This opinion should create quite a stir amongst enviros. – Anthony
Air pollution is a far more pressing problem – particularly for emerging economies such as China and India – than the challenges posed by greenhouse warming.
A deadly pollution known as PM2.5 is currently killing over three million people each year, primarily in the developing world, demonstrates Richard Muller (Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley since 1980) in Why Every Serious Environmentalist should favour Fracking. His co-author, Elizabeth Muller, is his daughter and co-founder (with him) of Berkeley Earth, a non-profit working on environmental issues.
Watch the animation:
As such, air pollution is currently harming far more people than the more distant challenge of global warming – particularly for emerging economies such as China and India. They state:
“The Health Effects Institute estimated that air pollution in 2010 led to 3.2 million deaths that year [across the world], including 1.2 million in China and 620,000 in India. And the pollution is getting worse as global use of coal continues to grow…
The Mullers argues that both global warming and air pollution can be mitigated by the responsible development and utilisation of shale gas:
“China not only has the greatest yearly death toll from air pollution, but is also key for mitigating global warming. China surpassed the US in CO2 production in 2006; growth was so rapid that by late 2013, China’s CO2 emissions are nearly twice those of the US. If its growth continues at this rate (and China has averaged 10% GDP growth per year for the past 20 years) China will be producing more CO2 per person than the US by 2023. If the US were to disappear tomorrow, Chinese growth alone would bring worldwide emissions back to the same level in four years. To mitigate global warming, it is essential to slow worldwide emissions, not just those in the developed countries. And we feel this must be done without slowing the economic growth of the emerging world…”
“It is believed that China has enormous reserves of shale gas, perhaps 50% larger than those of the US. If that shale gas can be utilised, it offers China a wonderful opportunity to mitigate air pollution while still allowing energy growth… Industry experts believe that the cubic metres of gas recovered from a given well can be doubled in the near future by better design of the fracking stages to match geologic formation characteristics. And they also believe that number could double again in the next decade. Soon that will mean four times the production for only a minor increase in cost. Such an advance is expected to turn currently difficult fields into major producers, to open up fields in China, Europe, and the US that are currently unprofitable.”
The authors consider some of the concerns raised by opponents of fracking; and conclude that they are either largely false or can be addressed by appropriate regulation.
Developed economies should therefore help emerging economies switch from coal to natural gas; and shale gas technology should be advanced as rapidly as possible and shared freely.
And China and Europe are well placed to take advantage of fracking. The high price paid in China and Europe for imported natural gas, typically US$10 per million BTU (compared to the US$3.50 in the US) means that the cost of shale drilling and completion can be much higher and still be profitable.
The Mullers conclude that environmentalists should recognise the shale gas revolution as beneficial to society – and lend their full support to helping it advance.
Source: http://www.cps.org.uk/publications/reports/why-every-serious-environmentalist-should-favour-fracking/
h/t Steven Mosher
“Sit back and enjoy the new things that just will unfold before you, or better, join in and make a dollar as you go.” (Gary Pearse at 2:57pm)
Yes! Well said. Go, free market capitalism!
Up with Hayek, Williams (Walter), and Friedman!
(down — booo, hissss — with Marx, Stalin, and Alinsky)
Well said, Gary. I think that’s worth repeating.
One of the wonderful things about the 21st century will be the new technologies that emerge as the poorer, more populous, nations develop like we did. When their citizens have to spend less time grubbing in the soil merely to eke out an existence, they will increasingly be the source of new ideas and technologies which can now be rapidly disseminated around the world.
Janice Moore says: December 7, 2013 at 2:53 pm. @ur momisugly Pop Tech — I get your point. Apparently, Richard D thinks that those credentials and his having had the good fortune to have had the Climategate e mails handed to him, a pro-AGW person(!) — and why hasn’t he published the third set, yet? — by the WUWT moderator on duty that night, make Steven Mosher an expert in some kind of hard science relevant to air pollution and or geology and or frac’ing (still trying, Tom G. — smile).
