Energy crisis is postponed as new gas rescues the world - Telegraph

Very interesting article summing up the string of oil and gas reserve discoveries, as well as the advancement of technology that allows oil extraction from previously inaccessible geologic formations.  The forecast for global transfer of wealth OUT of Europe and the United States into Russia and the middle east, as well as the Peak Oil predictions themselves, will have to be revised significantly upward – that is, the West will have sufficient supply at current usage rates, for another sixty years.  The article is from the Telegraph UK:

Energy crisis is postponed as new gas rescues the world – Telegraph

 

Technorati Tags: Peak Oil,Oil and Gas,Energy,Gas,Transfer of Wealth,Middle East

'Ira' Spring Mountain of Trouble by Seattle Times Columnist Danny Westneat

I always enjoy Mr. Westneat’s writing and have at least twice agreed with him.  Once was at a poker game when I got him a beer and he said something like: “You’re alright, Tom”.  Though I admit I was on the verge of revoking my agreement because my name is Mike.  But then, who needs to be THAT hung up about names?  Curious?  I hope so, because if not you’ll miss this gem of a column by selfsame Danny Westneat. If you have the stomach for it, after reading Danny’s column, come back and read below the link to see what I think.  Wait!  I saw you thinking of just looking now, but trust me, Danny is the professional writer here, not me, so you’ll want to read him first.  The most intelligent of my readers will read him solely. 

Danny Westneat | 'Ira' Spring Mountain of trouble | Seattle Times Newspaper

I know that without a naming board we'd have even more strife over trivial matters (in the larger context of a human condition offering war, famine, disease, death, disability, crime...well, like that), but there's something forced about someone voting to reject honoring a person by naming something after him/her just because it "felt forced".   Maybe we should have a naming board appeal board, and then a sudden-death naming board trivia contest to determine which board gets to be the top board. With the exception of Danny's writing, which is always scintillating, the whole naming thing leaves me, well,  bored.   How about we leave it Mt. Spring, though all of us here in the Other Washington will know that Mt. Spring is really just an abbreviation for Mt. Ira Spring? Just a thought…MB

Technorati Tags: Seattle Times,Danny Westneat,Hiking,Trail guides,Opnion,Columnist,humor

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | What happened to global warming?

This is an interesting article from BBC News concerning the correlation between various potential causes of temperature change, and the fluctuations in global temperature in recent years.  This article discusses solar cycles, the impact of changing ocean temperatures on surface temperatures, and other contributors to climate change.  Temperatures have been declining since 1998, and this article looks at what that says about global warming. 

“This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise. “

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | What happened to global warming?

Technorati Tags: climate change,global warming,BBC,solar cycles,ocean temperatures