Categories
oil and gas

You, sir, are a moron.

Representative Young, you are a moron.

“This is not an environmental disaster, and I will say that again and again because it is a natural phenomena. Oil has seeped into this ocean for centuries, will continue to do it. During World War II there was over 10 million barrels of oil spilt from ships, and no natural catastrophe. … We will lose some birds, we will lose some fixed sealife, but overall it will recover.”

A Rush Limbaugh-style moron, which is not a distinction many people are able to sink low enough to achieve. So hats off to you, I suppose, in an uncomfortable, “my what a spectacular train wreck that is” sort of why.

Of course, I’m not quite sure if it’s actual stupidity that’s making these men say such asinine things (and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re being parroted by others now) or just flat out intellectual dishonesty.

So when Limbaugh says something like:

Oil is as much a part of nature as water is. … If we didn’t do anything, it would recover.

I’m forced to spend a lot of time wondering if he was actually just born that way, of it he really had to put a lot of time and effort in to becoming that absolutely dishonest.

Oil seeps are, indeed, natural. There are even natural oil seeps in the Gulf of Mexico. But you know, arsenic naturally occurs in food, too, but you wouldn’t want a large arsenic spill to occur on your hamburger. The natural oil seeps (per that source) come to an average of 140,000 tons per year, which is around a million barrels of oil. In a year. Spread out through the entire Gulf of Mexico.

If you go with this handy yet incredibly depressing ticker from PBS, we’re up to around 21 million barrels already as our best case scenario, in a bit over 40 days. The poison is in the dose, you know. And let’s be clear – we would not be getting this sort of oil flow if it weren’t for human activities, and as has become increasingly clear, gross human negligence.

What makes me the angriest is really the high-handed assumption that anything we do is no big deal, because mommy Earth will clean it up for us eventually. The absolute disregard for suffering is just breathtaking. The environment might eventually regain its equilibrium after a major spill, though I think you could just as easily argue that it will likely reach a new, different equilibrium instead. But here’s the thing. The Earth, the environment, are inanimate entities. They do not give two shits about living things, our incredibly short (on a geological time scale) lives, or any pain or suffering we might feel. It’s up to us to care. And considering that collectively we are the cause of that suffering, we damn well should care.

It must be quite easy to not care, to dismiss that suffering and try to squirm around the scary word “disaster” if you make millions of dollars a year being a professional douchebag on the radio, or live quite well as a politician far, far away from the place where the lives of animals both human and non-human are being destroyed.

I’ve changed my mind about the moron thing. It’s far worse than that.

You, sir, are a monster.

Categories
oil and gas

Anger and Shame

What BP and the lie of deregulation has wrought.

I am unspeakably angry and upset; worse, I feel helpless all over again. When a single senator can block even the simplest step toward legislating responsibility, what hope is there that the truly necessary measures can be taken?

Regulate and enforce. This has to stop. I wish there was more I could do, but I’m going to start by writing some letters.

Categories
volcano

Happy Anniversary, Mount St. Helens!

You exploded in a spectacular fashion 30 years ago today! If I’d thought about it, maybe I would have tried to bump my wedding 4 days earlier just so I could have a shared anniversary.

…just kidding. Mostly.

There’s going to be less than normal going on in this blog for the next couple of weeks, FYI. Because there’s this wedding thing, and guests from out of town, and I’m sort of running frantically around. I’m just happy that thus far that the volcano at Eyjafjallajökull has not prevented any of my British friends (and family-to-be) from making it across the Atlantic, but the game’s not over yet.

Categories
writing

Jim C. Hines looks at first novel statistics

As someone that would one day like to wear the big-girl published author pants, I found Jim Hines’ survey results fairly interesting. Particularly the way he takes a Mythbusters-esque approach to looking at certain “common widsom” about getting published – like that you have to have an in, or the way to do it is to write short fiction1.

And of course, something that makes my inner science fair judge smile – he has a section at the end on sources of error/survey flaws. Awesome work, Mr. Hines!

