Steve Bull's Blog, page 20
June 13, 2024
Another Blowout Adds to Mystery of Permian Basin Water Pressure
Water is bursting from another West Texas oil well, continuing a troubling trend.
Water flows from an orphaned oil well on Schuyler Wight’s ranch in Pecos County, Texas. Credit: Courtesy of Schuyler WightIn recent years, Schuyler Wight has noticed a growing number of abandoned oil wells coming back to life, gurgling fluids to the surface of his West Texas ranch. Last week he found the biggest one yet.
Gassy water was gushing from the ground and down a quarter mile of roadway before it drained into a pasture on a remote corner of his land.
“It’s by far flowing more than any other,” Wight said. “It’s getting worse, there’s no question about that.”
It’s the latest in a string of mysterious water features in the arid Permian Basin, the nation’s top producing oil field, that regulators have been unable to explain.
Last year, an eruption of salty water swamped several acres on Wight’s cousin’s ranch, triggering a multi-million-dollar cleanup. In 2022, a geyser shot up from a well in Crane County, then another spouted on the Antina Cattle Ranch. Nearby, a large pond of gassy groundwater has become a permanent feature called Boehmer Lake.
Texas’ oilfield regulator, the Texas Railroad Commission, has yet to offer an explanation for what is driving so much water to the surface. After the massive cleanup effort in January, an agency press release said it was “continuing to investigate” the cause. The Railroad Commission did not immediately respond to a query.
Wight, a fourth generation West Texas rancher, has watched this problem grow for years. He said the RRC has plugged about ten old wells leaking onto the surface of his property. But each time they do, another one starts flowing.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Could We Do Civilization Better?
Photo by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos on UnsplashThere seems to be a persistent mental bug preventing us from building a sustainable civilization. So far I have been focusing on the cultural, technological and political aspects of how and why each and every technological civilization ended up in ruins, and why ours is no different. A recent revelation made me think, however, that behind all these issues there might be a major hardware failure… In our brains. Is there a way around that bug? Is it possible to prevent it from recurring?
Last week I ended my post calling for a psychological transition versus a material one. Little did I know back then, that I would be writing about the same topic from a psychiatric viewpoint one week later. Such is life though: you never know what comes next. Before we delve into how our brains hijack societies (and vice verse), first let’s review the civilizational predicament we are in on the software level; i.e.: what’s apparently going wrong in our societies time after time when it comes to cajoling a bunch of apes into pulling in one direction.
The problem description goes something like this: As the civilizations we build mature, they increasingly become more rigid; not only when it comes to how they do things, but more importantly: how they think. They gradually lose their ability to recognize — let alone solve — problems, and become increasingly sclerotic and calcified. Problems initially resolvable by an adept leadership grow larger and larger until they become intractable, and burgeoning bureaucracies make even the simplest of adjustments mission impossible.
While enacting new institutions are often done to solve rational problems (like the need to collect taxes in an organized way), they almost invariably end up becoming the most irrational things humans have ever created…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Sparing vs Sharing: The Great Debate Over How to Protect Nature
What is the best way to save nature – to cordon off areas for parks and open space or to integrate conservation measures on working lands? Recent research makes a case for each of these approaches and has reignited a long-standing debate among scientists and conservationists.
It is one of the biggest questions in conservation: Should we be sharing our landscapes with nature by reviving small woodlands and adopting small-scale eco-friendly farming? Or should we instead be sparing large tracts of land for nature’s exclusive use – by creating more national parks and industrializing agriculture on existing farmland?
The argument between “sparing” and “sharing” as a conservation tool has been raging since researchers first coined the terms more than a decade ago. Arguably it began almost half a century before when Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution of high-yielding crop varieties, declared that “by producing more food per unit of cultivated area, more land would be available for other uses, including recreation and wildlife.”
E.O. Wilson’s 2016 book Half-Earth upped the ante by calling for us to extend protected areas from the current 15 percent of the earth’s land surface to 50 percent. Research studies and critiques have flourished on both sides.
So where do things stand today? It begins to look as if the sparers are winning the narrow scientific argument by showing that locally, and in the short term, more species are usually saved by segregating conservation from agriculture and other human land uses. But critics say that begs more questions than it answers, overlooking the issue of the long-term sustainability of such islands of biodiversity and failing to address whether we actually need to grow more food.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Hezbollah Rains Down 160 Rockets On Northern Israel As War Expands
The Israel-Hezbollah war continues spreading and expanding along the border region, as on Wednesday the Shia paramilitary group backed by Iran fired some 160 missiles into Israel after the IDF killed a top Hezbollah commander, Taleb Sami Abdullah, in south Lebanon the day prior.
