THE WASHINGTON POST
"NOAA staff warned in Sept. 1 directive against contradicting Trump"
Andrew Freedman, Colby Itkowitz, Jason Samenow
8 SEPTEMBER 2019
Nearly a week before the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publicly backed President Trump over its own scientists, a top NOAA official warned its staff against contradicting the president.
In an agencywide directive sent Sept. 1 to National Weather Service personnel, hours after Trump asserted, with no evidence, that Alabama “would most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated,” staff was told to “only stick with official National Hurricane Center forecasts if questions arise from some national level social media posts which hit the news this afternoon.”
They were also told not to “provide any opinion,” according to a copy of the email obtained by The Washington Post.
A NOAA meteorologist who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution said the note, understood internally to be referring to Trump, came after the National Weather Service office in Birmingham contradicted Trump by tweeting Alabama would “NOT see any impacts from the hurricane.”
The Birmingham office sent the tweet after receiving a flurry of phone calls from concerned residents following Trump’s message.
The agency sent a similar message warning scientists and meteorologists not to speak out on Sept. 4, after Trump showed a hurricane map from Aug. 29 modified with a hand-drawn, half-circle in black Sharpie around Alabama.
“This is the first time I’ve felt pressure from above to not say what truly is the forecast,” the meteorologist said.
“It’s hard for me to wrap my head around."
"One of the things we train on is to dispel inaccurate rumors and ultimately that is what was occurring — ultimately what the Alabama office did is provide a forecast with their tweet, that is what they get paid to do.”
Late Friday afternoon, NOAA officials further angered scientists within and beyond the agency by releasing a statement, attributed to an unnamed agency spokesperson, supporting Trump’s claims on Alabama and chastising the agency’s Birmingham meteorologists for speaking in absolutes.
That statement set off a firestorm among scientists, who attacked NOAA officials for bending to Trump’s will.
“This looks like classic politically motivated obfuscation to justify inaccurate statements made by the boss."
"It is truly sad to see political appointees undermining the superb, lifesaving work of NOAA’s talented and dedicated career servant,” said Jane Lubchenco, who served as NOAA administrator under President Barack Obama.
NOAA, which oversees the National Weather Service, isn’t the first agency in the Trump administration to publicly side with the president after he has doubled down on a widely disputed claim.
But the firestorm surrounding the president’s hurricane statements is unprecedented in the organization’s history, and threatens to politicize something that most Americans take for granted as an objective, if flawed, part of daily life: the weather forecast.
A NOAA official familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly, disputed the suggestion that the statement took sides, saying there was “no political motivation” behind it.
The official said agency leadership had considered making a statement for “a day or two” to clear up confusion.
Acting NOAA administrator Neil Jacobs was involved in drawing up the statement as was the NOAA director of public affairs, Julie Kay Roberts, who has experience in emergency management and worked on the president’s campaign.
The leadership of the Commerce Department, headed by Secretary Wilbur Ross, also approved the release, though Ross was out of the country at the time.
The official said the statement called out Birmingham’s tweet because one NOAA hurricane forecast product showed a 5 to 20 percent chance of tropical-storm-force winds in a small part of Alabama.
“It was nothing against Birmingham, we needed to make sure forecast products reflect probabilistic guidance,” the official said, referencing the extremely low odds for tropical storm-force winds.
Such wind speeds, between 39 and 74 mph, rarely cause much damage or require the advance preparation.
The NOAA statement made no reference of the fact that when Trump tweeted that Alabama was at risk, the state was not in the National Hurricane Center’s “cone of uncertainty,” which forecasters use to determine where the storm is most likely to hit.
Alabama also had not appeared in the cone in the days before that.
The acting NOAA director briefed the president on Hurricane Dorian on Aug. 29, using the forecast cone that the White House later adapted via Sharpie marker.
The director of the National Hurricane Center briefed the president on the storm’s likely track again on Sept. 1, shortly after his tweet about the threat to Alabama.
At other times, Trump was briefed by individuals, including the White House homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, who lacked the meteorological expertise to interpret what they were showing.
“If the president had been briefed by someone who understands the forecast, he never would’ve mentioned Alabama,” the NOAA official said.
NOAA’s Friday statement infuriated scientists, who worry the Trump administration is corroding faith in research and data.
“It makes me speechless that the leadership would put [Trump’s] feelings and ego ahead of putting out weather information accurately,” said Michael Halpern, a deputy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“If we’re politicizing the weather what is there left to politicize?"
"We’re seeing this kind of clamp down of scientists across the government, and it’s been an escalating trend.”
In 2018, a survey of scientists at 16 federal agencies found a culture of fear and self-censorship in an administration that has sidelined scientific evidence, especially as it related to climate change, in favor of political expediency.
Keith Seitter, executive director of the American Meteorological Society, said in a statement that “the criticism of the Birmingham forecast office is unwarranted; rather they should have been commended for their quick action based on science in clearly communicating the lack of threat to the citizens of Alabama.”
One of the strongest reactions to the NOAA statement came from David Titley, an atmospheric scientist who served as the chief operating officer of NOAA under Obama.
“Perhaps the darkest day ever for leadership."
"Don’t know how they will ever look their workforce in the eye again."
"Moral cowardice,” he tweeted.
Others who weighed in on social media were also scathing in their response to NOAA’s decision to publicly defend Trump.
“I have never been so embarrassed by NOAA."
"What they did is just disgusting,” Dan Sobien, president of the National Weather Service’s labor union, wrote on Twitter Friday.
“Let me assure you the hard working employees of the NWS had nothing to do with the utterly disgusting and disingenuous tweet sent out by NOAA management tonight.”
A popular television broadcast meteorologist in Birmingham also came to the defense of his city’s National Weather Service team.
“The tweet from NWS Birmingham was spot on and accurate,” James Spann tweeted.
“If they are coming after them, they might as well come after me."
"How in the world has it come to this?”
On Saturday, the National Weather Service leadership seemingly tried to address the outcry in an all-hands letter to its employees to thank them for their hard work during the hurricane.
The letter, obtained by The Washington Post, assured employees they were valued.
“We want to assure you that we stand behind our entire workforce and the integrity of the forecast process, including the incredible scientific, technical and engineering skill you demonstrated for this event,” the NWS leadership wrote.
“We saw first hand that our integrated forecast process works, and we continue to embrace and uphold the essential integrity of the entire forecast process as it was applied by ALL NWS offices to ensure public safety first and foremost.”
colby.itkowitz@washpost.com
andrew.freedman@washpost.com
jason.samenow@washpost.com
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... P17#page=2
ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
SCIENCE LEARNING HUB
Carbon cycle
The carbon cycle can seem like a complex process because there are
Living things are made up of carbon and need carbon to survive.
Carbon is found in both organic (living) and inorganic (non-living) forms.
Before we discuss the cycle, there are a few other things you need to know about carbon:
• The Earth has a finite amount of carbon.
• Living things are made up of carbon (often they are described as being carbon-based) and need carbon to survive.
• Carbon is also found in non-living things such as rocks, animal shells, the atmosphere and oceans.
• Carbon found in something living is called organic carbon.
• Carbon found in something non-living is called inorganic carbon.
• Carbon dioxide is an important gas in our atmosphere.
It prevents heat from escaping and, in doing so, warms up the Earth’s atmosphere.