Overall, I found it very interesting and I’d encourage anyone who’s wanting to become a published author of novels to take a look. It’s obviously not definitive, but there’s a lot of food for thought when you get the hint that just maybe the people who are telling you to self-publish are pushing you in a unhelpful direction. Or that it’s okay if you don’t get published before you’re 30. As someone set to hit 30 this year, that last one makes me feel a whole lot better.

1 – My reaction: “You mean I don’t have to write short stories? WOOHOOOOOO!” Mostly because I’m terrible at short stories. Other than the extremely rare ideas I come up with that a small enough for the format, trying to write short form fiction just fills me with seething frustration.

Categories
links

A few random links

A bit more on Electron Boy – Major blub warning.

Neil Gaiman feels like a political football – and after reviewing the facts, I don’t blame him. There’s also a link from that post to the comments from a BoingBoing post about this. Cory Doctorow’s spot on as far as I’m concerned. I read over most of the rest of the comments, and man… I’m starting to think there’s really something to the conception that scifi/fantasty fandom has more than its fair share of entitled brats.

Doubt is cast on many reports of food allergies – I thought this was quite interesting, since I’ve been (quietly, since I’m not expert) doubtful about the perceived massive leap in food allergies in recent years. Mostly because a lot of it smells a bit… naturopathic1. Also, I found the bit about IgE antibody tests interesting, since I recently had one that showed some antibodies for shellfish and milk, though I’ve never been allergic to either of those.

1 – Money quote:

Because of the inflammation, the lining of the gastrointestinal tract can develop little openings that bits of undigested or partially digested food can pass through. This is referred to as “leaky gut syndrome.” When these particles enter the bloodstream, the body’s immune system recognizes them as foreign and attacks them. Thus, an immune response is initiated at this point, but it is still not identified as a true food allergy.

Partially digested food floating around in my bloodstream WHAT?

Categories
geomorph

Fluvial response to tectonic activity

Lunch today was quite fun; we had a “lunch and learn” that involved a lot of really tasty brownies and an hour-long talk by John M Holbrook. It was for the most part a general overview of the surface process quirks of meandering rivers and how those affect their usefulness as reservoirs. Most basically, oil companies like drilling in point bars since that’s where the best sand packages are to be found. Understanding the complex ways that rivers meander and stack up point bars over time (and that coarse channel fill can act as a fluid transmitter between sets of point bars at times) is a way to try to maximize drilling effectiveness.

Not that mapping out historical meanders is an easy task even for a river that’s still active and not buried hundreds of feet down and only visible via cores or seismic. Dr. Holbrook used a particular section of the Mississippi River (where it crosses the New Madrid seismic zone) to illustrate these concepts, and said that when they were trying to map out the old meanders by taking sediment cores, they were wrong about 30% of the time.

I thought the most interesting part of his talk was a brief look at fluvial response to tectonic activity, particularly how a river reacts to displacement on a fault that it crosses, since that normally means a change in grade on both sides of the fault. Looking at the Mississippi’s reaction to the displacement on the faults it crossed, the basic response was for the river to straighten out (cutting off meanders) on the downdropped side of the fault (where the gradient decreases) and resume meandering on the uplifted side. Which makes a lot of sense, really, though the other interesting thing was how quickly this response occurs. (Answer: very quickly.)

He’s got a paper in the pipe1 about using the Mississippi to examine tectonic activity on the New Madrid fault, which is currently in review for Tectonophysics. Apparently it’s a bit controversial since what the river seems to show is that earthquakes along the fault system are temporally clustered, which doesn’t necessarily fit with the current consensus on the seismic zone. So I hope that it does get published and I can find a way to get my hands on the paper, since it sounds like an interesting read.

1 – If it gets published, here’s the title: Restored river courses reveal millennial-scale temporal clustering on a midplate fault

Categories
books

Rapture Ready

I recently checked Rapture Ready: Adventures in the parallel universe of Christian pop culture out from the DPL branch near my workplace. The copy that I got had a different cover on it than what you see on that website; it was white, with a candy necklace on the front – except this candy necklace had a giant pink cross on it.