_______________________
@ur momisugly Janice Moore. Apparently both you and Poptech found it offensive that I characterized Steven Mosher as “a working scientist in the field.” I linked to an article that described him to be an open-source software developer, statistical data analyst. Math/Computer Science/Statistics are hard sciences in my opinion and logic/philosophy is foundational. Don’t believe me roll over to RGB@ur momisuglyDUKE’s blog and look at all of the work he did in philosophy. BTW, Berkley Earth lists Mosher as a scientist http://berkeleyearth.org/team
Poptech says: December 7, 2013 at 7:39 am.
Richard D., I hope you are not referring to Mr. Mosher with a B.A. in English Literature and Philosophy and a career in marketing, a “working scientist in the field”.
_____________________________________________________________
Steven Mosher, Scientist: Steven Mosher is co-author of “Climategate: The Crutape Letters” and works as an independent consultant in the San Francisco area. He attended Northwestern University where he graduated with honors and BA’s in both English Literature and Philosophy. He left the Phd. program in Literature at UCLA to take a position in Threat Analysis at Northrop Aircraft where he advanced to Director of Operational Analysis for flight simulation. After serving as Vice President of Engineering for Eidetics Inc., he transitioned to the consumer sector and specialized in bringing new technology to market. As Vice president of New Technology at Creative Labs he was instrumental in bringing 3D graphics, DVD, Web cameras and Mp3 players to market. He has subsequently dedicated himself to the open source and open hardware movements, working as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Openmoko, where he championed the FreeRunner open phone and later founded Qi hardware, a company dedicated to creating “copy left” consumer products. He has written and maintains several R packages devoted to analyzing temperature and climate data with open source tools.
http://berkeleyearth.org/team/steven-mosher
Richard D. please stop misrepresenting Mr. Mosher as a scientist as you disrespect real scientists.
Steven Mosher, B.A. English Literature and Philosophy, Northwestern University (1981); Director of Operations Research/Foreign Military Sales & Marketing, Northrop Aircraft Northrop Aircraft (1985-1990); Vice President of Engineering, Eidetics International (1990-1993); Director of Marketing, Kubota Graphics Company (1993-1994); Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Criterion Software (1994-1995); Vice President of Emerging Technology [Marketing], Creative Labs (1995-2006); Vice President [Marketing], Openmoko (2007-2009); Marketing Consultant, Qi Hardware Inc. (2009); Marketing Consultant (2010-Present); [Marketing] Advisor, RedZu Online Dating Service (2012-Present)
I see Mr. Mosher is now misrepresenting himself as a “Scientist” at Berkeley, talk about BS. Looks like I may need to contact Berkeley.
If the Precautionary Principle is so important to the CAGW proponents, why not apply it to frakking? It doesn’t seem to be evident in the unholy rush to exploit this resource.
Looks like Muller is playing more marketing games with his organization’s name, “Berkeley Earth” is a 501(c)(3) non-profit independent organization that is NOT affiliated with the University of Berkeley and registered to a home address. So they can make up imaginary titles like calling Mr. Mosher a “Scientist” with no accountability. This is good enough to fool people like Richard D.
The claim that he is an open-source “software developer” is BS as well as all of these other embellished credentials. He has absolutely no background in REAL computer science and “statistical data analyst” is a self proclaimed credential (AKA made-up). Nor does he have any specific expertise in math (no relevant degree). It is absolutely hilarious you are trying to give him scientific credentials based on his philosophy background, is that some kind of joke?
I am still waiting for Mosher to apologize for the fraudulent marketing ploy of pawning Muller off as a recovering skeptic in the New York Times.
Pop Tech,
I think Richard D. is reading what you and I write through some kind of translator (open source, no doubt) and it selectively: deletes — edits — and generally completely messes up what we actually try to communicate to him! Well, at least we understand each other!! Arrrgh.
“Bite the wax tadpole.” {Search: the quoted words plus “Coca Cola in China”}
Thankful that you UNDERSTOOD me (and piped up!),
Janice
Janice, no problem.
