Flotsam and Jetsam - A Day Late and a Dollar Short

I didn't do a lot of due diligence yesterday, thanks to a fishing trip, so let's see how far I get today before throwing my hands up in disgust.

KT at Hat Hair is disgusted by Biden's Thanksgiving hypocrisy, Biden Calls for Unity as his White House Released Thanksgiving Guide on ‘Crazy MAGA Nonsense’. Nick Arama at TownHall is thankful for Biden Being Heckled by Protesters in Nantucket Before Dining at Curiously-Named Restaurant, Brotherhood of Thieves, fittingly enough. Atop Da Hill, 5 questions looming over President Biden at Thanksgiving. At NYPo, the divine Ms. Devine wants you to Meet the Iranian-born Biden military aide reportedly under investigation for major influence campaign: ‘Clear and present danger.’ At The Wombat's In The Mailbox: 11.24.23, Director Blue: Mark Levin – Congress Must Investigate The Traitor Anthony Blinken and from Behind the Black, Real pushback: Soldiers punished by Biden for refusing jab now sue for billions. 

At Da Caller, Biden Admin Preparing To Finalize Barrage Of Methane Regulations, banning beans? Hat Hair's Dave Strom explores  Biden's Clean Energy Scam Fund.  Monica Showalter at Am Think reports Kamala Harris poses for Thanksgiving photo in front of a gas stove "What is it about food and kitchens that brings out Kamala Harris's inner phony?" What's "inner" about it. The Free Bacon reports the Biden Admin Gave $3 Billion Loan to Solar Company Accused of Scamming Elderly. "'Ripping off old people': Over 50 consumer complaints filed against Sunnova in Texas since last year." Buck Throckmorton at Aces THE MORNING RANT: Garbage Inflation Data – The Government’s Official Inflation Rate Includes a Laughable 34% Reduction in Consumer Health Insurance Costs Over the Past 12 Months "Have you heard the great news about inflation falling? The Biden administration is heavily promoting the storyline that inflation is low again, and trying to insinuate that the falling inflation rate means that prices are actually decreasing. The obedient regime media is playing along. Here is just one example last week from CNN." Althouse catch the WaPoo spinning inflation, "Even though he had ordered a novelty item, Olive’s video about a $16 McDonald’s order went viral, racking up hundreds of thousands of views." From "The viral $16 McDonald’s meal that may explain voter anger at Biden/As some Democrats fear social media is exaggerating economic problems, the White House faces a crucial choice on election strategy" (WaPo). The argument for censorship oozes between the lines: "TikTok abounds with misleading or inaccurate information about the economy.... [Some] economists fear that these exaggerated stories will ultimately lead to a worse outcome — perhaps helping Trump win reelection...." From the Wombat's In The Mailbox: 11.23.22 (Thanksgiving Edition)  Louder With Crowder spots Woman Has Epic Melt Down Over Gas Prices, Yet Believes The Christian Right Is To Blame For Some Odd Reason. At Da Wire, Gavin Newsom Implies Inflation Pains Are A Conservative Lie. WSJ, Voters See American Dream Slipping Out of Reach, WSJ/NORC Poll Shows, "Fewer believe that anyone who works hard can get ahead."

TNP has another poll that suggests  RFK’s Presidential Bid Hurts Trump More Than Biden. I still think it's an open question. Matt Margolis at PJM hears Tucker Carlson Makes Grave Prediction for 2024... And He’s Probably Right. Democrats will pull out all the stops to stop Trump, even more than 2020. Like the ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." Althouse is intrigued by Oliver Stone's comment to Bill Maher, ""I mean, do you know for a fact that [Trump] lost? I'm just curious," said Oliver Stone. "I just don't know all of the facts." Ace, Oliver Stone Tells Bill Maher The 2020 Election May Have Been Falsified. "Bill Maher is an NPC who pays for sex." Nobody can independently verify everything of interest. As some level we all rely on others for most of our knowledge, and biases absolutely play a major role in who we choose to accept information from. Don Surber attempts to explain How Republicans win "It’s the economy, stupid, and the stupid immigration policy." And cleaning up voting, too.

At OAN, Ethics Panel Votes Against Probing Rep. Bowman’s Pulled Fire Alarm Inquiry. Marty Walsh at the Conservative Brief notes Schiff Facing Accusations About Primary Residence As He Runs For Senate In CA. Will he take over as Maryland's third Senator?

Jim Robbins at Am Spec, Liberals Bizarrely Rewrite History to Slam Trump "Resurrecting this dormant constitutional provision is a greater threat to democracy than Jan. 6." Nicole Silvero at Da Caller reports New York City Mayor Eric Adams Accused Of Sexual Assault, but will he be sued for slander when he denies it?

From The Wombat's In The Mailbox: 11.24.23, Tim Rivers is thinking about what's slowing down Taking Action on J6 Video Footage. How can you reasonably deal with 14000 hours of video?  I was thinking about some kind of time and space database. 