In a similar way to the glass of a greenhouse, it traps the heat from escaping and, for this reason, it is called a greenhouse gas.
After reading through that list you might ask yourself, “If there is a fixed amount of carbon and living things need carbon to survive, won’t we just use it all up?”
The answer to that is no, and this is where the carbon cycle comes in.
Carbon moves through the Earth’s system from living to non-living in many different ways.
You could almost think of it as the ultimate in recycling.
Carbon cycle
Let’s start with how living things get carbon.
Plants use carbon dioxide for photosynthesis.
By doing so, they remove inorganic carbon from the atmosphere and incorporate it into the plants’ tissues in the form of organic carbon (sugar and starch).
Animals get carbon by eating plants or by eating other animals.
Carbon is returned to an inorganic state in a number of ways.
As an animal breathes (respires), it exhales carbon dioxide, returning it back to the atmosphere.
When an animal or plant dies, it is broken down by bacteria and fungi and again the carbon is released (this process is called decomposition).
Sometimes, instead of completely decomposing, a plant or animal may be fossilised, leading to its carbon being stored in a rock.
After millions of years and under the right conditions, these fossils may turn into fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas).
The carbon stored in fossil fuels is released when they are burned.
This release is called carbon dioxide emission, with each different fossil fuel emitting a different amount of carbon dioxide as well as carbon monoxide and soot (carbon particles).
Because people use so much fossil fuel, the emission rate means the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today is around 30% higher than it was 200 years ago.
The carbon levels are important because having more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been linked to an increase of heat that is being trapped in the atmosphere (greenhouse effect).
https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resourc ... rbon-cycle
Carbon cycle
The carbon cycle can seem like a complex process because there are
Living things are made up of carbon and need carbon to survive.
Carbon is found in both organic (living) and inorganic (non-living) forms.
Before we discuss the cycle, there are a few other things you need to know about carbon:
• The Earth has a finite amount of carbon.
• Living things are made up of carbon (often they are described as being carbon-based) and need carbon to survive.
• Carbon is also found in non-living things such as rocks, animal shells, the atmosphere and oceans.
• Carbon found in something living is called organic carbon.
• Carbon found in something non-living is called inorganic carbon.
• Carbon dioxide is an important gas in our atmosphere.
It prevents heat from escaping and, in doing so, warms up the Earth’s atmosphere.
In a similar way to the glass of a greenhouse, it traps the heat from escaping and, for this reason, it is called a greenhouse gas.
After reading through that list you might ask yourself, “If there is a fixed amount of carbon and living things need carbon to survive, won’t we just use it all up?”
The answer to that is no, and this is where the carbon cycle comes in.
Carbon moves through the Earth’s system from living to non-living in many different ways.
You could almost think of it as the ultimate in recycling.
Carbon cycle
Let’s start with how living things get carbon.
Plants use carbon dioxide for photosynthesis.
By doing so, they remove inorganic carbon from the atmosphere and incorporate it into the plants’ tissues in the form of organic carbon (sugar and starch).
Animals get carbon by eating plants or by eating other animals.
Carbon is returned to an inorganic state in a number of ways.
As an animal breathes (respires), it exhales carbon dioxide, returning it back to the atmosphere.
When an animal or plant dies, it is broken down by bacteria and fungi and again the carbon is released (this process is called decomposition).
Sometimes, instead of completely decomposing, a plant or animal may be fossilised, leading to its carbon being stored in a rock.
After millions of years and under the right conditions, these fossils may turn into fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas).
The carbon stored in fossil fuels is released when they are burned.
This release is called carbon dioxide emission, with each different fossil fuel emitting a different amount of carbon dioxide as well as carbon monoxide and soot (carbon particles).
Because people use so much fossil fuel, the emission rate means the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today is around 30% higher than it was 200 years ago.
The carbon levels are important because having more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been linked to an increase of heat that is being trapped in the atmosphere (greenhouse effect).
https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resourc ... rbon-cycle
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
THE NEW YORKER
"The Fifteen-Year-Old Climate Activist Who Is Demanding a New Kind of Politics"
By Masha Gessen
October 2, 2018
Sometimes the world makes so little sense that the only thing to do is engage in civil disobedience — even in a country as attached to its rules and regulations as Sweden is.
Fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg has been protesting for more than a month.
Before the country’s parliamentary election on September 9th, she went on strike and sat on the steps of the parliament building, in Stockholm, every day during school hours for three weeks.
Since the election, she has returned to school for four days a week; she now spends her Fridays on the steps of parliament.
She is demanding that the government undertake a radical response to climate change.
She told me that a number of members of parliament have come out to the steps to express support for her position, although every one of them has said that she should really be at school.
Her parents think so, too, she said — that she should really go to school, though she is right to protest.
Thunberg’s parents are Svante Thunberg, an actor, and Malena Ernman, a very well-known opera singer.
Ernman has published a book in which she described her family’s struggle with her two daughters’ special needs: both Greta and her younger sister, Beata, have been diagnosed with autism, A.D.H.D., and other conditions.
In part because of her mother’s fame and the publicity that surrounded the publication of her book, Greta’s protest serves a dual purpose.
It not only calls attention to climate policy, as she intended, but it also showcases the political potential of neurological difference. “I see the world a bit different, from another perspective,” she explained to me, in English.
“I have a special interest."
"It’s very common that people on the autism spectrum have a special interest.”
Thunberg developed her special interest in climate change when she was nine years old and in the third grade.
“They were always talking about how we should turn off lights, save water, not throw out food,” she told me.
“I asked why and they explained about climate change."
"And I thought this was very strange."
"If humans could really change the climate, everyone would be talking about it and people wouldn’t be talking about anything else."
"But this wasn’t happening.”
Turnberg has an uncanny ability to concentrate, which she also attributes to her autism.
“I can do the same thing for hours,” she said.
Or, as it turns out, for years.
She began researching climate change and has stayed on the topic for six years.
She has stopped eating meat and buying anything that is not absolutely necessary.
In 2015, she stopped flying on airplanes, and a year later, her mother followed suit, giving up an international performing career.
The family has installed solar batteries and has started growing their own vegetables on an allotment outside the city.
To meet me in central Stockholm, Thunberg and her father rode their bikes for about half an hour; the family has an electric car that they use only when necessary.
Sweden prides itself on having some of the most progressive climate legislation in the world: policies adopted over the last couple of years aim to make Sweden “the first fossil-free welfare state in the world.”
But there was relatively little discussion of climate policy in the lead-up to the September election, even after Sweden was hit with an unprecedented heat wave and catastrophic fires in July.
Karin Bäckstrand, a climate-policy researcher at Stockholm University, told me that climate policy wasn’t an election issue precisely because a broad national consensus exists.
“Everyone except the [far right] Swedish Democrats agree that we should become fossil-free,” she said.
Thunberg calls bullshit on the consensus.
In our conversation, she pointed out that, despite Sweden’s progressive legislation and the scientific consensus that rich countries must cut their emissions by fifteen per cent a year, in Sweden actual emissions had gone up 3.6 per cent in the first quarter of this year.
She has written a piece called “Sweden is not a role model,” in which she points out that even the best-laid plans to address climate change make no attempt to look beyond the year 2050.
“By then I will, in the best case, not even have lived half my life,” she wrote.
“What happens next?”
It’s true that emissions have risen this year, Bäckstrand said, because Sweden is experiencing an economic boom.
