♫ Nobody told me– I just heard–
— I just heard ♫
They are the lyrics of a song. – Sadly, I don’t remember its name, and I don’t remember any more of the lyrics . It could have been from 50 years ago ? But they are certainly most appropriate in our current world. A world so dominated by well crafted fake news, and image creation, and the manipulation of the “consensus of public opinion.”
Most of the copy below I wrote five years ago and the manipulation of public opinion has gotten even worse. It is constantly being honed and polished to a sick and insidious perfection.
But it only works when it’s not perceived.
Understanding and perception totally destroys its power.
The biggest and most frightening new addition to the litany of lies has been created when the oil giants seem to diverse all their connections to coal mining and got heavily into the mining and exploitation of natural gas. Coal had to be demonized and Natural Gas (almost pure methane) had to glorified.
So coal’s soot was demonised and carbon dioxide greenhouse gas production was glopped in with the soot. It was portrayed as an old and “dirty” energy supply system. Whereas “natural gas” was promoted as the “transition fuel” while the world slowly switched to “renewables energy”.
The term “natural” was first used in the early 1800s when meaning “not made by man” and therefore “it had to be better”.
It’s true that burning coal for energy is twice as bad an energy system as burning methane that is provided every bit of methane coming from the mining site and the entire surrounding area doesn’t leak into the air.
A tiny 2.5% leakage of methane with its one hundred or so extra greenhouse gas potential shows coal to be a much safer energy system.
At the commonly accepted minimum in the gas mining industry of a 5% leakage.
At a 5% fugitive leakage even dirty old brown coal is a cleaner energy system than “natural gas”.
It’s called “fugitive leaks” because it’s leakages that are impossible to prevent. It’s like trying to rebottle a very bad smell.
Understanding Always Beats Tricky and Deliberately Confusing Lies
There now is a growing public appreciation of the seriousness of the greenhouse heating of the Earth’s biosphere.
A reasonable description of the land area of the biosphere can be considered the Earth’s surface to the depth of deep-rooted plants – that is a couple of metres – to the top of the troposphere – about 20 thousand metres or 65 thousand feet. In that air mass temperatures get colder as you get higher.
The temperature reduction stops at the top of the troposphere. That’s the tropopause. And it’s an apt name. Then you’re in the stratosphere where air temperatures stop rising and start gently climbing up until you reach around 50 k.
And then it again starts to gradually drop to temperatures around – 90deg C where it again starts to gently rise at the start of the mesosphere.
Above that is the mesosphere is where the air mass gradually drops away to nothing and temperatures are that of interstellar space. Actually temperatures here are more or less meaningless as there is nothing there to have a temperature.
From ground level to the top of the stratosphere (around 20 to 25 kilometres high the air acts as the “glass” giving Earth its greenhouse effect.
Air is approximately 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen. Both gasses are pretty-much transparent to all the white and near white lengths that control the temperatures in the biosphere.
So it’s actually all the “impurities” in the atmosphere that determines the temperatures in the biosphere. Biosphere (as in “biology” ). And it’s where we all live.
Layers of the atmosphere: troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere and thermosphere.
UCAR/Randy Russell
The above excellent pictorial is a production of –
The fossil fuel and agrochemical corporations, industries and countries never stop, and can’t let themselves stop. Putting out stories and manipulating information to ensure their own survival and their own future prosperity is an absolute essential.
– That’s to them –
There is so much fake news they put out – I don’t know where to start – and then maybe I might get buried in the orchestrated rubbish and get nowhere?
But of course, then they’ve won. And WE cannot let that happen.
So, never stop questioning “which is fake and which is not?
This is not fake.
The working paper prepared by the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department estimated that, in 2017, global fossil fuel subsidies grew to $5.2 trillion, representing 6.5% of combined Global GDP. (May13, 2019)
(most of below was I wrote here was penned several years ago but it’s still current and applicable)
And from the Guardian: Big “oil attacks ethanol industry with misleading claims
“For the second time in 90 years, the oil industry is seeking to prevent the emergence of a more sustainable alternative” to their oil and gas.