At Twitchy, Classy As Ever: Michael Hayden Tweets His Contempt For Americans During Thanksgiving Week. They really do hate (and fear) us. Chris Queen at PJM, Here's Proof That Atlanta's 'Cop City' Protesters Were Domestic Terrorists

Nate Hochman at Am Con says End the Twitter Gulag "Uncertainty about standards itself serves a censoring function.  Just over a year into Elon Musk’s hostile takeover of Twitter (now X), the social media platform’s approach to regulating speech is no less arbitrary than it was when Musk assumed control in October 2022. There have, however, been real victories for free speech and for the political right more broadly. While Musk’s most loyal fans tend to ignore or downplay his failures, his critics often understate his successes." From Zero Hedge, "Guess We're Not Dead Yet": New Traffic Data Shows Musk's X Surpasses Instagram And Facebook.

From NYPo, Pro-Palestinian protesters glue their hands to 6th Avenue, disrupting Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Spencer Brown at TownHall,  Here's What Happened When Pro-Hamas Agitators Tried to Shut Down the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. "Booing from the crowd made it pretty clear that the goal expressed by some agitators to "shut down" the entire parade failed, thankfully."   Ace, Macy’s Day Parade in NY Interrupted by Climate / Anti-Israel / Pro-Terror Activists, "No surprise here, although I do love how it’s the same people protesting both climate and Gaza interchangeably. If this were 5 years ago, gluten would be one of their grievances too." Twitchy notes Grimace was Unmoved by Pro-Hamas Protesters Coming Unglued at Parade.

From the College Fix, USC professor banished from campus after anti-Hamas comments go viral. Greg Lukianoff at Insty says THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN AT EVERY UNIVERSITY, EVERY TIME: “Every time there is a shout-down, a de-platforming, or a canceling on campus, the school needs to do an investigation asking two questions: Did administrators do anything to stop it? Did administrators do anything to encourage it? Failing at the first should get an administrator in trouble. Failing at the second should get them fired.” Bob Spencer at PJM, Leftists and Antisemites Are Discovering That Islam Is Just the Thing for Them. At Hat Hair, Salena Zito notices that for some reason Community Colleges and Trade Schools Are Largely Void of Israel-Hamas Protests. Hat Hair's John Sexton claims Anti-Racists Dropped by CAA Over Anti-Semitic Comments. You should really explain acronyms early in the article, (Creative Artists Agency).

Mary Chastain at LI, ‘They Control Everything’: North Carolina Democrat Unleashes Antisemitic Rant Against Jewish Caucus, If the Democratic Party caves to it, that’s the end of the Democratic Party. We’re not Democrats, we’re the Jewish Caucus. We’re a Zionist group. Because they control everything.” The Israel Hamas war as has really put the Democrat party in a pickle over which of their interest groups to pander to. 

Campus Reform reports a Prof at a public college assigned students ‘The Baby Jesus Butt Plug’ as mandatory reading. "Smith said he had also allowed students to vote on which books would be assigned reading for the Comic Spirit class which is part of the upper-division comparative literature curriculum at the California public school." Jazz Shaw at Hat Hair notes how Another Trans Swimmer Breaks Women's Record. "Similarly echoing Lia Thomas, Cortez-Fields spent three years swimming for the men’s team, apparently not setting any records or distinguishing himself. Then, after making the “switch,” he’s suddenly setting records and winning competitions. And since the “transition” happened so recently, he obviously went through full male puberty years ago and developed all of the natural advantages that males have over females."  The College Fix claims Ohio State University prioritized DEI over merit in hiring, documents show. 

Linked at The Pirate's Cove in the weekly Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup and links. 

Pennsylvania to Get $25M for Cow Farts

WESA (Pittsburgh) Penn State study aims to help Pa. dairy farmers cut methane — and show carbon offsets are real

A team at Penn State received a $25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study reduction in dairy farm methane emissions by using what the agency calls “climate-smart” practices.

The research will include 70 farms across Pennsylvania that will be selected with help from the Center for Dairy Excellence, a nonprofit created by the state agriculture department. Those will include farms of various sizes and owned by underrepresented groups to help identify methods that work best for them.

The goal is to provide measurable reductions in methane emissions from cows. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

 

The reductions can be used as carbon credits in the products the farms produce. The credits could be used by companies or retailers purchasing the products as a means to meet their climate goals.

According to Dr. Katherine Zipp, an associate professor of environmental and resource economics at Penn State, there is market potential for this. “Consumers have shown that they’re willing to pay for carbon offsets,” she said.

Jayne Sebright, the executive director at the Center, notes dairy farmers are interested in using methods that could cut emissions. “It’ll impact these farms significantly in helping them meet that challenge of becoming climate-smart farms, like, really mitigating their carbon footprint,” she said.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Eri Yoshida up on time and under budget at The Other McCain.