On the other hand, the country has cut its emissions by twenty-six per cent since 1990, even while its economy has grown.
In just ten years, Sweden has increased its use of renewable sources of energy by twelve per cent.
The country is building the world’s first fossil-free steel plants.
To put this in context, Bäckstrand noted that she had just returned from San Francisco, where more than twenty thousand people, including the representatives of dozens of national governments, attended the Global Climate Action Summit, but no one from the Trump Administration attended; “Trump didn’t even tweet about it!” Bäckstrand said.
Bäckstrand added that Thunberg’s “voice is needed, because until the fires and the drought, climate change was priority number eight for Swedes."
"She is arguing that it should be at the top, and she is right.”
Thunberg’s strike has received extensive coverage in Sweden; for the time being, she is a household name, and climate change is a topic of daily conversation.
Thunberg’s is a voice of unaccommodating clarity that reminds me of Soviet-era dissidents.
I suspect that some of them were also on the spectrum, which in their case meant acting irrationally in the framework of the Soviet system — risking their lives to make the doomed demand that the country act in accordance with its written laws and declared ideals.
Thunberg smiled in recognition when I told her this.
“I can become very angry when I see things that are wrong,” she said.
On a recent class trip to a museum exhibit on climate change, for example, she noticed that some figures in the show — statistics on the carbon footprint of meat production, for example — were wrong.
“I became very angry, but I’m quiet, so I just went to the exit and sat there by the doors."
"I didn’t say anything until people asked me.”
In general she prefers action to conversation.
In undertaking her school strike, she was inspired by the protests staged by American high-school students in response to the Parkland shooting this year — Thunberg’s sit-in is also a walkout.
When Thunberg is at her now-famous post outside of parliament, people come by to talk to her and bring her food.
This has had an unexpected effect: Thunberg, who generally eats the same things every day, has tried new food.
She surprised herself by doing this, and by finding that she likes falafel and noodles.
In the weeks since the election, the Swedish political conversation has centered on topics far from climate change: the main centrist parties finished in a dead heat, making a far-right party, the Swedish Democrats, which came in third, a potential power broker.
Formerly rote procedures such as choosing the speaker of parliament and appointing cabinet members have come to overshadow any policy discussion.
Thunberg is peculiarly uninterested in this, though.
“I think the election didn’t matter,” she told me.
“The climate is not going to collapse because some party got the most votes."
"The politics that’s needed to prevent the climate catastrophe — it doesn’t exist today."
"We need to change the system, as if we were in crisis, as if there were a war going on.”
Masha Gessen, a staff writer at The New Yorker, is the author of ten books, including, most recently, “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” which won the National Book Award in 2017.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-colu ... f-politics
"The Fifteen-Year-Old Climate Activist Who Is Demanding a New Kind of Politics"
By Masha Gessen
October 2, 2018
Sometimes the world makes so little sense that the only thing to do is engage in civil disobedience — even in a country as attached to its rules and regulations as Sweden is.
Fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg has been protesting for more than a month.
Before the country’s parliamentary election on September 9th, she went on strike and sat on the steps of the parliament building, in Stockholm, every day during school hours for three weeks.
Since the election, she has returned to school for four days a week; she now spends her Fridays on the steps of parliament.
She is demanding that the government undertake a radical response to climate change.
She told me that a number of members of parliament have come out to the steps to express support for her position, although every one of them has said that she should really be at school.
Her parents think so, too, she said — that she should really go to school, though she is right to protest.
Thunberg’s parents are Svante Thunberg, an actor, and Malena Ernman, a very well-known opera singer.
Ernman has published a book in which she described her family’s struggle with her two daughters’ special needs: both Greta and her younger sister, Beata, have been diagnosed with autism, A.D.H.D., and other conditions.
In part because of her mother’s fame and the publicity that surrounded the publication of her book, Greta’s protest serves a dual purpose.
It not only calls attention to climate policy, as she intended, but it also showcases the political potential of neurological difference. “I see the world a bit different, from another perspective,” she explained to me, in English.
“I have a special interest."
"It’s very common that people on the autism spectrum have a special interest.”
Thunberg developed her special interest in climate change when she was nine years old and in the third grade.
“They were always talking about how we should turn off lights, save water, not throw out food,” she told me.
“I asked why and they explained about climate change."
"And I thought this was very strange."
"If humans could really change the climate, everyone would be talking about it and people wouldn’t be talking about anything else."
"But this wasn’t happening.”
Turnberg has an uncanny ability to concentrate, which she also attributes to her autism.
“I can do the same thing for hours,” she said.
Or, as it turns out, for years.
She began researching climate change and has stayed on the topic for six years.
She has stopped eating meat and buying anything that is not absolutely necessary.
In 2015, she stopped flying on airplanes, and a year later, her mother followed suit, giving up an international performing career.
The family has installed solar batteries and has started growing their own vegetables on an allotment outside the city.
To meet me in central Stockholm, Thunberg and her father rode their bikes for about half an hour; the family has an electric car that they use only when necessary.
Sweden prides itself on having some of the most progressive climate legislation in the world: policies adopted over the last couple of years aim to make Sweden “the first fossil-free welfare state in the world.”
But there was relatively little discussion of climate policy in the lead-up to the September election, even after Sweden was hit with an unprecedented heat wave and catastrophic fires in July.
Karin Bäckstrand, a climate-policy researcher at Stockholm University, told me that climate policy wasn’t an election issue precisely because a broad national consensus exists.
“Everyone except the [far right] Swedish Democrats agree that we should become fossil-free,” she said.
Thunberg calls bullshit on the consensus.
In our conversation, she pointed out that, despite Sweden’s progressive legislation and the scientific consensus that rich countries must cut their emissions by fifteen per cent a year, in Sweden actual emissions had gone up 3.6 per cent in the first quarter of this year.
She has written a piece called “Sweden is not a role model,” in which she points out that even the best-laid plans to address climate change make no attempt to look beyond the year 2050.
“By then I will, in the best case, not even have lived half my life,” she wrote.
“What happens next?”
It’s true that emissions have risen this year, Bäckstrand said, because Sweden is experiencing an economic boom.
On the other hand, the country has cut its emissions by twenty-six per cent since 1990, even while its economy has grown.
In just ten years, Sweden has increased its use of renewable sources of energy by twelve per cent.
The country is building the world’s first fossil-free steel plants.
To put this in context, Bäckstrand noted that she had just returned from San Francisco, where more than twenty thousand people, including the representatives of dozens of national governments, attended the Global Climate Action Summit, but no one from the Trump Administration attended; “Trump didn’t even tweet about it!” Bäckstrand said.
Bäckstrand added that Thunberg’s “voice is needed, because until the fires and the drought, climate change was priority number eight for Swedes."
"She is arguing that it should be at the top, and she is right.”
Thunberg’s strike has received extensive coverage in Sweden; for the time being, she is a household name, and climate change is a topic of daily conversation.
Thunberg’s is a voice of unaccommodating clarity that reminds me of Soviet-era dissidents.
I suspect that some of them were also on the spectrum, which in their case meant acting irrationally in the framework of the Soviet system — risking their lives to make the doomed demand that the country act in accordance with its written laws and declared ideals.
Thunberg smiled in recognition when I told her this.
“I can become very angry when I see things that are wrong,” she said.
On a recent class trip to a museum exhibit on climate change, for example, she noticed that some figures in the show — statistics on the carbon footprint of meat production, for example — were wrong.
