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Trump and his hairspray leave cloud of weird in coal country

by Ebony72Mlar Posted on May 9, 2016

Trump and his hairspray leave cloud of weird in coal country

By on May 9, 2016Share

Donald “Climate Change Is a Hoax” Trump told voters in West Virginia last week not to bother going to the polls for the state’s primary on Tuesday. “You don’t have to vote anymore, save your vote for the general election, forget this one, the primary’s done,” Trump told the crowd at a campaign stop in the state’s capital, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reports. That doesn’t sound like a comment from a politician — what kind of candidate tells people not to vote? — but of course, Trump isn’t one.

Still, it was not the most bizarre occurrence at the Charleston rally: That honor is reserved for the moment Trump donned a hard hat and did a little working-in-the-coal-mine dance.

The coal-loving crowd ate it right up. Many of them stood in the audience holding “Trump digs coal” signs.

“I’ll tell you what, folks, you’re amazing people,” Trump said. “The courage of the miners and the way the miners love what they do, they love what they do. If I win we’re going to bring those miners back.”

As the Gazette-Mail points out, this is quite a change of attitude toward the mining community. In 1990, Trump told Playboy, “If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination — or whatever — to leave their mine. They don’t have it.”

Trump, naturally, blames the coal industry’s troubles on the EPA, an agency he plans to shut down. But the reality is that coal is suffering because natural gas is beating it in the marketplace and demand from China is declining — trends a President Trump would be unlikely to reverse.

The Charleston rally also included an off-the-wall, off-the-script hairspray rant, detailed by The Intercept:

“My hair look okay?” Trump asked the crowd. “Got a little spray — give me a little spray.”

“You know, you’re not allowed to use hairspray anymore because if affects the ozone. You know that, right?” he said to laughter. “I said, ‘You mean to tell me’ — ’cause you know hairspray’s not like it used to be, it used to be real good,” he added, to more laughs. “Give me a mirror. But no, in the old days, you put the hairspray on, it was good. Today, you put the hairspray on, it’s good for 12 minutes, right?”

“I said, ‘Wait a minute — so if I take hairspray and if I spray it in my apartment, which is all sealed, you’re telling me that affects the ozone layer?’” “‘Yes.’” I say, no way, folks. No way!”

“No way!” he added to cheers. “That’s like a lot of the rules and regulations you people have in the mines, right? It’s the same kind of stuff.”

Bemoaning the ineffectiveness of modern-day hairspray may seem like an odd way to relate to miners, but, hey, Trump’s shtick is clearly working for him.

After the rally, Trump said the crowd in Charleston numbered 28,000. The fire marshal’s count, says the Gazette-Mail, was 11,600.

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Trump and his hairspray leave cloud of weird in coal country

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Did Colorado’s Open Carry Law Delay Police Response to a Mass Shooter?

by BurtonWarkentin Posted on November 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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Details are continuing to emerge about a gun rampage that took place in the streets of Colorado Springs on Saturday morning, in which 33-year-old Noah Harpham shot three people to death before police killed him in a shootout. On Monday, a troubling detail came to light in a Denver Post report suggesting that police may have had a chance to intervene before the slaughter began—but that a police dispatcher may have reacted without urgency to a 911 call about Harpham because of Colorado’s open carry law:

Witnesses watched in horror as Harpham picked his victims off. One of them, the bicyclist, pleaded for his life before being killed.

“I heard the (young man) say, ‘Don’t shoot me! Don’t shoot me!’ ” Naomi Bettis, a neighbor who witnessed the killing, said Monday.

Bettis said she recognized the gunman as her neighbor—whom she didn’t know by name—and that before the initial slaying she saw him roaming outside with a rifle. She called 911 to report the man, but a dispatcher explained that Colorado has an open carry law that allows public handling of firearms.

“He did have a distraught look on his face,” Bettis said. “It looked like he had a rough couple days or so.”

It’s unclear how much time lapsed between Bettis’ 911 call and when the rampage began, but according to The Gazette the initial police response didn’t come until after the carnage was in progress:

The first reports of a shooting came about 8:45 a.m. as Colorado Springs police were called to the 200 block of Prospect Street after multiple calls about gunshots, El Paso County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Jacqueline Kirby and Colorado Springs police spokeswoman Lt. Catherine Buckley said. Authorities said the shooter was killed after opening fire on police officers.

By then, Harpham had killed the bicyclist, 35-year-old Andrew Alan Myers, and two women at a nearby location, 42-year-old Jennifer Michelle Vasquez, and 34-year-old Christina Rose Baccus-Gallela. (Similarly, the Denver Post reported: “Officers were first called on reports of a ‘possible shooting’ at 230 North Prospect Street—a townhouse-like building—where they found the bicyclist dead and a fire burning, the dispatch archives show.”)