The Monday Morning Stimulus

WUWT, Claim: Plastic Coffee Cup Ban Might Increase Methane Emissions  'Having fought hard to ban plastic coffee cups, Aussie greens have realised solving plastic pollution with compostable cups might increase greenhouse gas emissions.'

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Elena Santarelli up on time and under budget at The Other McCain. 

Is Somebody Farting on Mars?

It must be Dejah Thoris and her crowd! Curiosity Detects Unusually High Methane Levels

This week, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover found a surprising result: the largest amount of methane ever measured during the mission — about 21 parts per billion units by volume (ppbv). One ppbv means that if you take a volume of air on Mars, one billionth of the volume of air is methane.

The finding came from the rover’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) tunable laser spectrometer. It’s exciting because microbial life is an important source of methane on Earth, but methane can also be created through interactions between rocks and water.

Curiosity doesn’t have instruments that can definitively say what the source of the methane is, or even if it’s coming from a local source within Gale Crater or elsewhere on the planet.

“With our current measurements, we have no way of telling if the methane source is biology or geology, or even ancient or modern,” said SAM Principal Investigator Paul Mahaffy of NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Curiosity team has detected methane many times over the course of the mission. Previous papers have documented how background levels of the gas seem to rise and fall seasonally. They’ve also noted sudden spikes of methane, but the science team knows very little about how long these transient plumes last or why they’re different from the seasonal patterns.
The SAM team organized a different experiment for this weekend to gather more information on what might be a transient plume. Whatever they find — even if it’s an absence of methane — will add context to the recent measurement.

Curiosity’s scientists need time to analyze these clues and conduct many more methane observations. They also need time to collaborate with other science teams, including those with the European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter, which has been in its science orbit for a little over a year without detecting any methane. Combining observations from the surface and from orbit could help scientists locate sources of the gas on the planet and understand how long it lasts in the Martian atmosphere. That might explain why the Trace Gas Orbiter’s and Curiosity’s methane observations have been so different.

For more information about Curiosity, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html
https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/

Personally, I suspect that all planets have deep reserves of methane from when the planetismals and asteroids that they coalesced from, and from more recent comet impacts. But I keep hoping for life on Mars, with a distinctive non-DNA form of genetics.

Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Cheryl Ann Tweedy working toward your amusement and education.

Another Fracking Study . . .

. . . That shows no influence of fracking on pollution of nearby ground waters: The Study You Won’t Be Hearing About: No Impact On Groundwater From Fracking

Now a different study conducted in Ohio on the Utica shale play has been completed and published. They were looking for evidence of natural gas methane (CH4) in the drinking water near fracking sites which might be traced back to the drilling process. In order to identify the origins of any CH4 detected in the ground, they employed radiocarbon dating of the samples to determine if the compounds had come from the drilling sites or were biogenic, naturally occurring methane. Baseline testing was done prior to any drilling and continued during and well after the drilling was done. Once again, they found no evidence of contamination. The study results are posted at the Springer research material repository. (Emphasis added)

Here, we present the results of a free public water testing program in the Utica Shale of Ohio, where we measured CH4 concentration, CH4 stable isotopic composition, and pH and conductivity along temporal and spatial gradients of hydraulic fracturing activity. Dissolved CH4 ranged from 0.2 μg/L to 25 mg/L, and stable isotopic measurements indicated a predominantly biogenic carbonate reduction CH4 source. Radiocarbon dating of CH4 in combination with stable isotopic analysis of CH4 in three samples indicated that fossil C substrates are the source of CH4 in groundwater, with one 14C date indicative of modern biogenic carbonate reduction.
We found no relationship between CH4 concentration or source in groundwater and proximity to active gas well sites. No significant changes in CH4 concentration, CH4 isotopic composition, pH, or conductivity in water wells were observed during the study period. These data indicate that high levels of biogenic CH4 can be present in groundwater wells independent of hydraulic fracturing activity and affirm the need for isotopic or other fingerprinting techniques for CH4 source identification.

Another attack frequently launched by the “keep it in the ground” crowd consists of questioning the bias of the study participants or the source of funding. This testing was done on a completely independent basis and the funding came from two sources. One was the David & Sara Weston Foundation, a group whose mission is to, “enrich and strengthen underserved communities in… the arts, environmental conservation and social services.” Additional funding was provided by a grant from the Deer Creek Foundation, which seeks to “enrich the cultural and artistic quality of life in the St. Louis metropolitan area.”

In other words, we’re not talking about flunkies for ExxonMobil here.

Alas, you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

Paging Dr. Frankenstein!

Or should that be Dr. Frankensteen: Scientists Hope Mammoth 'De-extinction' Will Save Earth H/T Watts Up With That

Scientists hope to create a genetically engineered elephant-mammoth hybrid and send it to the Arctic to prevent a so-called “methane time-bomb,” which could cause widespread environmental devastation.