This made me feel just a little weird about reading it on the bus, though I didn’t let that stop me.

I don’t normally read a lot of non-fiction to begin with, and unless the book is exceptionally well written, I tend to slog through and take it in a little at a time. Not so here; Daniel Radosh deserves a lot of compliments. In general, his writing was very conversational, very entertaining, and he covered the necessary background or concepts that went with his own experiences without ever becoming the least bit dry. This was a book that I read while riding on my exercise bike, and that’s a rare compliment indeed – it takes a very interesting book to get me to forget the fact that I hate exercise bikes because they make my ass go numb.

Looking at the narrative in the book, the two words that really spring to mind are “humor” and “humanity.” There’s a lot to find amusing in any pop culture; the weird quirks Mr. Radosh identifies in Christian pop culture seem even funnier (in a bizarre sort of way) to an atheist such as myself. But I think it’s very important that he leavens the humor with a very big dose of humanity and understanding.

Which isn’t to say that he is in any way supportive of the strange, walled-off sort of pop culture that has been created by a certain segment of American Christians. With deft comedy, he skewers the segments of that pop culture that so deftly need skewering, presents others with little comment when they will handily collapse under their own weight, and in a few instances becomes well and truly angry or a bit frightened when such emotions are richly deserved. I think what makes all of that so genuine is the sense that, while his stated purpose from the beginning was to find the dark underbelly of the true nuts, he was also doing his best to be open minded and allow himself to be surprised.

At the end, you get the sense that all in all, the experience has left him strangely hopeful. I found Mr. Radosh’s strange journey to be something that gives me hope as well. While there are quite a few scary figures to be found within Rapture Ready (Ken Ham being one of the front runners) there are also many people who are hoping to find some sort of common ground, who seem just as disturbed as the non-Christians by some they are sharing their pop culture with. If nothing else, it asks the question, “Can’t we all just get along?” and posits a cautious, “Maybe.”

A few highlights from the books:

  • Mr. Radosh’s exploration of literature such as the “Left Behind” book and his meeting with two Christian authors.
  • Jay Bakker makes a couple of appearances in the book, which really confirmed my opinion that he seems like an awesome human being.
  • Mr. Radosh’s meeting with Ken Ham. Wow, that guy sounds scary.
  • The imaginary conversation with Stephen Baldwin. Hilarious.
  • The multimedia appendix on the book’s website is pretty darn cool.

    • I would definitely recommend it.

    Categories
    climate change

    From Science: Climate Change and the Integrity of Science

    Over at Science There’s a letter with a veritable laundry list of signers regarding the recent (and not so recent) unconscionable attack on climate science by the media, politicians, and others. It’s very much worth the time it takes to read.

    We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively.

    Well said.

    First seen over at Geotripper.

    Categories
    oil and gas

    Thoughts from a future petroleum geologist

    Maybe some of you are tired of seeing this picture already.

    You know what? Tough shit.

    You should tattoo this picture on the inside of your eyelids. This image should haunt your dreams. Every time you fill up your gas tank, you should think about this. Every time you hear some moronic politician of any stripe utter the meaningless phrase “reduce our dependency on foreign oil,” this picture should be what you think about.

    I don’t make it a secret that I earn my living from the oil industry, and have done so for the past five years. I also don’t normally make it a giant talking point. It’s quite likely that when I get out of grad school in a couple of years with a Masters’ in geology under my belt, I will return to the industry that set me on this academic course and work as a petroleum geologist.

    But that doesn’t mean I have to support everything that my industry does, or the absolutely stupid attitude that this country has toward oil and natural gas.

    And it is stupid. Very, very stupid. Unless you’re a believer in abiotic oil1, you have to come to grips with the realization that oil is an extremely limited natural resource. When it’s gone, it’s gone. And unless you’re pandering, lying, or completely ignorant of how the oil business works, you have to understand that drilling more does nothing to diminish America’s oft-cited dependency on “foreign” oil. We’re not a country where oil drilling and production is nationalized. When oil is sucked out of formations in America, it doesn’t go into a giant barrel marked “For Americans only.” While we are a net importer we do export oil. Mostly it’s Alaska and West Coast oil going to countries around the Pacific Rim; but the point is, oil produced in America does not automatically belong to us, the American people. And further, increasing the supply of oil is at best only a temporary solution; it does not decrease the demand, and oil – as I’ve said before – is a limited natural resource.

