[Excerpt] Schmitt: Geologist Against Climate Science
By the way, Schmitt is a geologist by education, getting his training so long ago that renewable energy wasn't even on the radar. So it's natural that he's attached to the old-fashioned habit of digging in the earth for energy -- damn the consequences -- as well as in the moon, where he once walked. He believes the moon's natural resources should be exploited by private industry, not explored for public benefit.
Showing his vehement climate-change-denier loyalties, Schmitt quit his post at the Planetary Society -- a nonprofit dedicated to space exploration -- in November 2008 over a number of policy differences, including the Society's "accelerating research into global climate change through more comprehensive Earth observations." In his resignation letter, Schmitt claimed that the "global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision-making."
Commenting on the global warming debate, Schmitt said, "It's one of the few times you've seen a sizable portion of scientists who ought to be objective take a political position and it's coloring their objectivity." Here he is on Fox Business in December 2009 bagging the concept of man-made climate change, as well as the need to restrict greenhouse gases and implement cap and trade.
In the interview, he denies there is a "scientific consensus" on climate change, and says "the CO2 scare is a red herring." He states that the "global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision-making," and that scientists who might otherwise challenge prevailing views on climate change dare not do so for fear of losing funding…..[End Excerpt]
This makes you wonder about these scientists who laying out this massive ‘worry’ about the methane here...and also in Siberia (the global warming worry). It would appear like that the Earth has various self-healing ways...that we still aren’t familiar with.
Oh, no!
But But - what has all that gorging on methane done to the poor bacteria?
The arrogance of these eviromental whackos is amazing. They believe man is a significant impact on the planet’s ecosystem, yet they refuse to recognize the recovery of Love Canal, Krakatow and Chernobl.
Man is like bateria to the earth, an annoyance but not lasting.
So,deforestation of the Amazon is a greater contributor to rising CO2 levels than fossil fuel burning? I’m not arguing for atmospheric CO2—> global warming, just that if biomass sucks up a huge amount of a rate limiting nutrient (CH4 in this case), why not CO2 as well ?
I don’t care how people explain the situation, I thoroughly believe God provided the methane-eating bacteria to take care of it. Thank You, Lord God!
This is IMH-educated-O complete and utter JUNK SCIENCE.
“two to three months after engineers finally capped the well, the gas was gone. All of the evidence points to an explosion of methane-eating bacteria.” NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
Methane is essentially INSOLUBLE in salt water. Methane GAS, originating from the busted well head or from sublimating methane hydrate(s) would NOT persist in the marine environment under ANY circumstances. The methane CH4 would either escape into the atmosphere or reform as crystalline methane hydrate.
The bacteria in the Gulf waters DID however ‘eat’ a lot of hydrocarbons — specifically CRUDE OIL and its fractions.
As a recovering Marine Scientist this kind of article (which I did NOT read in its entirety) just pi$$es me off so bad.
So were not all going to die and the Gulf isn’t going to be an oceanographic desert? Drill baby drill.
GO DUCKS!
Fascinating. Most cool.
Often times the resulting output from bacteria are more harmful than the compound they are consuming. Just a thought ...
Good, old yankee-doodle-scientists. Real patriots,,,unlike those other traitorous, commie-pinko scientists.
Did`nt methane eating bacteria exist in the past, or are they a relatively recent form of life?
“Clathrate gun hypothesis”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis
Mother Gaia has healed Herself again from assaults of heartless, Earth destroying Capitalists. /sarcasm
Sounds more like devouring BS to me.
The methane was converted to CO2 and released in the atmosphere.
Nobody noticed.
The Register (UK) which normally follows computing stuff picked up on this story:
'Methanotroph' bacteria feasted on blown BP rig's methane belch
*********************************************
7th January 2011 16:11 GMT
Scientists believe they have solved the mystery over what happened to the hundreds of thousands of tons of methane that belched into the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion last April.
According to a study published in Science Xpress, the gas served as a feast for methanotrophs: bacteria able to use natural gas as food.
A team of US researchers found that the level of dissolved oxygen in a 36,000-square-mile are surrounding the rig had plummeted, a tell-tale sign of a boom in the methanotroph population. They made measurements that ruled out the possibility that the escaped methane had simply bubbled into the atmosphere.
"What we observed in June was a horizon of deep water laden with methane and other hydrocarbon gases," said UC Santa Barbara oceanographer David Valentine.
"When we returned in September and October and tracked these waters, we found the gases were gone. In their place were residual methane-eating bacteria, and a one million ton deficit in dissolved oxygen that we attribute to respiration of methane by these bacteria."
The scientists were particularly surprised at the speed with which the bacteria consumed their enormous meal. Earlier studies elsewhere in the world suggested methane levels around Deepwater Horizon would be well above normal for years ahead.
Valentine's co-author, John Kessler of Texas A&M, said the study has major implications for our understanding of how methane releases affect the climate. There are vast stores of the powerful greenhouse gas trapped on the sea floor, and it had been supposed that occasional large releases have a significant impact on global temperatures.
"What the Deepwater Horizon incident has taught us is that releases of methane with similar characteristics will not have the capacity to influence climate," Kessler said.
The question of what happened to the more than four million barrels of crude oil spilled after the blow out, which also dissipated sooner than expected, remains under debate. Factors including high winds, natural breakdown, evaporation and the clean-up operation have all been suggested. ®