The team at Harvard University believes the hardy animals could one day be released in the vast tundra and boreal stretches of North America and Eurasia. They plan to publish their first paper on the subject in the coming months, The Telegraph reported.

May I suggest introducing them to Central Park in New York first, as a trial run?

Scientists fear that the absence of large mammals pressing down and scraping back thick layers of winter snow in the region prevents the cold from penetrating the soil. Combined with warmer summers, the Arctic permafrost is melting. As a result, the frozen soil, packed with leaves and other organic materials that haven't decayed, will become exposed, releasing carbon into the atmosphere in the form of the greenhouse gasses carbon dioxide and methane.

The so called Arctic Time Bomb hypothesis is  highly implausible; Dr Judith Curry:

"The plausibility of Wadhams’ scenario rests on two assumptions:

• the ‘spiral of death’ loss of arctic sea ice
• connection of the sea ice loss to a massive release of methane hydrates into the atmosphere on the time scale of a decade

Each of these assumptions is highly implausible, based upon my understanding; the combination of these two assumptions into a single scenario seems impossible to me."

This threat is widely known as the “methane timebomb," which would create levels of carbon equivalent to burning all of the world’s forests two-and-a-half times over.

As part of a research project world-renowned Harvard geneticist George Church has led for over a decade, the team has taken 44 mammoth genes that became uncovered when ice melted in Siberia.

Genes were uncovered? Heck, they have entire frozen and or mummified mammoths. They ought to be able to get a lot more than 44 genes. By comparison, humans have 19,000 - 20,000 genes, so 44 is a drop in the bucket.

These will be spliced into the Asian elephant genome. Scientists hope the result, which is still many years away if possible at all, will be an elephant with mammoth traits, including blood adapted to the cold, long hair and thick layers of fat that will allow it to live further north.

So, it's not really going to be mammoth, it will be an Indian Elephant with a few modifications that make it look and behave kind of like a mammoth

In other parts of the world, the hybrid animal could save ecosystems threatened by the potential extinction of its close relative the Asian elephant. To prevent poachers from targeting the creature it will be edited to not grow tusks, and will also be able to stomach a wider variety of plants, Professor Church told The Telegraph.

I doubt a mammoth without tusks would be viable ecologically. All the elephants have them, it's pretty clear that evolution has found that they are important to the niche these animals fill.

Paging Dr. Frankenstein!



Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Crash Test Girl" up and running at The Other McCain.

Reason #5893 - 5897 That Trump Was Elected

5 things Trump did this week while you weren't looking

It was a week of typically unpredictable headlines in the Donald Trump presidency: One of the president’s closest advisors resigned; Trump announced his support for gun-control proposals on national TV only to walk back his position a day later; and he surprised his staff by announcing major tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, possibly precipitating a trade war.

For all that commotion, gun control policies still look dead on Capitol Hill and the tariffs haven’t actually been implemented yet. Outside the spotlight, however, the Trump agenda has steadily marched forward, as his cabinet appointees—from Betsy DeVos as the Department of Education to Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency—continued to impress a new conservative agenda on their agencies. And there are some curveballs in the mix as well, such as a move back toward Obama’s labor rules. Here’s how Trump changed policy this week:

1. The Department of Education boosts charter schools, lightens civil-rights scrutiny . . .

2. In Mexico, Trump’s trade agenda moves forward . . .

3. EPA weakens a rule on methane emissions . . .

4. Treasury closes a loophole in the tax law  . . .(carried interest)

5. After a reversal of a reversal, an Obama labor policy survives

Four out of five ain't that bad. One of the reasons the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) are always so furious at Trump is that he is slowly but surely wearing away much of the damage they have done in the past 8 years. To them, none of this is good, and they won't report on it as good, if they report on it at all.

Reason #5781 That Trump Was Elected

Those Obama Era Methane Regulations? Nevermind

It’s a subject which has been dragging on in the courts for several years now, but it may finally be coming to a close. While the Obama administration was in charge of the Department of the Interior there was a move to impose new methane regulations on any drilling taking place on federal lands. This led to a number of lawsuits from groups such as the American Petroleum Institute which kept bringing up inconvenient facts such as how the government was violating their own rules for introducing new regulations and that the science behind the government’s claims was mostly bunk.

This week, however, things changed once again. With a new announcement from the Bureau of Land Management (which falls under the Interior Department), as Emily Litella might say… never mind. (Reuters)

The Trump administration will delay an Obama-era rule limiting emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane from oil and gas operations on federal and tribal lands, it said on Thursday, a move slammed by environmentalists.
The Bureau of Land Management, an office of the Department of Interior, will officially suspend the rule on Friday to “avoid imposing likely considerable and immediate compliance costs on operators for requirements that may be rescinded or significantly revised in the near future,” it said in a document to be published on Friday.
Implementation will be delayed one year until Jan. 17, 2019.
Energy companies say the rule, finalized at the end of the Obama administration, could cost them tens of thousands of dollars per well, and some driller groups had sued the previous administration.