    When I hear any of the slogans – “Drill, baby, drill” or “Drill here, drill now” being the worst offenders – frankly, it makes me want to vomit2. It’s short-sighted, it’s irresponsible, and it displays the sort of willful ignorance and dishonesty that has plagued our country since before the Exxon Valdez disaster. If we’re truly worried about the fact that we import massive amounts of oil, that we are gobbling up a limited resource as quickly as it can be drawn from the ground, the solution is not to drill and speed the depletion. The solution is to reduce the demand, period.

    So I bet you’re wondering now why on Earth I’m working for an oil company, and why I’m considering a career as a petroleum geologist, since I’m apparently so anti-oil.

    Part of it is financial, and I’m honest enough to admit that. My years in this industry have been the best of my working adult life. My company treats its people incredibly well, and I find the work very intellectually stimulating.

    But more importantly, it is because I’m not anti-oil. I’m anti-stupidity and anti-irresponsibility. And those are the two qualities that have marked the handling of the industry and the public’s general reaction to it since… well, ever, I’d say.

    I believe that it is possible for oil companies to drill in a responsible manner that limits the environmental impact to almost zero. I believe that risky projects shouldn’t be undertaken unless every possible precaution has been taken and the environmental impacts have been thoroughly studied and understood.

    I believe that it is the government’s job to step in and make certain that happens with strict regulation, monitoring, and enforcement, because frankly I think it’s stupid to expect people to monitor themselves when they’re in a situation where all profit is private but risk is shared out with the public, willing or no.

    I believe it was industry irresponsibility that caused the slow-motion disaster that continues to horrify me every day, and it was also government irresponsibility. And frankly, it was also the irresponsibility of each and every person in America that has bought into the lie that business and industry don’t need regulation.

    But even more important – and I am going to put this in bold, because if you take nothing else away from this post, I want you to remember this – I believe that oil is an amazing and versatile natural resource that could be used to the general benefit of humanity and it is a crime that we are burning it.

    Other posts to read:
    An Open Letter To Anyone Who Ever Said “Drill, Baby, Drill”
    The Power of a Photograph…

    1 – Often referred to as “snake oil” or “horse shit” by most geologists I’ve ever encountered – and keep in mind that most of my geologists buddies are card-carrying members of AAPG.

    2 – And not just because it’s often being said by Sarah Palin.

    Categories
    geomorph planetary geology

    Mars Geomorph Porn

    There’s a lovely blog post over at The Planetary Society explaining a couple of images from IAG’s Planetary Geomorphology Working Group’s May 2010 featured images.

    This is some cool stuff, since it’s very much connected to the ongoing “water on Mars” debate, and the geomorphological argument has to do with water leaching minerals over a fairly long period of time. Another of the images that the blog post doesn’t cover looks at:

    However, with the addition of infrared color, two distinct units of altered minerals can be discerned, and using spectroscopic information, these have been identified. Here at NE Syrtis, there is a unique stratigraphy of iron sulfate overlying carbonate, which is being exposed by the erosion of overlying lavas (Mustard and Ehlmann, 2010). This suggests a transition in the aqueous alteration environment from neutral-to-alkaline to acidic that is preserved in the rock record.

    Aqueous alteration environment… squee! With of course the added fun of wondering what might have caused the pH of that environment to go from neutral-ish to acidic. Interesting stuff, to be sure.

    I didn’t know about the images of the month, but I’m going to start checking them out for sure! Geomorphology was one of my favorite undergrad classes, and there’s some very neat stuff on that site. For example, comparison of catastrophic flood bed forms on Earth and Mars that was April’s set of images. Looking at land features via aerial/satellite imagery isn’t perfect, but I think it’s great to see our knowledge of our own planet being applied to the images we’re getting from Mars.