“I became very angry, but I’m quiet, so I just went to the exit and sat there by the doors."
"I didn’t say anything until people asked me.”
In general she prefers action to conversation.
In undertaking her school strike, she was inspired by the protests staged by American high-school students in response to the Parkland shooting this year — Thunberg’s sit-in is also a walkout.
When Thunberg is at her now-famous post outside of parliament, people come by to talk to her and bring her food.
This has had an unexpected effect: Thunberg, who generally eats the same things every day, has tried new food.
She surprised herself by doing this, and by finding that she likes falafel and noodles.
In the weeks since the election, the Swedish political conversation has centered on topics far from climate change: the main centrist parties finished in a dead heat, making a far-right party, the Swedish Democrats, which came in third, a potential power broker.
Formerly rote procedures such as choosing the speaker of parliament and appointing cabinet members have come to overshadow any policy discussion.
Thunberg is peculiarly uninterested in this, though.
“I think the election didn’t matter,” she told me.
“The climate is not going to collapse because some party got the most votes."
"The politics that’s needed to prevent the climate catastrophe — it doesn’t exist today."
"We need to change the system, as if we were in crisis, as if there were a war going on.”
Masha Gessen, a staff writer at The New Yorker, is the author of ten books, including, most recently, “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” which won the National Book Award in 2017.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-colu ... f-politics
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
BECAUSE THE AGENCY IS PROSTITUTING SCIENCE TO POLITICS ...
THE AGENCY WANTS ITS SCIENTISTS TO CONDONE LYING TO THE PUBLIC FOR POLITICAL REASONS ...
THE WASHINGTON POST
"NOAA’s chief scientist will investigate why agency backed Trump over its experts on Dorian, email shows"
Kayla Epstein, Andrew Freedman, Jason Samenow
9 SEPTEMBER 2019
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s acting chief scientist said in an email to colleagues Sunday that he is investigating whether the agency’s response to President Trump’s Hurricane Dorian tweets constituted a violation of NOAA policies and ethics.
In an email to NOAA staff that was obtained by The Washington Post, the official, Craig McLean, called the agency’s response “political” and a “danger to public health and safety.”
President Trump’s incorrect assertion on Sept. 1 that Alabama “would most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated" set off a chain of confusion and outrage among the public, and within NOAA.
At the time, the National Weather Service’s forecast guidance showed only a very small risk (about 5 percent) of tropical storm-force winds for a small portion of Alabama.
However, Alabama was not in the storm forecast track from the National Hurricane Center, which showed Hurricane Dorian skirting the East Coast.
While the NWS’s Birmingham office set the record straight, stating Alabama “would not see impacts” from the storm, NOAA officials caused an internal uproar on Sept. 6 when the agency issued an unsigned statement that defended Trump’s false claim about Alabama and admonished the Weather Service’s Birmingham division for speaking “in absolute terms.”
Scientists attacked NOAA officials for conceding to Trump during a weather emergency, when accuracy and messaging are vital to keep the public safe.
The American Meteorological Society issued a statement of support for the NWS, writing: “AMS believes the criticism of the Birmingham forecast office is unwarranted; rather they should have been commended for their quick action based on science in clearly communicating the lack of threat to the citizens of Alabama."
In his email to employees Sunday, McLean criticized his agency’s public statement, saying it prioritized politics over NOAA’s mission.
“The NWS Forecaster(s) corrected any public misunderstanding in an expert and timely way, as they should,” McLean wrote.
“There followed, last Friday, an unsigned press release from 'NOAA’ that inappropriately and incorrectly contradicted the NWS forecaster."
"My understanding is that this intervention to contradict the forecaster was not based on science but on external factors including reputation and appearance, or simply put, political.”
He also wrote that “the content of this press release is very concerning as it compromises the ability of NOAA to convey life-saving information necessary to avoid substantial and specific danger to public health and safety."
“If the public cannot trust our information, or we debase our forecaster’s warnings and products, that specific danger arises,” McLean wrote.
As a result, McLean told his staff that “I am pursuing the potential violations of our NOAA Administrative Order on Scientific Integrity."
“I have a responsibility to pursue these truths,” he added.
“I will.”
McLean has extensive experience in NOAA’s ocean programs, and is also an attorney who has practiced marine resource law.
He has been awarded the Department of Commerce Silver and Bronze Medals, among other accolades.
A National Weather Service spokesperson stressed the agency is committed to promoting and maintaining scientific integrity when asked about the McLean email.
“The NWS leadership team stands with the entire National Weather Service workforce and will continue to uphold the scientific integrity of the forecast process as it was skillfully applied by all NWS offices last week to ensure public safety, first and foremost,” the spokesperson said.
The confusion around Trump’s statements has caused a maelstrom within the some of the government’s most vital scientific agencies.
Trump continued to double down on his initial false claim about Alabama that week and displayed an altered map where the so-called “cone of uncertainty” had been altered with a Sharpie to include the state.
The agency also appeared to try to correct the record without angering the president.
According to emails obtained by The Post, prior to the statement on Friday, NOAA staff were instructed to “only stick with official National Hurricane Center forecasts if questions arise from some national level social media posts which hit the news this afternoon” and not to “provide any opinion" in response to President Trump’s initial Alabama tweets.
The agency sent a similar message warning scientists and meteorologists not to speak out on Sept. 4, after Trump showed a hurricane map from Aug. 29 modified with a hand-drawn, half-circle in black Sharpie around Alabama.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/noaas- ... P17#page=2
THE AGENCY WANTS ITS SCIENTISTS TO CONDONE LYING TO THE PUBLIC FOR POLITICAL REASONS ...
THE WASHINGTON POST
"NOAA’s chief scientist will investigate why agency backed Trump over its experts on Dorian, email shows"
Kayla Epstein, Andrew Freedman, Jason Samenow
9 SEPTEMBER 2019
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s acting chief scientist said in an email to colleagues Sunday that he is investigating whether the agency’s response to President Trump’s Hurricane Dorian tweets constituted a violation of NOAA policies and ethics.
In an email to NOAA staff that was obtained by The Washington Post, the official, Craig McLean, called the agency’s response “political” and a “danger to public health and safety.”
President Trump’s incorrect assertion on Sept. 1 that Alabama “would most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated" set off a chain of confusion and outrage among the public, and within NOAA.
At the time, the National Weather Service’s forecast guidance showed only a very small risk (about 5 percent) of tropical storm-force winds for a small portion of Alabama.
However, Alabama was not in the storm forecast track from the National Hurricane Center, which showed Hurricane Dorian skirting the East Coast.
While the NWS’s Birmingham office set the record straight, stating Alabama “would not see impacts” from the storm, NOAA officials caused an internal uproar on Sept. 6 when the agency issued an unsigned statement that defended Trump’s false claim about Alabama and admonished the Weather Service’s Birmingham division for speaking “in absolute terms.”
Scientists attacked NOAA officials for conceding to Trump during a weather emergency, when accuracy and messaging are vital to keep the public safe.
The American Meteorological Society issued a statement of support for the NWS, writing: “AMS believes the criticism of the Birmingham forecast office is unwarranted; rather they should have been commended for their quick action based on science in clearly communicating the lack of threat to the citizens of Alabama."
In his email to employees Sunday, McLean criticized his agency’s public statement, saying it prioritized politics over NOAA’s mission.