The two key phrases here to watch are, “delayed by one year” and, more to the point, “requirements that may be rescinded or significantly revised in the near future.” In other words, at some point between now and January of 2019 that new rule is almost certainly going away or being changed to match scientific reality. (My money is on the latter.)

I'm not seeing the problem here even assuming methane is a significant greenhouse gas:

If these new rules were enacted it wouldn’t do much, if anything, to reduce methane levels from drilling. If they want to go after methane emissions, they’ll need to start going around and putting corks in the cows’ butts. Perhaps they can talk to the folks in California who are already doing that. Okay… they’re not literally putting corks in animal orifices, but they are regulating the beef and dairy industry in terms of bovine methane emissions.

California is taking its fight against global warming to the farm. The nation’s leading agricultural state is now targeting greenhouse gases produced by dairy cows and other livestock.
Despite strong opposition from farmers, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation in September that for the first time regulates heat-trapping gases from livestock operations and landfills.
Cattle and other farm animals are major sources of methane, a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide as a heat-trapping gas. Methane is released when they belch, pass gas and make manure.

See? You really can’t make this stuff up. They’re regulating cow flatulence. California is truly a wonder to behold.

Why has no one targeted landfills? Too urban? Hate to make city people pay for their messes?

Oregon, My Oregon!

Great state for natural beauty, but full of fruits and nuts, mostly from California: Oregon Seeks To Regulate ‘Dangerous, Preventable’ Cow Farts

The state of Oregon is considering legislation to regulate farting. Cow farts, that is. Advocates of the bill argue that government regulation of cow farts, or “dairy emissions” as they call them, is a commonsense measure to prevent global warming and the safety of the public.

Citing the dangers of bovine flatulence, a spokesperson for Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility stated that cow farts are dangerously unregulated and preventable. According to a letter sent to the Senate Committee on Environmental and Natural Resources, in addition to smelling bad and causing global warming, cow farts can irritate your eyes, cause memory loss, and even death. These are all good things to keep in mind the next time you find yourself eye-level with the business end of a cow. You won’t even remember what killed you.

What else can you expect from a state that makes it illegal to pump your own gas or whistle underwater (don’t knock it till you’ve tried it)? Senate Bill 197 is in response to the construction of new industrial dairy operations that would house 30,000 cows, produce 210,000 gallons of milk daily, employee up to 150 people in an economically disadvantaged area, and be the second largest dairy operation in the state. In a county where the average yearly income is just around $20,000, this dairy operation would invest $50 million into the local economy every year. . . 

California Addresses the All Important Issue of Cow Farts

California targets dairy cows to combat global warming

The nation's leading agricultural state is now targeting greenhouse gases produced by dairy cows and other livestock.

Despite strong opposition from farmers, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation in September that for the first time regulates heat-trapping gases from livestock operations and landfills.

Cattle and other farm animals are major sources of methane, a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide as a heat-trapping gas. Methane is released when they belch, pass gas and make manure.

"If we can reduce emissions of methane, we can really help to slow global warming," said Ryan McCarthy, a science adviser for the California Air Resources Board, which is drawing up rules to implement the new law.

Livestock are responsible for 14.5 percent of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, with beef and dairy production accounting for the bulk of it, according to a 2013 United Nations report.

Ranching cattle has a long history in California, as it was the primary land use under the Spanish, and then the Mexican colonization.

Yes, methane is a greenhouse gas, and more potent than CO2, but it has a short lifetime in the atmosphere by comparison, and its concentration is so much lower that it constitutes a small fraction of the greenhouse atmospheric forcing. Because of it's short term persistence in the atmosphere, concentrations are not rising especially rapidly, and if anything, it's rate of increase is declining.

Can we forbid politicians from producing methane, or at least ration them?

Obama Admin Proposes Rule Against Lighting Farts

Well, really big ones: U.S. finalizes rule to limit gas ‘flaring’ at drilling sites

With two months left in President Barack Obama’s term, his administration issued a rule Tuesday intended to clamp down on oil companies that burn off natural gas on public lands.

The new rule seeks to reduce waste and harmful methane emissions as part of a strategy to address climate change. But a new Republican administration under President-elect Donald Trump could reconsider the rule or even scrap it, although any effort to do so would likely take months.
. . .
Energy companies frequently “flare” or burn off vast supplies of natural gas at drilling sites because it makes less money than oil. A government report said an estimated 40 percent of the gas being flared or vented could be captured economically and sold.

I'm quite confident that if it could be recovered and sold, the companies would be doing it, government report not withstanding. They're not fools throwing away money deliberately.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said the new rule updates 30-year-old drilling regulations to meet modern standards and ensure that natural gas is used to power the economy — not wasted by being burned into the atmosphere. The rule is set to take effect in mid-January — days before Mr. Obama leaves office.

