So there is a common expression that is getting even more common and more over used called “Back Of The Envelope” which basically is an expression that describes calculations that are very course spatially or vertically OR rough enough that they can be done on the back of an envelope/napkin.
I decided it might be fun to take this concept and apply it to the commonly held belief that man emits 45 Gigatons (1 Gigaton = 1 Billion Tons) per annum. This has been cited in many a popular and scientific paper. Hope you enjoy! I would just note that below there are a bunch of numbers and all assumptions came from some of my Ph.D. work and not out of thin air. It is interesting that my BOTEs while not exactly the same as the IPCC’s independent estimate of 45 Petagrams (1 Pg = 1 Gt) are similar. The issue going forward will be identifying the black-boxes that remain in these equations. (NOTE: All local ecosystem units are in Grams of Carbon per meter squared per year and this is a standard unit of measurement for ecosystem fluxes). Read the rest of this entry »
API stands for The American Petroleum Institute and it is Big Oil’s most prominent and well-financed lobbyist. They have been spreading canards about everything from climate change to deleterious influence of alternative energy a/o the idea of this country moving towards a blended and more diverse energy portfolio. In a recent article in The Times by David Kocieniewski, their president Jack N. Gerard offered up one of the most amazing misrepresentations of the facts I have seen since that fateful night in April when the Gulf disaster was initiated. He noted in responding to accusations of tax law exploitation, avoidance, and off-shore relocation to facilitate the latter that, “These companies evaluate costs, risks and opportunities across the globe. So if the U.S. makes changes in the tax code that discourage drilling in gulf waters, they will go elsewhere and take their jobs with them.” First off the companies Mr. Gerard refers to are not simply “these companies” they are his peeps, the men and women he is obligated to defend, which means this disassociated language is awfully tricky because he is acting as if he and API are an objective and trustworthy third-party. Read the rest of this entry »
Okay so we live in a capitalist society where laissez-faire regulation allows for the efficient market hypothesis to drive share and commodity prices to-and-fro in a sublime manner that would make Ginger Rodgers and Fred Astaire jealous! The freshwater economists at the University of Chicago’s Booth School would have us believe that anything we want/need to know about a given stock or commodity is contained within its current price and valuation trajectory. However, it seems the supply and demand dynamics that govern markets writ large do not apply to oil markets globally or the stuff extracted from the Gulf Coast. Capitalism’s Gatorade (or HGH if you’re a baseball fan!) defies market norms in a manner that can only be explained by some twisted and decoupled Wizard of Oz-type forces. Read the rest of this entry »
