EXPERTS SAY OIL PRICES WILL STAY HIGH

Your best guarantee that they will fall

The Energy Department yesterday significantly increased its projection for oil prices in 20 years to about $54 a barrel after concluding that Middle Eastern oil-producing countries are spending less than previously expected on expanding production. That price is about $21 higher than had been predicted last year by the department's Energy Information Administration. "It has to do with a reassessment of the willingness of oil-rich countries to expand their oil-production capacity," said G. Daniel Butler, an analyst with the Energy Information Administration. "We're not as bullish on expansion of production capacity, especially from OPEC members."

Oil prices have soared as worldwide demand has increased faster than production. The report, updated annually, said the United States and "emerging Asia -- notably, China -- are expected to lead the increase in demand for world oil supplies, keeping pressure on prices though 2030."

The projections often change year by year, though officials said the gap between last year's estimates and this year's projections is unusually large. As prices have become volatile, analysts have had difficulty in accurately projecting them.

Oil-producing countries lack the ability to significantly increase production in response to a supply disruption elsewhere. Oil traders have pushed up prices, fearing that terrorist attacks or other disruptions could lead to shortages. Prices rose after hurricanes Katrina and Rita damaged oil production in the Gulf of Mexico this fall.

More here






CUT DOWN THE AMAZON RAINFOREST!

Reliapundit has a good tease. He notes this report:

"Trees in the Amazon tropical forests are old. Really old, in fact, which comes as a surprise to a team of American and Brazilian researchers studying tree growth in the world's largest tropical region.

Using radiocarbon dating methods, the team, which includes UC Irvine's Susan Trumbore, found that up to half of all trees greater than 10 centimeters in diameter are more than 300 years old. Some of the trees, Trumbore said, are as much as 750 to 1,000 years old. Study results appear in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Because their trees are old and slow-growing, the Amazon forests, which contain about a third of all carbon found in land vegetation, have less capacity to absorb atmospheric carbon than previous studies have predicted. Although some of the largest trees also grow the fastest and can take up carbon quickly, the vast majority of the Amazon trees grow slowly.

"In the Central Amazon, where we found the slowest growing trees, the rates of carbon uptake are roughly half what is predicted by current global carbon cycle models," Trumbore said. "As a result, those models - which are used by scientists to understand how carbon flows through the Earth system - may be overestimating the forests' capacity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."

And concludes:

If this is true, then as the Amazon forest has been allowed to AGE, it has become less efficient at absorbing atmospheric CO2 - at CO2 uptake, and this means more CO2 stays in the atmosphere every year as a result. The increase of atmosphreric CO2 over the last 100 years might be a result of this - the aging of the Amazon - and NOT INDUSTRIALIZATION OR ANYTHING "MAN-MADE."

HERE'S AN IDEA: If we CUT DOWN MORE TREES WITHIN THE AMAZON - AND REPLANTED THESE AREAS WITH YOUNG TREES - (like EVERY good forestry corporation routinely does everywhere) - then we would actually BE REDUCING GREENHOUSES GASES. Here's our slogan:

"Save the Atmosphere! Cut Down the Amazon!"

Somehow, I don't think Sting, or any other member of the chic glitterati or anyone on the Left or in the Green Movement will get behind this BRILLIANT idea. It's too pro-growth. PUN INTENDED!

MORE EVIDENCE OF SOLAR FORCING OF TERRESTRIAL CLIMATE

(From Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 32, L05813, 2005 )

Possible association between Indian monsoon rainfall and solar activity S. Bhattacharyya Jawaharlal Nehru Centre For Advanced Scientific Research, Jakkur, Bangalore, India R. Narasimha Jawaharlal Nehru Centre For Advanced Scientific Research, Jakkur, Bangalore, India Abstract Over the 120 y period (1871-1990) for which reliable Indian rainfall statistics are available, solar activity parameters exhibit nonstationarity. Taking this fact into account, we present here the results of an analysis of four solar activity indices and seven major Indian monsoon rainfall time series, over two distinct test periods respectively of low and high solar activity, each comprising three complete solar cycles. It is found that the average rainfall is higher in all seven rainfall indices during periods of greater solar activity, at confidence levels varying from 75% to 99%, being 95% or greater in three of them. Using wavelet techniques it is also found that the power in the 8-16 y band during the period of higher solar activity is higher in 6 of the 7 rainfall time series, at confidence levels exceeding 99.99%. These results support existence of connections between Indian rainfall and solar activity.





California: Judge clears way for border fence: "A federal judge on Monday lifted the final legal barrier to completing a border fence meant to thwart illegal immigrants in the southwestern corner of the U.S. The project comprises 14 miles of additional fencing in San Diego. In September, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff waived all laws and legal challenges to building the final 3 1/2-mile leg through coastal wetlands to the Pacific Ocean. The Sierra Club and other environmental groups had argued that Chertoff lacked the authority to do what he did. But U.S. District Judge Larry Burns said Congress delegated such authority to Chertoff in June. He noted that the executive branch already had significant jurisdiction over national security and immigration."

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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