“The NWS Forecaster(s) corrected any public misunderstanding in an expert and timely way, as they should,” McLean wrote.
“There followed, last Friday, an unsigned press release from 'NOAA’ that inappropriately and incorrectly contradicted the NWS forecaster."
"My understanding is that this intervention to contradict the forecaster was not based on science but on external factors including reputation and appearance, or simply put, political.”
He also wrote that “the content of this press release is very concerning as it compromises the ability of NOAA to convey life-saving information necessary to avoid substantial and specific danger to public health and safety."
“If the public cannot trust our information, or we debase our forecaster’s warnings and products, that specific danger arises,” McLean wrote.
As a result, McLean told his staff that “I am pursuing the potential violations of our NOAA Administrative Order on Scientific Integrity."
“I have a responsibility to pursue these truths,” he added.
“I will.”
McLean has extensive experience in NOAA’s ocean programs, and is also an attorney who has practiced marine resource law.
He has been awarded the Department of Commerce Silver and Bronze Medals, among other accolades.
A National Weather Service spokesperson stressed the agency is committed to promoting and maintaining scientific integrity when asked about the McLean email.
“The NWS leadership team stands with the entire National Weather Service workforce and will continue to uphold the scientific integrity of the forecast process as it was skillfully applied by all NWS offices last week to ensure public safety, first and foremost,” the spokesperson said.
The confusion around Trump’s statements has caused a maelstrom within the some of the government’s most vital scientific agencies.
Trump continued to double down on his initial false claim about Alabama that week and displayed an altered map where the so-called “cone of uncertainty” had been altered with a Sharpie to include the state.
The agency also appeared to try to correct the record without angering the president.
According to emails obtained by The Post, prior to the statement on Friday, NOAA staff were instructed to “only stick with official National Hurricane Center forecasts if questions arise from some national level social media posts which hit the news this afternoon” and not to “provide any opinion" in response to President Trump’s initial Alabama tweets.
The agency sent a similar message warning scientists and meteorologists not to speak out on Sept. 4, after Trump showed a hurricane map from Aug. 29 modified with a hand-drawn, half-circle in black Sharpie around Alabama.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/noaas- ... P17#page=2
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
THIS POLITICAL INTERFERENCE WITH SCIENCE BY FOOLS IS DISGUSTING ...
THE NEW YORK TIMES
"Commerce Chief Threatened Firings at NOAA After Trump’s Hurricane Tweets, Sources Say"
Peter Baker, Christopher Flavelle and Lisa Friedman
9 SEPTEMBER 2019
WASHINGTON — The Secretary of Commerce threatened to fire top employees at NOAA on Friday after the agency’s Birmingham office contradicted President Trump’s claim that Hurricane Dorian might hit Alabama, according to three people familiar with the discussion.
That threat led to an unusual, unsigned statement later that Friday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration disavowing the office’s own position that Alabama was not at risk.
The reversal caused widespread anger within the agency and drew criticism from the scientific community that NOAA, a division of the Commerce Department, had been bent to political purposes.
Officials at the White House and the Commerce Department declined to comment on administration involvement in the NOAA statement.
The actions by the Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur L. Ross Jr., are the latest developments in a political imbroglio that began more than a week ago, when Dorian was bearing down on the Bahamas and Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter that Alabama would be hit “harder than anticipated.”
A few minutes later, the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Ala., posted on Twitter that “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian."
"We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.”
Mr. Trump persisted in saying that Alabama was at risk and a few days later, on Sept. 4, he displayed a NOAA map that appeared to have been altered with a black Sharpie to include Alabama in the area potentially affected by Dorian.
Mr. Ross, the Commerce Secretary, intervened two days later, early last Friday, according to the three people familiar with his actions.
Mr. Ross phoned Neil Jacobs, the acting administrator of NOAA, from Greece where the secretary was traveling for meetings and instructed Dr. Jacobs to fix the agency’s perceived contradiction of the president.
Dr. Jacobs objected to the demand and was told that the political staff at NOAA would be fired if the situation was not fixed, according to the three individuals, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the episode.
Unlike career government employees, political staff are appointed by the administration.
They usually include a handful of top officials, such as Dr. Jacobs, and their aides.
However, a senior administration official who asked not to be identified when discussing internal deliberations said that the Birmingham office had been wrong and that NOAA had simply done the responsible thing and corrected the record.
That official suggested the Twitter post by the Birmingham forecasters had been motivated by a desire to embarrass the president more than concern for the safety of people in Alabama.
The official provided no evidence to support that conclusion.
On Monday, Craig N. McLean, NOAA’s acting chief scientist, sent an email to staff members notifying the agency that he was looking into “potential violations” in the agency’s decision to ultimately back Mr. Trump’s statements rather than those of its own scientists.
He called the agency’s action “a danger to public health and safety.”
Dr. Jacobs is scheduled to speak Tuesday at a weather industry conference in Huntsville, Ala.
On Monday, the National Weather Service director, Louis W. Uccellini, got a standing ovation from conference attendees when he praised the work of the Birmingham office and said staff members there had acted “with one thing in mind, public safety” when they contradicted Mr. Trump’s claim that Alabama was at risk.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... P17#page=2
THE NEW YORK TIMES
"Commerce Chief Threatened Firings at NOAA After Trump’s Hurricane Tweets, Sources Say"
Peter Baker, Christopher Flavelle and Lisa Friedman
9 SEPTEMBER 2019
WASHINGTON — The Secretary of Commerce threatened to fire top employees at NOAA on Friday after the agency’s Birmingham office contradicted President Trump’s claim that Hurricane Dorian might hit Alabama, according to three people familiar with the discussion.
That threat led to an unusual, unsigned statement later that Friday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration disavowing the office’s own position that Alabama was not at risk.
The reversal caused widespread anger within the agency and drew criticism from the scientific community that NOAA, a division of the Commerce Department, had been bent to political purposes.
Officials at the White House and the Commerce Department declined to comment on administration involvement in the NOAA statement.
The actions by the Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur L. Ross Jr., are the latest developments in a political imbroglio that began more than a week ago, when Dorian was bearing down on the Bahamas and Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter that Alabama would be hit “harder than anticipated.”
A few minutes later, the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Ala., posted on Twitter that “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian."
"We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.”
Mr. Trump persisted in saying that Alabama was at risk and a few days later, on Sept. 4, he displayed a NOAA map that appeared to have been altered with a black Sharpie to include Alabama in the area potentially affected by Dorian.
Mr. Ross, the Commerce Secretary, intervened two days later, early last Friday, according to the three people familiar with his actions.
Mr. Ross phoned Neil Jacobs, the acting administrator of NOAA, from Greece where the secretary was traveling for meetings and instructed Dr. Jacobs to fix the agency’s perceived contradiction of the president.
Dr. Jacobs objected to the demand and was told that the political staff at NOAA would be fired if the situation was not fixed, according to the three individuals, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the episode.
Unlike career government employees, political staff are appointed by the administration.
They usually include a handful of top officials, such as Dr. Jacobs, and their aides.
However, a senior administration official who asked not to be identified when discussing internal deliberations said that the Birmingham office had been wrong and that NOAA had simply done the responsible thing and corrected the record.
That official suggested the Twitter post by the Birmingham forecasters had been motivated by a desire to embarrass the president more than concern for the safety of people in Alabama.