According to details from a regional war correspondent, Hezbollah “fired missiles and rockets at two Israeli military bases in retaliation for the Israeli strike on a house about six miles from Israel’s northern border, inside Lebanon, that killed Abdullah, 55, and three other Hezbollah officials who were meeting there.”
Illustrative, via NBCThe commander oversaw all of the group’s military operations in the central area of the Lebanon-Israel border, Hezbollah later confirmed. He was so senior in the organization that he been active in fighting Israel even going back to the 1990s.
An Israeli military statement had confirmed his identity: “Israeli Airforce aircraft eliminated Sami Taleb Abdullah, the commander of the Nasr Unit in the Hezbollah terrorist organization, last night,” the IDF announced Wednesday.
“This was part of a strike on a Hezbollah command and control center in the area of Jouaiyya in southern Lebanon, which was used to direct terrorist attacks against Israel from southeastern Lebanon in recent months.”
The IDF and Israeli media pointed out, “Abdullah was one of Hezbollah’s most senior commanders in southern Lebanon who planned, advanced, and carried out a large number of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.”
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the military is preparing an “extremely powerful” response to the continuing onslaught of Hezbollah attacks, which days ago resulted in dozens of fires across northern Israel.
Slain Hezbollah commander Sami Taleb Abdullah, source: Israel Hayom…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
De-Dollarization Just Accelerated… And You Might Not Even Know About It
BRICS in Nizhny Novgorod, Crickets’ Silence, Saudi Arabia, and Bridges (Away from the U.S. Dollar)
This past week has been a real turning point in the de-dollarization trend we’ve been talking about in these pages.
Funny enough, the media seems to be completely oblivious to most of it. Perhaps intentionally so.
As I told you earlier this week, the 50-year petrodollar agreement between Saudi Arabia and the United States is no more, with no new deal in place.
But, we mostly heard crickets from the Western mainstream media…
And just as I was writing about that, something else closely related was happening in Russia. This is from TASS, the Russian News Agency…
NIZHNY NOVGOROD, June 10. /TASS/. Delegates from 22 countries are expected to take part in the meeting of the BRICS foreign ministers in Nizhny Novgorod, the organizers told journalists.
According to the organizers, representatives from Russia, Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are taking part in sessions on Monday and representatives from Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belarus, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Laos, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela, and Vietnam are expected to attend events on Tuesday, June 11.
The majority of the participating countries are represented by ministers.
Meanwhile, once again, awkward silence from the Western media. Here’s a screenshot I’ve taken of my Google results to illustrate. Not even one of these reports came from the West…
This is suspiciously odd given that….
BRICS collectively hold 32% of the world’s GDP, surpassing the 30% held by the G7 countries.BRICS represent nearly half of the world’s population.BRICS nations produce about 42% of global crude oil output.Needless to say, it’s fair to say that BRICS isn’t just any bunch of countries. This makes it doubly weird how the mainstream media chose to ignore this.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Carbon Credits Are the Biggest Scam Since Indulgences—How You Can Avoid Being Fleeced
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In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church convinced the commoners to buy indulgences to alleviate their sins. And they made a fortune in the process.
Similarly, today, our overlords—the mainstream media, central bankers, and their political allies—are working overtime to convince the commoners to pay for their alleged climate sins.
Enter carbon credits, government-issued permits that grant you the privilege to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide.
Although advocates promote them as a way to “save the environment,” in reality, carbon credits are nothing more than a devious mechanism to tax, regulate, and control you.
It’s not a coincidence that the most philosophically and ethically bent people are promoting them.
For example, at a recent World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, participants revealed and touted an “individual carbon footprint tracker.” It will track where people travel, how they travel, what they eat, and what they consume.
Carbon accounting is already creeping into many places, like Google Flights.
A federal carbon tax is already a reality in Trudeau’s Canada, and it’s causing the price of food and other goods and services to soar. But Canadians haven’t seen anything yet—the federal carbon tax will triple by 2030.
In short, there’s a growing push to implement the carbon credit scam worldwide. And that’s not a coincidence.
Remember, central banks only exist to harvest wealth from the populace through inflation and redirect it to the politically connected, an insidious practice known as seigniorage.
Fiat currency is the usual mechanism central banks use to perpetuate this fraud. They get most people to run on a hamster wheel most of their lives chasing after confetti money they create with no effort.
However, there is a limit to this process.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
June 12, 2024
When All Crimes Are Those Against the State
“Do not encroach against others or their property.”
The above principle is a simple one, yet it’s the basis for all criminal law. In turn, criminal law is the basis for Common Law, the legal system for English-speaking peoples and much of the rest of the world.
The idea is a simple one: If party A aggresses against party B, party B is entitled under the law to restitution or compensation to be paid by party A to party B.
Well, that seems straightforward enough. But at some point along the way, two fundamental changes have been made that don’t reflect the original principle.