Let’s give thanks to Richard Muller for this……..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BQpciw8suk
Dr. Muller deserves our thanks for this, “Air pollution is a far more pressing problem – particularly for emerging economies such as China and India – than the challenges posed by greenhouse warming.”
Dr. Muller is making a hugely useful contribution with this paper and I believe Mosher is working in this cause. I’m always interested in learning and am in fact grateful to see rational discourse that includes useful technologies like fracking that address our energy needs. An awful lot of people are in fuel poverty, with a huge percentage of the world’s inhabitants in extreme fuel poverty. It’s sad to see other posters bringing politics and grudges into play here on this thread.
It is absolutely hilarious you are trying to give him scientific credentials based on his philosophy background, is that some kind of joke?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
People are frequently ignorant of the relationship of philosophy/logic to mathematics/statistics/computer science.
rgb@duke trained in philosophy, too. Why don’t you visit his pages at Duke to learn more about philosophy and science.
BTW, Mosher’s contributing to scientific literature: SciTechnol; International Publisher of Science, Technology and Medicine.
Earth Atmospheric Land Surface Temperature and Station Quality in the Contiguous United States. Richard A Muller, Jonathan Wurtele, Robert Rohde, Robert Jacobsen, Saul Perlmutter, Arthur Rosenfeld, Judith Curry, Donald Groom, Charlotte Wickham and Steven Mosher Geoinfor Geostat: An Overview 2013, 1:3 doi: 10.4172/2327-4581.1000107 http://www.scitechnol.com/2327-4581/2327-4581-1-107.php
Berkeley Earth Temperature Averaging Process. Robert Rohde, Richard Muller, Robert Jacobsen, Saul Perlmutter, Arthur Rosenfeld, Jonathan Wurtele, Judith Curry, Charlotte Wickham and Steven Mosher Geoinfor Geostat: An Overview 2013, 1:2 doi: 10.4172/2327-4581.1000103 http://www.scitechnol.com/2327-4581/2327-4581-1-103.php
That’s nice, go apply for jobs where the requirements are a B.S. in Mathematics, Statistics or Computer Science with a Literature and Philosophy degree. Your resume will wind up in the trash can. People are frequently ignorant of scientific credentials.
Mosher is the tenth and ninth co-author on those papers. Anthony and Steve McIntyre co-wrote scientific papers too (both had much more to do with them than Mosher did with those), neither misrepresents themselves as scientists like Mosher is now trying to.
REPLY: Actually, I’ve seen some of the work Mosher did on some of the BEST papers, it wasn’t trivial. A number of the people named as authors of those papers were there as figureheads, and did little analytical work except to sign off on the final product – Anthony
This has to be some sort of Twilight Zone episode, where a B.A. in Literature and Philosophy now equals a B.S. in Mathematics, Statistics or Computer Science. Robert, you should tell all these Universities to stop bothering with separate degree course requirements for scientific degrees as you can meet them all with their liberal arts program! Think of the money savings from this brilliant revelation! Let me know which accredited University you get to agree with you.
“This has to be some sort of Twilight Zone episode, where a B.A. in Literature and Philosophy now equals a B.S. in Mathematics, Statistics or Computer Science.”
____________________________________________
I understand someone without much exposure to undergraduate philosophy/logic, computer science or statistics/mathematics might feel like he is in the Twilight Zone.
I’ll appeal to authority in this instance…….University of Oxford: “Historically, there have been strong links between Mathematics and Philosophy; logic, an important branch of both subjects, provides a natural bridge between the two, as does the philosophy of mathematics.”
Mathematics and Philosophy: The degree is constructed in the belief that the parallel study of these related disciplines can significantly enhance your understanding of each.
Careers: “Recent graduates secured positions in diverse occupational areas such as software development…….
Testimonial: “Will, who graduated in 1999, works as a data analyst at the University of Michigan. He says: ‘My degree taught me to construct a rigorous and detailed argument, and also to adapt and defend it “live” in a tutorial setting. This is a crucial skill for jobs that require the analysis and presentation of complex data.’