The official provided no evidence to support that conclusion.
On Monday, Craig N. McLean, NOAA’s acting chief scientist, sent an email to staff members notifying the agency that he was looking into “potential violations” in the agency’s decision to ultimately back Mr. Trump’s statements rather than those of its own scientists.
He called the agency’s action “a danger to public health and safety.”
Dr. Jacobs is scheduled to speak Tuesday at a weather industry conference in Huntsville, Ala.
On Monday, the National Weather Service director, Louis W. Uccellini, got a standing ovation from conference attendees when he praised the work of the Birmingham office and said staff members there had acted “with one thing in mind, public safety” when they contradicted Mr. Trump’s claim that Alabama was at risk.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... P17#page=2
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR September 9, 2019 at 1:22 pm
Sorin Varzaru says:
So, let’s say there are two courses of action.
Do nothing, like you suggest, because the climate change has nothing with the recent increase in carbon dioxide and methane we caused.
The other would be do what the “other side” is asking.
Let’s assume your summarizing of what the other side is saying is correct : “stop eating meat and we all must drive electric cars”.
So.
If they are wrong, nothing bad would happen to the world and the downside is that we’ll all be driving electric cars and eat falafel instead of burgers.
What if you are wrong?
CAPE CHARLES MIRROR EDITOR'S NOTE: I believe the empirical data, also, I work as a computer scientist in the mod/sim world.
Models are extremely important, but I’m not sure I would base climate policy on them.
If IC engines are banned in 10 years (just in time to beat the 12-year window of catastrophe), who would deliver your falafel?
Actually, who would deliver anything at all, since there would be no trucking industry??
Understand, 70% of our energy is currently based on fossil fuels, and there’s a reason for that.
What most don’t take into account is there are 7 billion people in the world that need to live.
How does that happen?
How about avoiding tech like so-called renewables that rape the biosphere and harm open space, how about absurdly efficient engines that don’t rely on lithium, how about policy that rewards population concentration rather than sprawl, plant trees, why not embrace Nuclear power which will create huge amounts of power on the smallest footprint??
How about design?
I believe we are attacking the wrong problems in entirely the wrong way.
We used to call this stuff global warming, but when the temp stopped rising, we now call it climate change, as if the climate never changes on its own.
“Duh”
– Billie Eilish.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/t ... ent-174590
Sorin Varzaru says:
So, let’s say there are two courses of action.
Do nothing, like you suggest, because the climate change has nothing with the recent increase in carbon dioxide and methane we caused.
The other would be do what the “other side” is asking.
Let’s assume your summarizing of what the other side is saying is correct : “stop eating meat and we all must drive electric cars”.
So.
If they are wrong, nothing bad would happen to the world and the downside is that we’ll all be driving electric cars and eat falafel instead of burgers.
What if you are wrong?
CAPE CHARLES MIRROR EDITOR'S NOTE: I believe the empirical data, also, I work as a computer scientist in the mod/sim world.
Models are extremely important, but I’m not sure I would base climate policy on them.
If IC engines are banned in 10 years (just in time to beat the 12-year window of catastrophe), who would deliver your falafel?
Actually, who would deliver anything at all, since there would be no trucking industry??
Understand, 70% of our energy is currently based on fossil fuels, and there’s a reason for that.
What most don’t take into account is there are 7 billion people in the world that need to live.
How does that happen?
How about avoiding tech like so-called renewables that rape the biosphere and harm open space, how about absurdly efficient engines that don’t rely on lithium, how about policy that rewards population concentration rather than sprawl, plant trees, why not embrace Nuclear power which will create huge amounts of power on the smallest footprint??
How about design?
I believe we are attacking the wrong problems in entirely the wrong way.
We used to call this stuff global warming, but when the temp stopped rising, we now call it climate change, as if the climate never changes on its own.
“Duh”
– Billie Eilish.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/t ... ent-174590
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
"The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."
- Donald Trump, 2012
AP NEWS“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it."
"It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it."
"Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy."
"The heresy of heresies was common sense.”
- George Orwell, 1984
"NOAA scientist: agency likely broke science integrity rules"
By JAY REEVES and SETH BORENSTEIN
9 SEPTEMBER 2019
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — The acting chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said his agency likely violated its scientific integrity rules last week when it publicly chastised a weather office that contradicted President Donald Trump’s claim that Hurricane Dorian threatened Alabama.
Two top NOAA civil servants not so quietly revolted against an unsigned agency press release issued late Friday rebuking the Birmingham weather office for saying Alabama was safe.
The agency’s top scientist called Friday’s release “political” and the head of the National Weather Service said the Alabama office “did what any office would do to protect the public.”
“My understanding is that this intervention to contradict the forecaster was not based on science but on external factors including reputation and appearance, or simply put, political,” acting chief scientist and assistant administrator for ocean and atmospheric research Craig McLean wrote to staffers Sunday night.
In the email, first reported by The Washington Post, McLean said he is “pursuing the potential violations” of the agency’s science integrity policy.
NOAA spokesman Scott Smullen said Monday, “NOAA’s policies on scientific integrity and communications are among the strongest in the federal government, and get high marks from third party observers."
"The agency’s senior career leaders are free to express their opinions about matters of agency operations and science."
"The agency will not be providing further official comment, and will not speculate on internal reviews.”
Meanwhile, another career civil servant, National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini said forecasters in Birmingham did the right thing Sept. 1 when they tried to combat public panic and rumors that Dorian posed a threat to Alabama.
“They did that with one thing in mind: public safety,” said Uccellini, who prompted a standing ovation at a meeting of the National Weather Association by asking members of the Birmingham weather staff to stand.
“Only later, when the retweets and politically based comments started coming to their office, did they learn the sources of this information,” he said.
Kevin Laws, science and operations officer for the weather service in Birmingham, declined comment on Uccellini’s remarks.
“I think the speech speaks for itself,” Laws said.
McLean in his letter said the Birmingham staff “corrected any public misunderstanding in an expert and timely way as they should.
There followed, last Friday, an unsigned press release from ‘NOAA’ that inappropriately and incorrectly contradicted the NWS forecaster.”
McLean said that the NOAA Scientific Integrity Policy tells all agency employees to “approach all scientific activities with honesty, objectively, and completely, without allegiance to individuals, organizations, or ideology.”
He said the Friday NOAA press release “compromises the ability of NOAA to convey life-saving information” and “violated NOAA’s policies of scientific integrity.”
The policy said employees should not “intimidate or coerce employees, contractors, recipients of financial assistance awards, or others to alter or censor scientific findings.”
The scientific integrity policy is not criminal and has no punishments, said former NOAA general counsel and deputy administrator Monica Medina, who served in the Barack Obama and Bill Clinton administrations.
She praised McLean and Uccellini “for looking into the matter and holding their current leadership accountable.”
At the National Weather Association’s annual meeting, members including its president, signed two posters supporting the hurricane center and Birmingham office.
“We make forecasts, we don’t deal with politics,” said association president Paul Schlatter, who works for the weather service in Boulder, Colorado.
“Our job is to protect the American public with the weather information we pass around."
"Of course, it’s frustrating when things get politicized and we are the scientists and the communicators that are delivering the message for weather safety.”
Trump has defended his Sept. 1 tweet that said Hurricane Dorian would threaten Alabama.
