Masters Of War

Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build all the bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks. You that never done nothin' But build to destroy You play with my world Like it's your little toy You put a gun in my hand And you hide from my eyes And you turn and run farther When the fast bullets fly. Like Judas of old You lie and deceive A world war can be won You want me to believe But I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain. You fasten all the triggers For the others to fire Then you set back and watch When the death count gets higher You hide in your mansion' As young people's blood Flows out of their bodies And is buried in the mud. You've thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world For threatening my baby Unborn and unnamed You ain't worth the blood That runs in your veins. How much do I know To talk out of turn You might say that I'm young You might say I'm unlearned But there's one thing I know Though I'm younger than you That even Jesus would never Forgive what you do. Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul. And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand over your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead.------- Bob Dylan 1963

Monday, June 28, 2010

BP's Methane Monster: From the Gulf to the Globe

BP's Methane Monster: From the Gulf to the Globe

by: Craig Collins, Ph.D., t r u t h o u t | Report

photo
(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: flydime, kewl)

We hear a lot of talk about carbon dioxide as the most dangerous climate culprit. And we should. So far, loading the atmosphere with CO2 is the single biggest cause of climate disruption. But, in the final analysis, methane may prove to be the most deadly of all greenhouse gases.

Unlike CO2, methane is flammable. BP's Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before exploding. The fiery blast killed 11 workers and sank the platform. Since then, an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil has spewed into the Gulf every day, making it the biggest oil spill in the US since the wreck of the Exxon Valdez in 1989.

Methane is a menace to coal mining. Mines use giant fans to keep this colorless, odorless gas below dangerous concentrations. But if this fails, the tiniest spark can set off a deadly blast. Methane explosions killed 29 miners in the Massey coal mine disaster last month and claimed 12 miners in the Sago mine disaster back in 2006.

However, methane's explosive properties are a miniature menace compared to its heat-trapping capacity. As a greenhouse gas, methane is about 25 times more potent, molecule for molecule, than carbon dioxide. Today, the amount of methane in our atmosphere is spiking at an alarming rate. Scientists studying this situation call methane "a ticking time bomb," and warn that vast stores could be released from frozen deposits on land and under the ocean in the coming decades.

Over the last few years, research ships in Arctic seas have found methane bubbling and foaming on the surface. These "methane chimneys" are caused by 10-degree jumps in temperature over eastern Siberia. Warmer temperatures cause methane to be released from thawing tundra and from melting methane deposits beneath the ocean. "These deposits rival fossil fuels in terms of their size. It's like having a whole additional supply of coal, oil and natural gas out there that we can't control," says James White, a geochemist at the University of Colorado.

The Siberian Shelf alone harbors an estimated 1,400 billion tons of methane - about twice as much carbon as is contained in all the trees, grasses and flowers on the planet. If just one percent of this escaped into the atmosphere within a few decades, it would be enough to cause catastrophic, uncontrollable climate change. This process could initiate a self-reinforcing feedback loop that would spiral out of control even if we cut our greenhouse emissions to zero. Scientists have no idea how close we are to crossing this point of no return, but the signs that we're approaching this tipping point are growing every day.

1 comment:

One Fly said...

There is hardly anything that I see on the internets about the gusher as a whole. It's like it's not happening. It will not be very long and the media will have to cover this correctly. A bunch of fucking whore everyone of them who make lite of this.

Need a job you fuckers who voted repug over and over.