Also: A battle that has been fought for more than 90 years has erupted again in the US, with the American Petroleum Institute (API) accused of seeking to kill off the re-emerging ethanol industry.
The API recently rolled out an aggressive new campaign called “Fuel for Thought”, calling on lawmakers to set limits on the amount of ethanol and other renewable fuels that can be blended with gasoline.
The campaign makes sweeping claims that ethanol, or at least too much of it, is bad for the economy, bad for the environment and even bad for cars.
These claims are already causing controversy and are staunchly denied by leaders in the ethanol industry who say that the API is simply trying to kill off the competition so they can retain their long held monopoly on transportation fuel.
The battle between the two fuels dates back to the prohibition era when gasoline took over from ethanol as the main fuel used to run cars. The first car Henry Ford ever built was designed to run on pure ethanol and in 1906, when the liquor tax was repealed, Henry Ford declared “ethanol was the fuel of the future”.
But his idea was effectively killed off by 1920 when
Standard Oil founder John D Rockefeller got the temperance movement “to ban the manufacture of alcohol for any purpose”
So the ethanol fuel industry died in its infancy (but ironically) only to come back to life again in 2005 when the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) Programme was established from growing realization of the dangers of the excessive heating of the Earth’s biosphere.
The RFS programme mandated that every gallon of gasoline must be blended with a certain percentage of renewable fuels. It was signed into law by President George W Bush, who cited national security concerns and the need to reduce our “dependence on foreign oil” as his main motivation. Creating more American jobs was also advanced as a reason to nurture the ethanol industry, which last year supported 383,000 direct and indirect jobs.
As a result of the mandates established under the Renewable Fuel Standard, almost 95% of gasoline sold at pumps today comply with the RFS of containing 10% ethanol (E10) and in June of 2007 (I think it was)
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) authorised the sale of E15, a blend that contains 15% ethanol.
Today, 2022 I understand all American built cars must be designed to run on 15% ethanol.
Until recently most of the ethanol that is on the market has been produced from food crops, usually corn. This “first generation” fuel has drawn a lot of opposition, however, because of its environmental impact and because of the argument that using crops for fuel drives up food prices.
So the industry has been working hard to develop second and third generation fuels such as cellulosic ethanol made from biomass, which is a much cleaner and more sustainable form of the fuel than its corn based counterpart. Cellulosic ethanol is made in a more complicated process s as it uses the stringy storks of the plant and not the seeds.
Three major corporations, Poet-DSM Advanced Biofuels, Dupont Industrial Biosciences and Abongo Bioenergy have broken ground on new plants that will produce millions of gallons of cellulosic ethanol in the next few years. These industry leaders credit the RSF mandates with making this technological leap possible.
“There would be no market for cellulosic ethanol or other advanced biofuels without those mandates,” says Jan Konicki, Global Business Director for DuPont. “Of course, the API want the mandates repealed because they know that as the production capacity for clean fuels increases, their monopoly is more under threat”.
Indeed it does not seem coincidental that the API is stepping up their anti-ethanol campaign now just as the food versus fuel argument is losing its legs and just as a much cleaner and more sustainable form
of the fuel is on the cusp of commercialization. It’s also interesting to note that neither of these facts gets a mention in the API’s “fuel for thought” campaign. Instead, the campaign focuses on the same
tired arguments about food prices, pollution and new misleading claims about engine damage.
One of the first “fuel for thought” ads features a car mechanic, who claims that in addition to causing pollution and driving up food prices, “ethanol is simply bad for cars.”
He warns motorists that even the American Automobile Association (AAA) says “too much ethanol could cause engine damage that’s not covered under warranty.”
The ad ends with the mechanic saying more ethanol is good news for him as he slides under a car engine allegedly damaged by too much renewable fuel.
This is a highly misleading claim, however, not least because the ad was not even endorsed by AAA.