Last week Trump displayed an altered hurricane forecast map in the Oval Office that included a crudely drawn addition in black ink to include parts of Alabama, in an attempt to make his point.
Alabama had never been included in hurricane forecast advisories.
Trump cited older and less authoritative information, which was based on outdated computer models and older graphics on wind speed.
___
Borenstein reported from Washington.
https://www.apnews.com/e7a4480d33ce4040b59bd48d4b832c05
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE
"Demand for gasoline wanes as electric car sales advance: report"
Marissa Luck
Nov. 29, 2018 Updated: Nov. 30, 2018 9:21 a.m.
Americans' appetite for gasoline is slowing and could fall further as electric car sales continue to bite into gasoline demand.
Electric vehicles sales are expected to make up 36 percent of new car sales by 2040, or in the most extreme scenarios, 100 percent of new car sales in the U.S. Europe and China, according to new analyses by the energy research firm from Wood Mackenzie.
Wood Mac projected that that this rate of adoption of electric vehicles would displace 5.5 million barrels a day of oil, although in an extreme scenario that could be as high as 11 million barrels a day.
If the current pace of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, a major cause of global warming produced by fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal, the global demand for oil would peak in 2036.
If the pace accelerates, global oil demand could peak as soon as 2031.
That, of course, has big implications for the economy of Houston, where most of the world’s biggest energy companies have headquarters or significant operations.
"The global energy transition will continue to progress, led in large part to technologies and (carbon dioxide reduction) trends we're already seeing in the marketplace - the rise of renewables, growth in electric vehicles, electrification of end-use demand, increasing efficiency,” said David Brown, senior analyst at Wood Mackenzie, in a statement.
The auto industry’s bullish outlook on electric vehicles was highlighted this week when GM announced it will stop making its hybrid, the Chevy Volt, in favor of focusing on electric and autonomous vehicles.
Fossil fuels, however, are not going to vanish.
Even in an extreme scenario, fossil fuels will still make up 77 percent of global energy demand through 2035, according to Wood Mackenzie
While Americans are still consuming lots of gasoline, demand is flattening as vehicles become more fuel efficient.
The could mean lower profit margins — even losses — on motor gasoline for refineries along the Gulf and East coasts, the U.S. Energy Department said in a note Wednesday.
Higher gasoline prices for most of this year has hurt gasoline demand, the Energy Department said.
In the short-term energy outlook released earlier this month, the Energy Department estimated that U.S. gasoline consumption fell 1.3 percent in October compared to the same time last year, the sixth month this year with year-over-year declines.
For the first three weeks of November, estimated monthly gasoline consumption averaged about 9.2 million barrels per a day, a decrease of 262,000 barrels per a day since last November.
"Gasoline production has outpaced demand,”the Energy Department said, “and inventories have increased beyond their normal seasonal levels, lowering gasoline prices and, as a result, gasoline margins."
Gasoline refining margins are an indicator of profitability.
Margins have reached some of their lowest October and November levels seen in the past five years, according to the Energy Department.
Gulf Coast refineries saw motor gasoline margins fall from 27 cents per gallon in the first half of the year to 1 cent a gallon in October.
But refineries are seeing demand and margins grow for ultra-low diesel.
The EIA expects diesel fuel margins to remain high next year.
marissa.luck@chron.com
twitter.com/marissaluck7
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/busine ... 432919.php
"Demand for gasoline wanes as electric car sales advance: report"
Marissa Luck
Nov. 29, 2018 Updated: Nov. 30, 2018 9:21 a.m.
Americans' appetite for gasoline is slowing and could fall further as electric car sales continue to bite into gasoline demand.
Electric vehicles sales are expected to make up 36 percent of new car sales by 2040, or in the most extreme scenarios, 100 percent of new car sales in the U.S. Europe and China, according to new analyses by the energy research firm from Wood Mackenzie.
Wood Mac projected that that this rate of adoption of electric vehicles would displace 5.5 million barrels a day of oil, although in an extreme scenario that could be as high as 11 million barrels a day.
If the current pace of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, a major cause of global warming produced by fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal, the global demand for oil would peak in 2036.
If the pace accelerates, global oil demand could peak as soon as 2031.
That, of course, has big implications for the economy of Houston, where most of the world’s biggest energy companies have headquarters or significant operations.
"The global energy transition will continue to progress, led in large part to technologies and (carbon dioxide reduction) trends we're already seeing in the marketplace - the rise of renewables, growth in electric vehicles, electrification of end-use demand, increasing efficiency,” said David Brown, senior analyst at Wood Mackenzie, in a statement.
The auto industry’s bullish outlook on electric vehicles was highlighted this week when GM announced it will stop making its hybrid, the Chevy Volt, in favor of focusing on electric and autonomous vehicles.
Fossil fuels, however, are not going to vanish.
Even in an extreme scenario, fossil fuels will still make up 77 percent of global energy demand through 2035, according to Wood Mackenzie
While Americans are still consuming lots of gasoline, demand is flattening as vehicles become more fuel efficient.
The could mean lower profit margins — even losses — on motor gasoline for refineries along the Gulf and East coasts, the U.S. Energy Department said in a note Wednesday.
Higher gasoline prices for most of this year has hurt gasoline demand, the Energy Department said.
In the short-term energy outlook released earlier this month, the Energy Department estimated that U.S. gasoline consumption fell 1.3 percent in October compared to the same time last year, the sixth month this year with year-over-year declines.
For the first three weeks of November, estimated monthly gasoline consumption averaged about 9.2 million barrels per a day, a decrease of 262,000 barrels per a day since last November.
"Gasoline production has outpaced demand,”the Energy Department said, “and inventories have increased beyond their normal seasonal levels, lowering gasoline prices and, as a result, gasoline margins."
Gasoline refining margins are an indicator of profitability.
Margins have reached some of their lowest October and November levels seen in the past five years, according to the Energy Department.
Gulf Coast refineries saw motor gasoline margins fall from 27 cents per gallon in the first half of the year to 1 cent a gallon in October.
But refineries are seeing demand and margins grow for ultra-low diesel.
The EIA expects diesel fuel margins to remain high next year.
marissa.luck@chron.com
twitter.com/marissaluck7
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/busine ... 432919.php
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
CNN
"John Bolton was fired, and the price of oil instantly fell"
By Matt Egan, CNN Business
10 SEPTEMBER 2019
The U.S. Energy Information Administration dimmed its outlook for oil consumption on Tuesday due to concerns about the economy.
The agency now expects global oil demand will increase by 900,000 barrels per day this year, potentially marking the weakest growth since at least 2011.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/ ... P17#page=2
"John Bolton was fired, and the price of oil instantly fell"
By Matt Egan, CNN Business
10 SEPTEMBER 2019
The U.S. Energy Information Administration dimmed its outlook for oil consumption on Tuesday due to concerns about the economy.
The agency now expects global oil demand will increase by 900,000 barrels per day this year, potentially marking the weakest growth since at least 2011.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/ ... P17#page=2
Re: ON ENVIRONMENTAL HYSTERIA-MONGERING
AND WHAT A SLIMEBALL THING IT WAS FOR HIM TO DO, THIS MICK MULVANEY ...
