State Department To Delay Keystone XL Pipeline Decision Until After November

State Department To Delay Keystone XL Pipeline Decision Until After November

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/18/3428625/keystone-delay-midterms/

President Barack Obama arriving at the TransCanada Stillwater Pipe Yard in Cushing, Okla.
CREDIT: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez

The State Department will “extend the government comment period on the Keystone XL pipeline, likely postponing a final decision on the controversial project until after the Nov. 4 midterm elections,” Reuters reported on Friday afternoon. The organization credited the information to a 1:30 call with Congressional staff.
State will a February district court decision, Patrick Rucker of Reuters tweeted, that struck down a Nebraska law that aimed to put decisionmaking power over the pipeline in the hands of the governor.
Lancaster County District Court Judge Stephanie Stacy ruled that the law, which allowed pipeline companies to choose to submit their plans to either the governor’s Department of Environmental Quality or the more rigorous Public Service Commission, was unconstitutional.
Bold Nebraska director Jane Kleeb told ClimateProgress that the Nebraska Supreme Court will likely not issue a decision on the case until about January 2015. She also noted that South Dakota’s permit granted for the pipeline would expire on June 20, 2014 — meaning that TransCanada would have to reapply for a state permit after that date.
“The State Department is following Pres. Obama’s lead who has said all along he wants to follow the process,” Kleeb said in a statement. “The basic fact that Nebraska has no legal route is reason to delay any decision until our state can analyze a route using process that follows our state constitution.”
“Nebraska landowners will not give up their property rights with bad contract terms and unknown chemicals risking our water. This delay is yet more proof this project is not permit-able and not in our national interest.”
The post State Department To Delay Keystone XL Pipeline Decision Until After November appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Sent by gReader Pro…

Climate change believers are using ‘medieval’ tactics to silence debate says Attorney General of Australia George Brandis

Climate change believers are using ‘medieval’ tactics to silence debate says George Brandis

http://joannenova.com.au/2014/04/climate-change-believers-are-using-mediaeval-tactics-to-silence-debate-says-george-brandis/

How loaded and vitriolic the conversation is about the weather. Too loaded. George Brandis describes how the left have stopped arguing for free speech and instead do everything to silence different views. He was shocked, he said, at the deplorable attitudes in two particularly white-hot topics: climate change and racial discrimination. Australian Senator Brandis is the Attorney General of Australia, and at the center of the debate about the noxious 18C legislation on hate-speech and whether we Australians have to make sure we don’t say anything to offend anyone. Curiously, this interview has got The Guardian and Sydney Morning Herald talking. Commenters at The Guardian are doing their best to say why Brandis is wrong (“he is a lunatic”) while at the same time proving nearly everything he says about their tactics is true. Brandis, after all, explains he agrees with the consensus, but doesn’t see why asking questions about the science should evoke a shocking form of authoritarianism and anti-intellectualism. He speaks of the emergence of a habit of denying the legitimacy of any other point of view. Commenter “scuzzlebutt” says: “I’m starting to believe that Brandis may just be one of the most dangerous people in Australia.” Latter […]Rating: 10.0/10 (5 votes cast)

Sent by gReader Pro…

New paper finds sea levels were much higher than the present during almost all prior interglacials over past 5.3 million years – Published in Nature

New paper finds sea levels were much higher than the present during almost all prior interglacials over past 5.3 million years

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/04/new-paper-finds-sea-levels-were-much.html

A paper published today in Nature reconstructs sea levels over the past 5.3 million years and shows that sea levels were higher than the present during almost every interglacial period over the past 5.3 million years. Sea levels at present during the current interglacial are indicated as the added red horizontal line at zero meters on Fig. 2 below, and excursions above this line indicate sea levels during past interglacials as much as 50+ meters [164+ feet] higher than present sea levels. Thus, there is no evidence that sea level rise during the present interglacial is unprecedented, unnatural, unusual or any different from that which occurred in prior interglacials, or any evidence of influence by man on sea levels. 

Fig. 2 with added red horizontal lines show present sea levels. Horizontal axis is thousands of years before the present. 

The last interglacial ~100,000 years ago [Eemian] had sea levels between 16-31 feet higher than the present, although it appears as a tiny blip above the red line in the graph a much more compressed scale above, but is better appreciated by this graph from another recent paper:

Sea levels during the last interglacial ~120,000 years ago were up to 5 meters higher than the present in this location and up to 9.5 meters higher at other locations

It is well known that interglacials have occurred at 100,000 year intervals over the past ~1 million years, and at intervals of ~44,000 years from ~1 million to 2.5 million years ago. 

The primary purpose of the paper is to help solve the mystery of what causes ice ages, yet appears to only deepen the mystery. Instead, the authors find a ~550,000 year gap between the onset of cooling and glaciation, whereas these were previously assumed to occur at the same time. 

The authors note, “We find that deep-sea temperature and sea level generally decreased through time, but distinctly out of synchrony, which is remarkable given the importance of ice-albedo feedbacks on the radiative forcing of climate,” thus implying that there are major problems with current global warming theory regarding ice-albedo positive feedbacks and radiative forcing. 

Crucial new information about how the ice ages came aboutDate: April 16, 2014Source: University of SouthamptonSummary: Scientists have discovered new relationships between deep-sea temperature and …