Michael Green, a national spokesperson for the organisation told me that AAA did not authorise API to use their brand and that AAA supports the development and use of ethanol and alternative fuels.
They do have some concerns about the sale of E15 because motorists need to be made aware that the higher blend fuel is not suitable for all car engines. These concerns have been addressed by the EPA,
however, which has performed rigorous tests on the fuel and approved its use – at least – for all light duty motor vehicles manufactured since 2001 and “E15 (is suitable) for light and medium duty passenger vehicles and light duty trucks manufactured since 2007.
That’s the EPA effectively declaring that E15 is OK in the US, in any vehicle that’s less than 15 years old.
The EPA did stipulate that manufacturers selling the fuel must have a “mis-fueling mitigation plan” in place to minimise the potential for E15 to be used in vehicles for which it is not (supposably) suited.
False and misleading as these claims are, the API is still determined to use them to get the RFS mandates repealed. Last month, (at the time of writing) the API took their campaign to the house of congress, which held two days of hearings on the issue and there may be more hearings in the Senate later.
It’s unlikely that a repeal of the Act would survive a vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, never mind the President’s veto power.
The biofuel industry fears, however, that the API will succeed in muddying the waters about advanced fuels enough to turn off potential investors. “This may be their ultimate goal,” says a spokesperson for DSM.
And also, the “API will need to create confusion about cellulosic ethanol now if they can, because we think that once it comes pouring out of the new plants, the game will be over” (for the American Petroleum Industries). Considering the API and all fossil carbon industries.
As at 23/1/23 and as requested I’m assembling for you a “what to hammer list” of the basic ideas and concepts in my assembled solution to our biosphere’s rapid overheating.
Nutshell reminder list of what we need people to know and understand – especially people who construct the laws we have to live by.
1 Per unit of power produced, coal, oil and natural gas kill over 500 times more people than die from either wind or nuclear or solar. And that’s with the two nuclear bombs that ended WW2 included.
2 Cease all government subsidies to the fossil fuels and agrochemical industries.
3 Convert the air’s carbon overload (existing as carbon dioxide) into soil humus and doing so by any means selected or invented by the farmer. And pay them at least US$10 per ton – carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-eq) for that removal. It’s the cheapest way to remove it. The quantity removed, however has to be easily and accurately measured. Or nothing happens. The Yeomans Methodology solves that problem. Read it. One farmer’s comment was – “It’s simply unfettered common sense“.
The existing carbon dioxide overload is enough to keep the biosphere heating for decades. Its therefore imperative that we in Australia demand that our federal government use the existing “Carbon Farming Initiative Act 2011” to approve the Yeomans Methodology to create Australian Carbon Credits. Businesses, organisations and governments around the world could use the Methodology to create their own carbon credits and so demonstrate to all, the methodology’s enate practicality.
4 To be clear we are defining “humus” as those molecules that are created from the final breakdown of soil life in the presence of air and water. Humus molecules are also huge – they can have molecular weights in the millions. They have long life-spans – up to thousands of years. In soil they are almost chemically inert. We also include as “humus” soil organic matter that will pass through a 2 mm sieve without any prior grinding. That means the material must have decomposed to the point where it is no longer a fibrous material.
5 In the air, methane gas is 225 to 350 time worse a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
6 Fracking is the process of forcing high-pressure liquids deep into the earth to fracture the rock structures and so release trapped oil and gas. That is oil and gas that’s been safely trapped, usually for millions of years.
7 Apply continuous and enormous monitory penalties to “Fugitive Gas” (methane) discharges that mining companies are constantly releasing into the atmosphere.
8 Ammonia liquid will be, and must be the primary fuel for all our portable energy requirements. It’s the only sane choice we have that we don’t have to grow on farm land, such as ethanol.
9 Ammonia is easy and cheap to produce from air and water and electricity. And now possibly from air and water and strong blue light. Also, ammonia is safer to handle than either gas, or oil, or coal.
( My mother always had a bottle of ammonia in the kitchen to clean the bench top. It’s safe stuff)