AND THIS WHOLE THING OF TRUMP CONTRADICTING THE WEATHER SERVICE WITH A FALSE FORECAST HE COOKED UP IS BIZARRE TO AN EXTREME …
THE NEW YORK TIMES
"White House Pressed Agency to Repudiate Weather Forecasters Who Contradicted Trump"
Peter Baker, Lisa Friedman and Christopher Flavelle
11 SEPTEMBER 2019
WASHINGTON — The White House was directly involved in pressing a federal scientific agency to repudiate the weather forecasters who contradicted President Trump’s claim that Hurricane Dorian would probably strike Alabama, according to several people familiar with the events.
Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, told Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, to have the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publicly disavow the forecasters’ position that Alabama was not at risk.
NOAA, which is part of the Commerce Department, issued an unsigned statement last Friday in response, saying that the Birmingham, Ala., office was wrong to dispute the president’s warning.
In pressing NOAA’s acting administrator to take action, Mr. Ross warned that top employees at the agency could be fired if the situation was not addressed, The New York Times previously reported.
Mr. Ross’s spokesman has denied that he threatened to fire anyone, and a senior administration official on Wednesday said Mr. Mulvaney did not tell the commerce secretary to make such a threat.
The release of the NOAA statement provoked complaints that the Trump administration was improperly intervening in the professional weather forecasting system to justify the president’s mistaken assertion.
The Commerce Department’s inspector general is investigating how that statement came to be issued, saying it could call into question scientific independence.
The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, which is controlled by Democrats, announced on Wednesday that it too has opened an investigation into Mr. Ross’ actions.
The White House had no immediate comment on Wednesday, but the senior administration official said Mr. Mulvaney was interested in having the record corrected because, in his view, the Birmingham forecasters had gone too far and the president was right to suggest there had been forecasts showing possible impact on Alabama.
Mr. Trump was furious at being contradicted by the forecasters in Alabama.
On Sept. 1, the president wrote on Twitter that Alabama “will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.”
A few minutes later, the National Weather Service in Birmingham posted on Twitter that “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian."
"We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.”
For nearly a week, Mr. Trump kept insisting he was right, displaying outdated maps, including one that had been apparently altered with a Sharpie pen to make it look like Alabama might be in the path of the storm.
He had his homeland security adviser release a statement backing him up.
Mr. Ross called Neil Jacobs, the acting administrator of NOAA, from Greece where the secretary was traveling for meetings, and instructed Dr. Jacobs to fix the agency’s perceived contradiction of the president, according to three people informed about the discussions.
Dr. Jacobs objected to the demand and was told that the political appointees at NOAA would be fired if the situation was not fixed, according to the three individuals, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the episode.
The political staff at an agency typically includes a handful of top officials, such as Dr. Jacobs, and their aides.
They are appointed to their jobs by the administration currently in power, as opposed to career government employees, who remain in their jobs as administrations come and go.
The statement NOAA ultimately issued later on Friday calling the Birmingham office’s statement “inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”
Dr. Jacobs has since sought to reassure his work force and the broader scientific community concerned about political interference.
“This administration is committed to the important mission of weather forecasting,” Dr. Jacobs told a weather conference in Huntsville, Ala., on Tuesday.
“There is no pressure to change the way you communicate or forecast risk in the future.”
In the speech, Dr. Jacobs praised Mr. Trump, calling him “genuinely interested in improving weather forecasts,” and echoed the president’s position that Dorian initially threatened Alabama.
“At one point, Alabama was in the mix, as was the rest of the Southeast.”
He also said he still had faith in the Birmingham office.
“The purpose of the NOAA statement was to clarify the technical aspects of the potential impacts of Dorian,” Dr. Jacobs said.
“What it did not say, however, is that we understand and fully support the good intent of the Birmingham weather forecast office, which was to calm fears in support of public safety.”
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... P17#page=2
AND THIS WHOLE THING OF TRUMP CONTRADICTING THE WEATHER SERVICE WITH A FALSE FORECAST HE COOKED UP IS BIZARRE TO AN EXTREME …
THE NEW YORK TIMES
"White House Pressed Agency to Repudiate Weather Forecasters Who Contradicted Trump"
Peter Baker, Lisa Friedman and Christopher Flavelle
11 SEPTEMBER 2019
WASHINGTON — The White House was directly involved in pressing a federal scientific agency to repudiate the weather forecasters who contradicted President Trump’s claim that Hurricane Dorian would probably strike Alabama, according to several people familiar with the events.
Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, told Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, to have the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publicly disavow the forecasters’ position that Alabama was not at risk.
NOAA, which is part of the Commerce Department, issued an unsigned statement last Friday in response, saying that the Birmingham, Ala., office was wrong to dispute the president’s warning.
In pressing NOAA’s acting administrator to take action, Mr. Ross warned that top employees at the agency could be fired if the situation was not addressed, The New York Times previously reported.
Mr. Ross’s spokesman has denied that he threatened to fire anyone, and a senior administration official on Wednesday said Mr. Mulvaney did not tell the commerce secretary to make such a threat.
The release of the NOAA statement provoked complaints that the Trump administration was improperly intervening in the professional weather forecasting system to justify the president’s mistaken assertion.
The Commerce Department’s inspector general is investigating how that statement came to be issued, saying it could call into question scientific independence.
The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, which is controlled by Democrats, announced on Wednesday that it too has opened an investigation into Mr. Ross’ actions.
The White House had no immediate comment on Wednesday, but the senior administration official said Mr. Mulvaney was interested in having the record corrected because, in his view, the Birmingham forecasters had gone too far and the president was right to suggest there had been forecasts showing possible impact on Alabama.
Mr. Trump was furious at being contradicted by the forecasters in Alabama.
On Sept. 1, the president wrote on Twitter that Alabama “will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.”
A few minutes later, the National Weather Service in Birmingham posted on Twitter that “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian."
"We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.”
For nearly a week, Mr. Trump kept insisting he was right, displaying outdated maps, including one that had been apparently altered with a Sharpie pen to make it look like Alabama might be in the path of the storm.
He had his homeland security adviser release a statement backing him up.
Mr. Ross called Neil Jacobs, the acting administrator of NOAA, from Greece where the secretary was traveling for meetings, and instructed Dr. Jacobs to fix the agency’s perceived contradiction of the president, according to three people informed about the discussions.
Dr. Jacobs objected to the demand and was told that the political appointees at NOAA would be fired if the situation was not fixed, according to the three individuals, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the episode.
The political staff at an agency typically includes a handful of top officials, such as Dr. Jacobs, and their aides.
They are appointed to their jobs by the administration currently in power, as opposed to career government employees, who remain in their jobs as administrations come and go.
The statement NOAA ultimately issued later on Friday calling the Birmingham office’s statement “inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”
Dr. Jacobs has since sought to reassure his work force and the broader scientific community concerned about political interference.
“This administration is committed to the important mission of weather forecasting,” Dr. Jacobs told a weather conference in Huntsville, Ala., on Tuesday.
“There is no pressure to change the way you communicate or forecast risk in the future.”
In the speech, Dr. Jacobs praised Mr. Trump, calling him “genuinely interested in improving weather forecasts,” and echoed the president’s position that Dorian initially threatened Alabama.
“At one point, Alabama was in the mix, as was the rest of the Southeast.”
He also said he still had faith in the Birmingham office.
“The purpose of the NOAA statement was to clarify the technical aspects of the potential impacts of Dorian,” Dr. Jacobs said.
“What it did not say, however, is that we understand and fully support the good intent of the Birmingham weather forecast office, which was to calm fears in support of public safety.”
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