It's always amusing how administrations find the need for onerous regulations in the last two months before the change over to new administration, particularly one from the opposing party, after having let the issue slide for 7 years and 10 months.

“This rule to prevent waste of our nation’s natural gas supplies is good government, plain and simple,” Ms. Jewell said in a statement. “We are proving that we can cut harmful methane emissions that contribute to climate change, while putting in place standards that make good economic sense for the nation.”

Congressional Republicans vowed to overturn the rule, calling it a “midnight regulation” that will drive away jobs from federal land in the West.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a letter to Mr. Obama that lawmakers will review all regulations issued in the next two months and overturn them if appropriate.

If you're really worried about global warming, you should be in favor of the companies flaring off the methane that's too expensive to capture. Methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and converting it to CO2 prematurely is preemptively much better that releasing it intact. While I'm all for catching this gas and using it, this rule is not primarily about saving the planet, it's about attacking America's energy providers.

And, if Washington is so intent on saving the lost gas, maybe they should look a closer to home as well:  Researchers find nearly 6,000 natural gas leaks in District’s aging pipe system

Do Chesapeake Bay Farts Cause Global Warming?

Estuaries like Chesapeake Bay could contribute more to global warming than once thought

Estuaries and coastal systems are thought to be a relatively small source of atmospheric methane, as little as 3%. However, a new study from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) found that the methane building up in the Chesapeake Bay alone, if released, would be equal to the current estimates for all the estuaries in the world combined.

"This is just one estuary and there are many others that go anoxic in the summertime," said study author Laura Lapham of UMCES' Chesapeake Biological Laboratory. "We need to look at these eutrophic estuaries as perhaps a larger source of methane than we thought. This is a side effect of eutrophication that hasn't been investigated in the Bay."

Like many bodies of water, the Chesapeake Bay is overwhelmed with nutrients that cause a type of pollution called eutrophication. Every spring, an influx of nitrogen and phosphorus from lawns, farms, and sewage treatment plants runs into the water of the Bay. These nutrients feed algae as the water warms up in the summer, causing blooms that suck the oxygen out of the water, causing large areas of low oxygen (hypoxia), known as "dead zones," that make it difficult for fish, crabs and other underwater life to live. Some areas closer to the bottom and in the surface layers of the mud may suffer from no oxygen at all (anoxic) during these periods.

Since dead zones in the coastal ocean and estuaries are expanding throughout the world, Lapham decided to look at the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the United States, to understand what happens to methane release in a body of water that undergoes dead zones on a regular basis.

"We wanted to capture the dynamic nature of oxygen and methane concentrations in one of the most well-known eutrophic estuaries," said Lapham. "We found that places like the Chesapeake Bay could be a more significant input of methane to the atmosphere than we thought."

I've seen methane bubble out of the sediments in the mainstem of the Bay, usually about this time of the year, as the water warms, and fresh organic carbon deposited from spring blooms starts to decay in the sediments. You can see them clearly rising on the depth finder, and breaking the surface.

If the Bay, and by extension, other estuaries are a bigger part of the methane budget than previously predicted, that part of the problem is already included in budgets, just not accounted for properly. Methane production in the Bay, and in other estuaries in the civilized world are likely to get better as nutrient pollution controls cut down the organic carbon production that fuels methane production.

I'm not waking up nights worried about the contribution of methane to global warming, although it was a little sweaty last night. Methane inputs into the atmosphere aren't very high compared to carbon dioxide, although it is a more powerful green house gas, and it's not rising particularly rapidly.

Project 'Mohole' Resurrected

Even when I was a young child, first interested in oceanography, scientists were talking about doing this: Quest to drill into Earth’s mantle restarts

In early December, the drill ship JOIDES Resolution will depart Colombo, Sri Lanka, and head for a spot in the southwestern Indian Ocean known as Atlantis Bank. There, it will lower a drill bit and try to screw it through 1.5 kilometres of rock, collecting a core sample as it goes. If all goes well, future expeditions — not yet scheduled or funded — will return and finalize the push into the mantle (see ‘Deep understanding’).

Normally, the crust–mantle boundary is thought to be marked by a feature known as the Mohorovičić discontinuity, or ‘Moho’, at which seismic waves change velocity. But at Atlantis Bank, the mantle is thought to bubble up as far as 2.5 kilometres above the Moho, making it easier to reach.

Reaching these deep-Earth frontiers “is one of the great scientific endeavours of the century”, says Henry Dick, a geophysicist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and co-leader of the expedition.

The original attempt was a classic SNAFU:

Scientists first tried to reach the Moho in the middle of the twentieth century. In the 1960s, US scientists led ‘Project Mohole’, which drilled into the sea floor off Guadalupe Island, Mexico. The project reached a depth of just 183 metres before costs ballooned and Congress killed it.

