Exxon CEO sues against fracking in his own backyard
forbes.com
forbes.com
It is insane how we are going gung-ho into this with basically the whole USA as a testing ground, so what if it causes cancer clusters a decade later, the wells and the owners will be long gone.
I also wouldn't call fracking cheap in any sense of the word, far more expensive than liquid oil extraction and the repercussions of it are at least somewhat unknown so far. (Yeah yeah I know its totally safe if you do it right and Exxon et al are soo trustworthy when it comes to this stuff.)
We're the frog inside the heating pot, except we even steer the gas burner - and we're still discussing which way to cook ourselves would be the most economical.
2 degrees c = screwy weather patterns, extreme storms
4 degrees c = sea level rise, no real seasons anymore, just a big swinging mess from extreme drought to extreme storms
6 degrees c = mad max
8 degrees c, he basically said humans were long gone at this point.
Remember, 1 degree average = massive localised changes.
Hmm now that I've written all this, I'm not sure, were you speaking in celsius or fahrenheit?
edit, specified celcius, also I think this may have been the guy but not quite the same talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pznsPkJy2x8
edit: re your edit: if it's true that +6 degrees sets perpetual heating mechanisms in motion which lead to +12 degrees by 2300 (as suggested in the ted talk), yes, we probably wouldn't survive +8 in the long run. it's damn scary, really - if we screw this up in the next 20 years, we basically damn the whole planet.
Because the corporate lobbys would insist "jobs jobs jobs" even while the Florida keys would be completely under water - all the ceos and politicians would just literally sit in their towers and keep voting to continue.
There's been a total of approximately 0.8 degrees C increase in temperature since about 1880, at about 1.5 degrees C per doubling of CO2 concentration. Although part of that increase may be due to the increase in solar activity over the period. And, it hasn't gotten any warmer since 1998.
I'm no big proponent of fracking, but in general peak oil/gas is a much more pressing issue than global warming. I'm pretty much convinced at this point global warming is just a front used to push anti-peak oil policies.
Analogies used here:
The car - Energy policies
The safety system - Climate models
The warning - Result of these models
You driving into a wall - Laymen's opinions about why these models don't apply.
To put it differently:
1) There's a time delay of several decades between putting out the CO2 and temperature rise. What we're feeling now is the effects of energy policies in the 60ies and 70ies.
2) Since the 70ies our CO2 output has risen considerably, mainly due to emerging markets.
3) Most of this 0.8 degree warming you're talking about has occurred in the last 30 years.
Well - would you bet on the wall being an illusion, or would you rather brake just in case?
Pretty sure the time lag of decades for temperature increase is simply false. Most of these models were predicting temperature increases since 1998 which haven't happened.
Finally, I probably would consider not braking at all if I couldn't possibly come close to stopping in time to prevent a fatal impact. If you really think a 3-6 degree C temperature increase is coming, the only thing that is going to do anything is something like a 50% drop in fossil fuel consumption. The world can't even agree on a 10% cut that won't do anything. EDIT: That's why I think these are really anti-peak oil policies, because a 10% cut actually helps there.
Noone is claiming these models are perfect and the temperature increase estimates may be off by some margin - all I'm saying is that as long as we're sure current CO2 levels aren't going to kill our future, we better stop increasing them, given scientific consensus. When the doomsday scenarios come from scientific studies and stop including low probabilities, it's better to take them seriously rather than bet our home planet on them being all wrong.
[1]http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/upsDownsGlobalWarm...
And again, stopping the increase of CO2 would require massive global emissions cuts, which would require a new energy infrastructure.
It's actually a good thing as it should displace some of the dirtier coal-fired power plants. Not to mention that gas-fired power plants should be easier to spin up and down with power demand.
However, it lets the US off the hook in terms of political will to remove themselves from fossil fuels because the economics demands it.
Fortunately, it seems like the world is now paying enough attention that green energy companies now can make their own way economically.
I'd like to think we'll go the right route, but this is America. We don't do the right thing until we've tried everything else.
So if the shale gas revolution drags down energy prices, it becomes politically harder to maintain the "go green" plan over here.
While it appears a subtle distinction to those looking for an example of glaring hypocrisy, would it be any different if he (and his other rancher neighbors) were protesting a construction of a 160ft water tower intended for some other purpose?
So there's always a variance of some sort involved if fracking is done near any residential community, but I don't think that's stopped the guy or Dick before. I still think the hypocrite card can quite validly be played here.
Page 4...Section 211.003..."The governing body of a municipality may regulate...the height, number of stories, and size of buildings and other structures"
In this case one tower is highlighted, but the process the tower is involved in is... Fracking.
Would it be different if it was a municipal water tower? Yes, since the man's job is to promote drilling and pumping hydrocarbons, not piping municipal water supplies. Of course it would be different.
If the lawsuit was judged with your standards, a CEO of a water utility would be a hypocrite for opposing the same water tower being built "for municipal use" next to his ranch.