Proponents of open carry laws argue that the ability for citizens to take firearms with them in public isn’t just a right but makes communities safer. We don’t yet know, but the law allowing guns to be carried on display in Colorado may have just done the opposite.

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Did Colorado’s Open Carry Law Delay Police Response to a Mass Shooter?

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Will West Virginia Schools Have to Teach "False Science"?

by BevRosmanfd Posted on January 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared in the Huffington Post and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The West Virginia State Board of Education (SBOE) has drawn the ire of science education groups after voting on standards that encourage students to debate the causes of climate change.

As first reported in The Charleston Gazette, a member of the state board of education requested last year that alterations be made to a blueprint of new science standards, suggesting in particular that climate change not be treated as a “foregone conclusion.” After the state Department of Education drafted those changes and made the standards available for public comment, the SBOE voted in December to officially adopt them.

The science standards are based on guidelines from the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), a set of curriculum benchmarks for schools. The NGSS was developed by a consortium of 26 states, including West Virginia, in an effort to make sure students around the country are being taught rigorous coursework.

According to the Gazette, the original standards asked students to assess the reasons for the rise in global temperatures over the past century. The new version, however, asks students to assess the “rise and fall” in global temperatures. Additionally, while the original standards asked students to use data to make an “evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change,” the new standards ask students to assess the credibility of “geoscience data and the predictions made by computer climate models…for predicting future impacts on the Earth System.”

In 2013, climate scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that they are 95 percent certain that humans are causing global warming. Similarly, a 2013 report from the Institute of Physics found that 97 percent of scientists believe climate change is being driven by humans.

Lisa Hoyos, director and co-founder of the group Climate Parents, a group that advocates for climate change education, told The Huffington Post that she does not think science class should be treated like a “debate club,” since scientific teaching is based on evidence. She said her organization will be putting out a petition to try and “revoke the false science from West Virginia.”

“There’s an ethical expectation that parents have of Board of Education members—that they are committed to ensuring that kids are taught actual, accurate science,” Hoyos told HuffPost this week.

Mark McCaffrey, programs and policy director for the National Center for Science Education, also said in a statement that he thinks “a few board members have been allowed to ride roughshod over the scientific consensus on climate reflected in the NGSS.”

Gayle Manchin, president of the state Board of Education and wife of US Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), noted that people didn’t seem to take issue with the standards during the public comment period. However, after receiving negative feedback about the standards more recently, she said the board will hold further discussions on them.

“I believe that our board members are motivated to think about what will be best for the students of West Virginia, and I value their expertise in different areas,” Manchin told HuffPost.

She said she does not think the substance of the standards has changed, and she said the new standards “encourage children to think more critically and evaluate all the information that’s out there.”

According to The Charleston Gazette, board member Wade Linger was among the people leading the effort to change the science standards, and was the one to suggest replacing the phrase “the rise,” as in the rise of global temperatures, with “the rise and fall.” However, Linger told HuffPost that he was not the only voice calling for the revisions.

“The press has given me way too much credit for this,” said Linger. “This was a board decision, not a single-person decision.”

Linger said he is pleased with the new standards because they “teach kids how to think, not what to think.”

Still, Marie Hamrick, co-president of the West Virginia Education Association’s Raleigh County affiliate, told The Register-Herald that she thinks the state board ignored scientific evidence when voting to change the standards.

“This group thinks that they are smarter and wiser than the scientific community that designed the questions,” Hamrick said.

The new standards will be implemented in West Virginia schools for the 2016-2017 school year.

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Will West Virginia Schools Have to Teach "False Science"?

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Fracking is definitely causing earthquakes, another study confirms

by DaciaPamphlett Posted on January 7, 2015

Fracking is definitely causing earthquakes, another study confirms

By on 7 Jan 2015commentsShare

Yet another study has found a link between hydraulic fracturing and earthquakes. This one examined 77 minor quakes near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports:

The sequence of seismic events, including a rare “felt” quake of a magnitude 3.0 on the Richter scale, was caused by active “fracking” on two nearby Hilcorp Energy Co. well pads, according to the research published online [Tuesday] in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

The study found that although it is rare for fracking associated with shale gas extraction to cause earthquakes large enough to be felt on the surface by humans, seismic monitoring advances have found the number of “felt and unfelt” earthquakes associated with fracking have increased over the past 10 years.

Studies have found that it’s not just the actual drilling and extraction that causes the earthquakes; more often, the routine practice of injecting fracking wastewater into deep disposal wells is to blame. Once the toxic mix of water, sand, and chemicals is underground, it can travel for miles, changing the pressure on fault lines and sometimes triggering earthquakes.