Modern oil drilling goes far deeper than that. The technology has increased dramatically since the 60s.

Scientists already know what they expect to find there:

Ancient Moho zones are exposed above-ground in numerous ophiolites around the world.

But back to the article:

Dick knows that it is possible to reach his preliminary goal of 1.5 kilometres, because he has done it before. In 1997, he led an expedition to Atlantis Bank that got that deep before disaster struck: the pipe snapped off in high winds, corkscrewed down inside the hole and plugged it up. “We’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen this time,” he says.

Along the way, researchers hope to explore not just geology, but biology, too. Geological mapping suggests that seawater may have percolated several kilometres deep at Atlantis Bank, triggering chemical reactions that turn the rock into a type known as serpentinite. These reactions generate methane, a gas that sub-sea-floor microbes often munch for energy. JOIDES Resolution scientists will be checking the rock cores for microorganisms, says Virginia Edgcomb, a microbiologist at Woods Hole who will be on the cruise.

OK, I didn't know that; chemical reactions producing methane? Does that imply an abiological source for some, or much of the natural gas on earth?

Beano for Bovines

Chemical Curbs Cow Farts

Know what really stinks? The gas that livestock such as cattle release during digestion. These animals produce a quarter of the anthropogenic methane in the U.S.

Do we get to subtract off the share of methane that was produced by bison (basically big, mean cows) out of the share accounted as anthropogenic? I mean, if we're going to be blamed for the share created by the cows we grow, at least we should get credit for the 30,000,0000 that we removed.

What doesn’t stink is that Pennsylvania State University researchers, led by Alexander N. Hristrov, have now demonstrated that feeding 3-nitrooxypropanol (3NOP) to dairy cows over a 12-week period reduces the animals’ methane emissions by 30% (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA2015, DOI: 1073/pnas.1504124112). 3NOP inhibits methyl coenzyme-M reductase, an enzyme used by bacteria in a cow’s gut.

These symbiotic bacteria produce methane when they help cows digest grass and other fiber-rich foods in the animals’ diet. To test the possibility of mitigating this production without disrupting a cow’s digestion, Hristov and his colleagues mixed additives containing three different concentrations of 3NOP as well as a placebo additive into cattle feed. Then they administered it to 48 Holstein cows for three months.

The rate of methane emission fell in all the animals, except for those receiving the placebo. Scientists have discovered several other methane production inhibitors, but 3NOP appears to be the first to achieve a meaningful effect while being safe for cows’ health and the environment.

I wonder if it works for people too?

Gaea to Man: Pull My Finger!

‘Widespread methane leakage’ coming from hundreds of vents off East Coast ocean floor

Of all the global warming gasses, methane is one of the very worst. Pound for pound, the Environmental Protection Agency says its effect on global warming is 20 times greater than that of carbon dioxide. And though its lifetime in the atmosphere is substantially shorter than carbon dioxide, it’s “more efficient at trapping radiation.”

I've seen the number quoted as anywhere from 20 to 300, but the trend seems to be downward. The reason it's supposed to be 20 times worse is because it absorbs radiation more efficiently. Redundancy for the sake of alarm, or merely the reporters ignorance? I'll let you decide.

Now scientists have determined that 570 vents, called seeps, are leaking methane gas in the most unlikely of all places: the ocean floor just off the East Coast. The findings, published on Sunday in Nature Geoscience, suggest they’re emitting as much as 90 tons of greenhouse gasses every year and appear to debunk earlier belief that there were only three East Coast seeps beyond the continental shelf.

And if there are more of these seeps — a lot more — it could represent a previously unknown source of damaging carbon emissions.

So surely, if this is a great threat to global climate it's caused by man, right?

. . . the seeps aren’t fresh ones. “The fact that it’s there in the quantities that it is — and [that] it is exposed — suggests that indeed the processes at these locations have been going on … at least 1,000 years,” Skarke told NBC News. He said he didn’t visit all the seeps, with the most concentrated clusters apparently located off the Chesapeake Bay, but “the ones we visited suggest a very prolonged seepage.”

1000 years?  I guess we can blame the carbon policies of Æthelred the Unready.

How widespread are the seeps?

The finding raises a number of questions. First on the list: Are there a lot more? The paper says the discovery suggests “tens of thousands” of similar vents could pockmark the ocean floor, emitting vast quantities of methane gas. He told the BBC that their number could be as high as 30,000.

Gaea ate a mighty big burrito. But the good news is, it's probably not going to affect the climate after all (any more than it has the last 1000 years):

There is one bit of good news: The depth of the East Coast seeps are so deep that the methane gas isn’t likely reaching the atmosphere. “The methane is dissolving into the ocean at depths of hundreds of meters and being oxidized into” carbon dioxide, Skarke told the BBC. “But it is important to say we simply don’t have any evidence in this paper to suggest that any carbon coming from these seeps is entering the atmosphere.”