To dig deeper, do you question the motives of the other parties to the lawsuit - his ranching neighbors and other members of the community? Are they washed with your brush of perceived "hypocrisy" because they happen to live next to the CEO of Exxon?
On the other hand, a water utility CEO who didn't want that water tower near eir place for aesthetic reasons might ensure that there are multiple sites proposed, then start campaigning on environmental grounds to prevent the necessary roads being bulldozed to the site(s) where E doesn't want the tower: the NIMBY situation can be expressed in terms that everyone else with agree with ("there's a rare butterfly which only breeds in this area. Disrupting the environment would be awful!").
And that's what's happening here: "I don't want a fracking project messing up my backyard, so I'll protest against the stuff required to make that project viable."
The CEO is fully aware of the infrastructure requirements of the project, and if E wasn't concerned about the environmental impacts would otherwise have been proud to have a project nearby because it's a visible sign that the USA is taking responsibility for its own fuel supplies.
On the topic of tortured logic, I would love to know why you don't think the lawsuit[0] is about fracking when it involves water and the infrastructure that supplies it for those activities.
[0] http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/water201402...
This lawsuit is about repeated assurances to the MANY plantiffs that the only plans for the property were for "low rise" (below the tree line) water tanks and the company later deciding to violate existing zoning regulations and seek to built the 160 ft water tank.
Your bias on this issue is only exceeded by your laziness.
He should listen to Exxon and other energy company lawyers and move away from progress if he doesn't like the smell or sight of it.
This is a situation many have to deal with yet are not news-worthy because they are not personally profiting of the types of ventures that they raise lawsuits over.
You can call me a troll for pointing that out as that is your right but you cannot accuse me of altering my comments to askew context, because that is rubbish.
As others have pointed out, the CEO is a hypocrite for wanting to hinder the health of his local economy since he is in a position that directly profits off such ventures. That his luxury home wouldn't be if not for the eminent domain of infrastructural energy works next to residents across the globe. Residents who don't have the money or time to fight his and his company's legion of lawyers.
The heinous act of editing comments to be more grammatically correct or readable is worthy of this type of reaction from you? Of course this isn't Reddit, no one referenced it aside from you. Try to engage the topic instead of pounding sand about unsubstantial edits.
The same situation plays out time and again with cellphone towers. People bitch about poor coverage, but as soon as a tower is going to be installed in their neighbourhood... :-)
Similarly, people buy houses under the foot of airport runways, complain about the noise, and eventually the airports close...
(NIMBY: Not in my backyard)
Though, I do wonder if it isn't completely selfishness, including instead a pinch of resistance to change as part of the social recipe that drives us. In some of my other comments, I've suggested it's entirely greed or selfish motivations, but reflecting on my own experiences, resistance to change fits the bill fairly well. (Excepting financial motivation as partial to the cause, mind you.)
We are creatures of habit, after all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/us/koch-brother-wages-12-y...
Rex Tillerson has denied that fracking is bad for people who are burdened with it in their communities. The Kennedys don't deny that other people may be burdened with the loss of a scenic vista from windmills, they just don't want it to be them.
So, you see, Rex Tillerson is a hypocrite while the Kennedys are merely arrogant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbIe0iUtelQ
Live in that home for 2 weeks, see if you still remain sane.
1) They are the creepiest structures you will ever drive by. They are not beautiful as described above. They are only beautiful to someone who has never been close to one in person. 2) In addition to the flicker you linked to, the sound/vibration from them is constant for those living near them. They are still bad for the people burdened with them in their communities, but because the efficiency of wind power is so low, no one else really benefits from the production of their energy. 3) The investors who put their money into them have an expected 99 year ROI on them. The only reason they went up was for some construction company to get energy credits from the government. 4) Environmentalists have taken to complaining about how the windmills are affecting migration patterns of birds and navigation of bats at night (it screws up their sonar). You can't win with environmentalists. You give in to their desires only to have them place new demands on you. They will never be happy.
I'm 99% certain it's about decreased land values, not any possible environmental issues.
Environmental issues include visual and noise pollution of the property and town. There is no clear line between 'pollution' that is bad for your health and 'pollution' that is just there descreasing the value of your land.
It seems you're commenting solely to split hairs. I think Puer is right.
In Mr. Tillerson's case, it's almost certainly a matter of land value. And probably a little selfishness, i.e. "not in my backyard." Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if his concern was strictly a matter of worth and the dollar value of his property.
At least this "big guy" can afford to live somewhere else.
Imagine having the environmental concerns, and not being able to sell and get away from them.
I don't see where I said this. I'm not even sure what you're arguing with me over.
The point is pretty clear, I think. It has more to do with this individual's greed and probably very little (if any) to do with environmental concerns.
But you're correct that in the quote in Puer's comment the article was talking about water contamination and safety issues.
To be clear I believe that Mr Tillerson is acting in a self interested hypocritical manner and I hope that the big fracking companies lose a significant portion of their real profits to compensation if it turns out that people's health or land values have been damaged by their activities.