First, convicted offenders started to be ordered by the court to pay the court as punishment. Of course, the offense was not against the court, but the government of the day wanted to get in on the action. Surely, if a crime against a given party had been committed, the state was entitled to dip its beak, so to speak.
Over time, fines payable to the state became the norm. And for those who couldn’t pay the state, jail time.
Along the way, another extension to the concept came into use: victimless crimes. Increasingly, laws were passed by governments to make actions unlawful when there was no harm to an individual or his property.
To wit: Recently, the State of Michigan passed law HB4474, against “hate crime” – any perceived slight against another person, verbal or otherwise. The law recognizes such disparate slurs as those critical of gender identity, religion, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, or even affiliation with a group. Incredibly, the law extends as far as the outlawing of unacceptable pronouns.
The punishment is imprisonment of up to two years, a fine of $5,000, or both.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Science Snippets: Water Disappears as Earth Warms
Draft script:
The title of this video makes an obvious statement. As Earth or any part of Earth warms, evaporation accelerates. As a result, surface water evaporates and goes into the atmosphere. Considering Earth is in the midst of the most rapid environmental change in planetary history, we must accept evaporation to be at an all-time high. This short video describes examples of our rapidly drying planet.
From CNN comes a story titled The world’s highest navigable lake is drying out. The story was published 3 September 2023. Here’s the lede: “Water levels at Lake Titicaca – the highest navigable lake in the world and South America’s largest – are dropping precipitously after an unprecedented winter heat wave.” The first paragraph concludes with this sentence: “The shocking decline is affecting tourism, fishing and agriculture, which locals rely on to make a living.”
The article published by CNN goes on: “Visitors have long been attracted to the blue waters and open skies of South America’s largest lake, which straddles more than 3,200 square miles across the border of Peru and Bolivia.
Sometimes described as an ‘inland sea,’ it is home to Aymara, Quechua, and Uros indigenous communities and sits at an altitude of around 3,800 meters (12,500 feet) in the central Andes mountain range, making it the highest navigable lake in the world. The extreme altitude also exposes the lake to high levels of solar radiation, which enhances evaporation and constitutes most of its water losses.
More than three million people live around the lake, relying on its waters to fish, farm and attract tourists who boost the economy of an otherwise marginalized region.
Now the lake is at risk of losing some of that magic.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Cautious US Escalation Against Russia Is Developing Not Necessarily to US Advantage
The feebleness of the US response to a Russian incursion into Kharviv, which was to prevent further strikes on civilian targets in the border city of Belgorod, and the quick Russian counter-moves, confirms how the Collective West has no good options, even if its leaders can’t yet admit that to themselves and come up with better alternatives than punching into air or a wall, as the case may be. Obama warned that Russia would have escalatory dominance with respect to Ukraine, and we are seeing that play out now.
The short version of what follows is that the Biden Administration may have made a tiny gain against its big objective of not losing in Ukraine before the November election, since Russia may slightly delay an expected next move, of entering Sumy oblast. An advance into Sumy would further lengthen the line of contact, increase the degree of over-extension of Ukraine forces, and thus accelerate the process of attrition, which is Russia’s big goal. But even if the US policy change did produce this effect (and since none of us have Russian plans, we can’t know if any change occurred), it is coming at considerable geopolitical cost, that of Putin suggesting, and deputy chair of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev confirming, that Russia will arm third countries in conflicts with the United States.
To recap the recent state of play: earlier this week, the US described a policy change regarding the use of US weapons by Ukraine On a superficial level it seemed simply to give permission for what Ukraine had been doing already, as in using Western (here US) missiles to hit Russian territory, as in pre-the-2014-dispute Russia.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Vaclav Smil On The Two Cultures And Our “Fully Post-Factual World”
My emails with Smil on C.P. Snow’s 1959 essay, scientific illiteracy and innumeracy. Plus: Kotkin, Gurri, and Teixeira on the elites vs. the “normies”
C.P. Snow in 1977. Photo: Bern Schwartz, National Portrait Gallery.In 1959, British novelist and physical chemist C.P. Snow gave a now-famous lecture called “The Two Cultures.” Snow argued that there was a growing disconnect between the culture of the sciences and the culture of the humanities and that bridging that gap was critical to understanding and addressing the world’s problems. Snow declared,
I believe the intellectual life of the whole of western society is increasingly being split into two polar groups… Literary intellectuals at one pole – at the other scientists, and as the most representative, the physical scientists. Between the two a gulf of mutual incomprehension.
Snow then underscored the general public’s lack of understanding of energy. As Snow put it:
A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s?
Indeed, while most moderately cultured people will be familiar with the Bard’s A Comedy of Errors or The Merchant of Venice, the three laws of thermodynamics are considered by most people to be the domain of nerds and wonks…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
