all the sceptical commentators are in the pay of the nefarious industry. Hansen’s answer to it all is to call for an inquisition (he is a bit late into that game, by about five years). “May you have what you wish for” is an ancient curse and it would be satisfying to see Hansen have his day in court.
The reason that Monty Python’s dead parrot so rapidly became a dead metaphor is that it encapsulates the modern political phenomenon of lying with a straight face, when all parties involved know that it is a lie (It’s not a constitution, it is just a treaty). So now, when we are told that Global Warming isn’t dead, it’s just restin’, we accept it as just a normal part of the political process. Formerly it would have been regarded as an example of the fifth of Langmuir’s laws of bad science.
It is quite extraordinary that this sort of activity should fester within the world’s most notable scientific and engineering organisation. Anyone who has had the misfortune to have been reluctantly involved with such a weirdo will feel the embarrassment for all those genuine professionals whose ingenuity, among many other achievements, put a man on the moon. They obviously tried to subject him to some sort of control, quite properly in a tax-funded, non-academic institution, which led to his wild claim to being censored. He must be the least censored person on the planet, thanks to his friends in high places. Perhaps the world will one day be grateful to the brave band of volunteers, who have at last got together to provide an audit of the activities of such fanatics. Owing to the efforts of the likes of Steve McIntyre and Anthony Watts, we have been able to penetrate the unscientific veil of secrecy behind which they brew their spells and hokum. Not only are the standards of software production and maintenance way, way below the standards officially embraced by NASA, some of the procedures are unbelievably bizarre, including even the Orwellian process of systematically rewriting the past.
A phenomenon indeed! Read more by John Brignell here.