The practice has caused a surge in earthquakes in many areas where fracking is common. Oklahoma in particular has been hard-hit. Once a state where tremors were few and far between, Oklahoma in 2014 had 564 quakes that were at least of magnitude 3 — the most in the contiguous U.S.  From 1975 until 2008, the state had, on average, only three such quakes per year. From E&E EnergyWire:

The Sooner State was shaken by 564 quakes of magnitude 3 and larger, compared with only 100 in 2013, according to an EnergyWire analysis of federal earthquake data. California, which is twice the size of Oklahoma, had fewer than half as many quakes. …

“Who’d have ever thought we’d start having so many earthquakes out here in the middle of the country?” asked Max Hess, a county commissioner in Grant County, which had 135 quakes last year. He also thinks the quakes are related to oil and gas, which has been an economic boon for the rural county northwest of Oklahoma City.

“It’s been good,” Hess said of the drilling, “but it’s got its drawbacks.”

EnergyWire reports that many in Oklahoma’s oil and gas regions are cautiously tolerant of the earthquakes because of the money that comes with the drilling boom. But scientists in the state’s geological survey are concerned about the trend. “If my research takes me to the point where we determine the safest thing to do is to shut down injection — and consequently production — in large portions of the state, then that’s what we have to do,” seismologist Austin Holland told Bloomberg this summer.

Source:
Study: Fracking caused earthquakes in existing faults in Ohio

, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Shaken more than 560 times, Okla. is top state for quakes in 2014

, E&E EnergyWire.

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The men who poisoned Charleston’s drinking water now have a “new” business

by DevonCallinan Posted on May 2, 2014

The men who poisoned Charleston’s drinking water now have a “new” business

By

West Virginia University

“Freedom Industries, the company whose chemical leak contaminated the tap water of 300,000 West Virginians, will cease to exist once it goes through bankruptcy, but that doesn’t mean its executives are out of the chemical business,” according to an excellent investigative report by The Charleston Gazette.

A January spill of a coal-cleaning chemical from one of Freedom’s rusty tanks triggered a major crisis for Charleston residents, who had to find alternate sources of water. Roughly a third of them experienced negative health impacts from the polluted water, experts estimate.

But while Freedom Industries is technically going out of business, its leaders are quietly starting up again under a new name, as the Gazette explains:

Lexycon LLC, a chemical company whose characteristics are strikingly similar to Freedom Industries, registered as a business with the West Virginia secretary of state about a month ago.

The companies share addresses and phone numbers, Lexycon was founded by a former Freedom executive and it has ties to at least two other current or former Freedom executives. …

After the Gazette emailed [Kevin Skiles and Bob Reynolds, former senior Freedom employees who now work for Lexycon,] to ask if the new company was affiliated with Freedom, the two men’s names disappeared from the Lexycon website and a new phone number was listed in their place. …

The companies’ descriptions of their businesses match, almost verbatim. …

Freedom Industries’ logo appeared on Lexycon’s exhibitor page on the Coal Prep [conference] website Wednesday afternoon.

More than 60 lawsuits have been filed against Freedom Industries over the spill, but the plaintiffs shouldn’t count on payouts because the company is quickly running through its cash by paying its high-priced lawyers.


Source
Freedom execs tied to new chemical company, Charleston Gazette

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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The men who poisoned Charleston’s drinking water now have a “new” business

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Colorado to scrutinize oil and gas pollution

by trasze2aja Posted on January 10, 2013

Colorado to scrutinize oil and gas pollution

By Philip Bump

Colorado suddenly got pretty cool, guys. I’m not talking about the weed thing; that joke is beyond played out. I’m not even talking about the wind energy thing, although I’m kind of talking about that, in a way.

I’m talking about how the state has decided to do more testing to track pollution from oil and gas drilling. From the Colorado Springs Gazette:

Colorado oil and natural gas regulators on Monday approved rules making the state the first to require energy companies to do groundwater sampling both before and after they drill.

The sampling is meant to show whether supplies of drinking water have been affected by energy development.

Seems like something worth testing, I guess!

Here is Colorado Springs, a city in Colorado, because I wanted to add a picture.

Moreover, the Summit County Voice reports:

Colorado officials took another small step to address growing public concerns about the impacts of the state’s energy boom by announcing a $1.3 million study of emissions from oil and gas drilling operations.

According to a press release from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, the study will help provide information about how oil and gas emissions behave, how they travel and their characteristics in areas along the northern Front Range.

A second phase would assess possible health effects using data collected in the first phase.

The emissions study comes after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that oil and gas operations in Colorado were leaking twice the amount of methane originally estimated.

As is always the case, the tests are not as robust as many would like — and oil and gas companies are already wringing their hands about how onerous the studies will be. The Environmental Defense Fund suggested to the Gazette that the water-sampling test was “the weakest program in the nation.” The program will allow the companies to determine the test sites, which leaves some room for deception.

Nonetheless, steps in the right direction. Therefore: COOLER-ado. Colo-RAD-o. My jokes are stupid and I am ashamed of myself.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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