Related Courses: Students interested in this course might also like to consider other Mathematics courses or Computer Science and Philosophy.
http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate_courses/courses/mathematics_and_philosophy/mathematics_and.html
Richard D says:
December 8, 2013 at 12:05 am
“I understand someone without much exposure to undergraduate philosophy/logic, computer science or statistics/mathematics might feel like he is in the Twilight Zone.
I’ll appeal to authority in this instance…….”
—————-
Give it up, Richard D, you can appeal to whoever …. but you can not be quoting, copying, reciting, paraphrasing, plagiarizing and/or mimicking commentary from your Google search results as a means to infer you have a learned knowledge of the subject matter being discussed …… or that you are qualified to judge, critique or criticize the commentary of posters that have highly learned knowledge in/of the subject matter for which they offer their expertise and/or commentary.
And Richard D, the talent or ability for “logical reasoning” and “intelligent deductions” are mental attributes that can not be taught to students by Professors at institutions of higher learning. The foundation of the neural network for those two attributes must be nurtured during one’s early adolescent years …. and their personal. experiences and education only provides them a multitude of “tools” to work with.
There are many, many individuals that are quite the EXPERT at “logical reasoning” and “intelligent deductions” but who have never attended college or even graduated from High School ….. and thus their primary problem is the fact that their “toolbox” is quite empty of the “tools” to work with. You can purchase a “box of tools” but iffen you don’t have said attributes for using them, ….. then your only recourse is to mimic what they might be used for.
Richard D, have you ever seen Muller on Shatner’s “Weird or What?” show? His explanation is so laughable and illogical it is beyond words. Seek it out and you will be so embarrassed that you will never defend him in a public forum again. “Logical reasoning” and “intelligent deductions”, but only to the highest bidder. His motivation is questionable.
Just so you are aware, academia is a very narrow measure of intellect.
@David Ball, Consider I applauded Dr. Muller for in this instance for stating that fracking is good. I also linked to the lecture in which he crushed Michael Mann’s hokey stick…..not a bad argument, me thinks. And I’m never surprised when men choose self interest vs. the public interest—e.g.see Federalist Papers.
Samuel C Cogar says:
December 8, 2013 at 4:21 am
__________________________________
Samuel the dispute was with Poptech who objected to my assertion that I believed Steven Mosher to be a working scientist. I showed that he was by links to scientific papers he in fact contributed to. Our host here at WUWT even vouched for Mosher’s not insignificant contributions to the literature. Poptech raised the strawman about credentials, so I merely linked to what Oxford says about the interrelatedness between philosophy/logic/mathematics/computer science. Having studied philosophy/logic/statistics and Fortran this all seemed obvious to me. Readers who are interested in the nexus between philosophy and science should visit rgb@duke’s excellent pages http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Philosophy/philosophy.php
You assert that “there are many, many individuals that are quite the EXPERT at “logical reasoning” and “intelligent deductions” but who have never attended college or even graduated from High School ….. ” and I agree. Lincoln would be an example I believe. Purportedly, he was an autodidactic, who studied the theorems and proofs of Euclidian Geometry.
BTW, the frontal cortex develops well into the early 20’s, not early adolescence as you assert.
My problem with fracking has nothing to do with the direct environmental effect because fracking is safe when done according to accepted standards. The problem is with the capital destruction that accompanies financing money losing processes that consume more energy to produce than the energy content at the point of use. Sadly, many otherwise rational people seem to have missed this point because they have never bothered to look at the numbers for themselves. The shale oil and gas producers cannot generate positive cash flows outside of a few core areas. If we look at the 10-Ks we find that increased production has been financed by external borrowing and that the only way for the producers to report small losses or profits is by assuming that their Estimated ultimate recovery rates are at least 100% higher than what the actual data is indicating and by assuming that the areas between active wells will yield similar quantities of oil and gas as the older wells in the core areas.
The real problem is not the loss that will have to be taken by retail investors. It is the diversion of productive assets to a dead end that will not do anything to help us deal with the decline of production from viable sources. Add to this the fact that the entire positive story in the US is built on the assumption of abundant and cheap oil and gas and we have in place conditions that will destroy much of the real economy that no longer makes sense in a high energy-cost environment.
