Humor4u

by Andrew Glikson It is hard to think of a more Orwellian expression than that describing the increase in toxic atmospheric methane gas as “ gas-led recovery .” Several of the large mass extinctions of species in the geological past are attributed to an increase in atmospheric methane (CH₄), raising the temperature of the atmosphere and depriving the oceans from oxygen. Nowadays a serious danger to the atmosphere and for the life support systems ensues from the accelerated release of methane from melting Arctic permafrost, leaks from ocean sediments and from bogs, triggered by global warming . As if this was not dangerous enough, now methane is extracted as coal-seam-gas (CSG) by fracking (hydraulic fracturing) of coal and oil shale in the US, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. Methane-bearing formations, located about 300m-1000m underground, are fracked using a mixture of water, sand, chemicals and explosives injected into the rock at high pressure, triggering significant amounts of...

by Andrew Glikson [ Oil and gas fracking pads in Texas. Photo: Dennis Dimick  ] It should raise people’s hopes to believe “ net zero emissions by 2050 ” will arrest or at least slow-down global warming, had it not been yet another cruel hoax perpetrated in the wake of more than 50 years of obfuscation and denial of environment and climate science. This is because: The proposed zero emission by 2050 overlooks the long term nature of ongoing investments, mining and drilling for carbohydrates, such as new oil fields as in the North Atlantic and the sub-Arctic, new coal fields such as in the Galilee Basin, or fracking for coal seam gas in North America and Australia . According to Columbia University, “The gas industry and investors have plans to build over $70 billion of new gas-fired power plants through 2025, according to two Rocky Mountain Institute reports ”. Thus it is reported “the State Bank of India might lend $1 billion to Bravus, the absurdly renamed Adani Mining, to fi...