Methane, whether from deep oceans seeps or fracking, simply doesn't make it anywhere near to the list of things that keep me awake at night. While, molecule for molecule, methane may be a much more powerful green house gas than CO2, it's concentration (approximately 1900 ppb) is so much lower than CO2s (~400 ppm) that it amounts to a small fraction of any greenhouse warming. Furthermore, it doesn't appear to rising anywhere near as fast as CO2.

Finally, and this can't be said often enough or loud enough, the world hasn't warmed in the last 17, approaching 18 years, according to the satellite data.

EPA: Fracking Better Than Cow Farts

Cows A More Serious Climate Change Threat than Shale Gas

America’s cows now have a bigger impact on climate change than the country’s burgeoning shale gas industry. That’s according to a recent EPA report assessing the current state of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. The Breakthrough Institute has more:

Fugitive emissions of methane continued their decline last year, according to the latest draft Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory released annually by the EPA. Methane leakage from the natural gas system in particular has plummeted, dropping 40.4 percent between 2006 and 2012. Thanks to this progress, natural gas systems are no longer the largest emitter of methane, a position now held by enteric fermentation (methane from cattle and other livestock).
Though EPA notes that the initial expansion of hydraulic fracturing operations drove natural gas system emissions up to record levels, this trend peaked in 2006. Absolute emissions from the natural gas system in 2012 were also 16.9 percent lower than 1990 levels, while total natural gas production increased by 40 percent over the same period. [Emphasis added]

The environmental movement has long pointed to so-called “fugitive” methane emissions from natural gas extraction and transportation in their arguments against the recent shale revolution. Methane is a particular potent greenhouse gas, which means pipeline or well casing leaks can have outsized consequences for climate change. But a 2012 study of methane emissions, on which many greens based their anti-fracking arguments, had critical methodological flaws. We’re still refining our understanding of fugitive emissions, but it seems clear now that the climate dangers of shale gas were overstated.

But what about the estimated 60 million Bison in the northern hemisphere prior to the settlement of Europeans?  Bison are basically big cows, and have the same methanogenic digestion. Do we at least get to take credit for largely eliminating that threat to the worlds delicate climate?

I'm not particularly sanguine about the threats of methane to the climate.  Despite it's power as a greenhouse gas, estimated at about 25 times more powerful than CO2 on a 100 year basis, methane concentrations are not currently increasing at anywhere near the rate of CO2 despite drastically increased natural gas production:

Moreover, if the government were really worried about methane emissions, they could do something about all the natural gas leaks in Washington D.C. and other cities.

Methane Fails To Meet Walarmist Fears

Study: methane leaks aren’t significant enough to negate value of natural gas

There’s a lot of hullabaloo recently about Natural Gas being too leaky to be a good substitute for coal. The claim is based on the fact that methane has a much larger GHG potential than carbon dioxide. But, the study those claims are based on can be interpreted two ways. I tend to think that the leak issue might be overblown, because if you are a producer, leaks mean money literally going into thin air. There’s a high incentive to fix leaks. Abandoned oil and gas wells, cited in the study, would of course be an exception.

The other reason is the IPCC, which produced this graph in the AR5 draft showing that methane just isn’t cooperating with models, and measurements are out of bounds with projections. Methane just doesn't seem to be much of a problem:

Methane is estimated to be about 30 x more powerful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas (although that is an approximation, because methane and CO2 absorb infrared in different wavelengths and are not directly comparable), so that apparently miniscule concentrations can make for a change.  Note though, that despite a rapid  growth in natural gas production, the concentration in the atmosphere is rising relatively slowly.  The approximately 50 ppb increase in methand from 2000 to 2012 would translate to an increase in CO2 of 1.5 ppm CO2, approximately the same as one year of CO2 increase.

Remember this the next time some anti-fracking freak cites methane emissions as his/her excuse for opposing a United State energy program relying on natural gas from fracking.

A new study published in the journal Science says that the total impact of switching to natural gas depends heavily on leakage of methane (CH4) during the natural gas life cycle, and suggests that more can be done to reduce methane emissions and to improve measurement tools which help inform policy choices.

Published in the February 14 issue of Science, the study, “Methane Leaks from North American Natural Gas Systems,” presents a first effort to systematically compare North American emissions estimates at scales ranging from device-level to continental atmospheric studies. Because natural gas emits less carbon dioxide during combustion than other fossil fuels, it has been looked to as a ‘bridge’ fuel to a lower carbon energy system.

“With this study and our larger body of work focusing on natural gas and our transforming energy economy, we offer policymakers and investors a solid analytical foundation for decision making,” said Doug Arent, executive director of the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) and a co-author to the study. “While we found that official inventories tend to under-estimate total methane leakage, leakage rates are unlikely to be high enough to undermine the climate benefits of gas versus coal.”