Richard D, a better example would be Faraday. Also, many have refuted the hockey stick, rendering Muller (and his fake claim to be a skeptic) unnecessary. To back someone like Muller discredits you as well. Clearly you do not understand this. I have read and understood your posts (it was silly to repeat yourself) and it is obvious you have not understood what I or Poptech posted. Lincoln was not a scientist. Perhaps a little forethought before posting.
” KuhnKat says:
December 6, 2013 at 11:47 pm
otropogo,
Why are you spreading BS?? There simply was not enough TIME for ANY of the reactors to have melted down before the tsunami struck!! It certainly could have STARTED runaway…”
I’m sorry that I can’t find the online reports I read (and saved to disk) in June of 2011. I happened to be residing on the the tip of the Shandong Peninsula, where radioactive lettuce and spinach was being reported, and, having arrived two days before the earthquake for a three month stay, was watching the daily reports on Fukushima quite keenly, especially as it was impossible to secure so much as a packet of thyroid blockers.
Before I left, in mid-June, Tepco was reported to have revealed, three months after they knew of it, that the meltdown in reactor number 1 had started before the tsunami had hit the power plant. Unfortunately, I no longer have the laptop I carried in China, and am not able to easily find where I’ve archived those news reports.
I did spend a half hour searching online without success. Perhaps a “cleaning crew” has been at work on this story, as I could find no mention of it even in Wikipedia or the Greenpeace timeline. Such disappearances are not unusual on the WEB, in my experience. Of course, the difficulty is greatly increased by the disappearance of proximity operators in the major online search engines.
“The explosions were caused by the attempt, now known to be futile, to cool the reactors and prevent the melt downs that were happening anyway. The core heat broke the water creating explosive hydrogen that had to be vented and that collected in the buildings.”
NO, the explosions were caused by the failure of the automatic pressure venting mechanism to function as designed, AND
by the failure of the backup manual procedure for venting, ON ALL of REACTORS #1, 2, and 3.
How such identical failures in all of the affected containment vessels could have occurred has never been explained to my knowledge. Is one to conclude that these power plants are not routinely tested in the course of their long working life?
If so, then sure, why not try fracking ourselves out of existence too?
otropogo,
“NO, the explosions were caused by the failure of the automatic pressure venting mechanism to function as designed, AND
by the failure of the backup manual procedure for venting, ON ALL of REACTORS #1, 2, and 3.
How such identical failures in all of the affected containment vessels could have occurred has never been explained to my knowledge. Is one to conclude that these power plants are not routinely tested in the course of their long working life?”
You are NOT paying attention. I will ignore what you tell us yet, can’t seem to find, then go conspiracy theory.
The fact radiation could be measured has little to do with whether it is actually at a level that can cause harm immediately or long term. Except for a couple of small hotspots from the explosions blowing the filters across the countryside there are no dangerous areas except on the reactor grounds. The lurid stories about leaking radioactive water are undiluted samples on the grounds and NOT in the ocean. TWO fish have been caught since the accident which were dangerous. No other fish caught have been measured with seriously elevated levels much less dangerous levels. We can speculate that those two fish were plants.
The excess heat caused by the meltdowns would have boiled and dissociated all the water in the containment vessels and would have been vented and dissipated with no issue. The fact they continued to pump in water in their vain attempt to cool the melting cores simply provided more water to be dissociated increasing the amount of hydrogen to collect in a building with no ventilation. Whether the valves malfunctioned or not, the hydrogen was released in LARGE amounts into the building.
To sum up yet again, after a 9.0 earthquake, sizable tsunami, and three partial to total core meltdowns there have been NO DEATHS OR ILLNESS FROM RADIATION!!!
There HAS been quite a bit of mental illness and suicides from the excessive evacuation enforced by the gubmint. Alarmists and idiot enviros spreading Junk Science are at fault for these deaths and misery that are almost totally unnecessary.
@ur momisugly David Ball Where did I claim that Lincoln was a scientist? Perhaps you should quit making stuff up.