Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Let me file that under fuck it.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Their shamelessness is their super power.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

People are complicated. Love is not.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

This blog will pay for itself.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Evening Open Thread: And the Planet… Belched

Thursday Evening Open Thread: And the Planet… Belched

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“Don’t take life too serious – it ain’t nohow permanent.” From the Washington Post:

… By now, you’ve heard of the crater on the Yamal Peninsula. It’s the one that suddenly appeared, yawning nearly 100 feet in diameter, and made several rounds in the global viral media machine. The adjectives most often used to describe it: giant, mysterious, curious. Scientists were subsequently “baffled.” Locals were “mystified.” There were whispers that aliens were responsible. Nearby residents peddled theories of “bright flashes” and “celestial bodies.”

There’s now a substantiated theory about what created the crater. And the news isn’t so good.

It may be methane gas, released by the thawing of frozen ground. According to a recent Nature article, “air near the bottom of the crater contained unusually high concentrations of methane — up to 9.6% — in tests conducted at the site on 16 July, says Andrei Plekhanov, an archaeologist at the Scientific Centre of Arctic Studies in Salekhard, Russia. Plekhanov, who led an expedition to the crater, says that air normally contains just 0.000179% methane.”…

Some scientists contend the thawing of such terrain, rife with centuries of carbon, would release incredible amounts of methane gas and affect global temperatures. “Pound for pound, the comparative impact of [methane gas] on climate change is over 20 times greater than [carbon dioxide] over a 100-year period,” reported the Environmental Protection Agency.

As the Associated Press put it in 2010, the melting of Siberia’s permafrost is “a climate time bomb waiting to explode if released into the atmosphere.”…

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Apart from that, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

39Comments

  1. 1.

    Amir Khalid

    Panicking over bad news on climate change, I guess.

    AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! We’re doomed! Doomed, I tell you! AAAAARGH! Etc. …

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    Thread went up just as was posting below, so repeating:

    If anyone interested in the impending major weather mess here (some bands of rain preceding the storm already falling), a recent report (from about 3 hours ago).

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    @JPL

    Appreciated.

    All set for hunker down mode. So long as the roof stays on, should be okay.

    Largest mall on the island closing at 3 p.m. today, all schools closed Thursday and Friday, bus service to be suspended by 5 this afternoon, airport closure likely around the same time, mayor has already put a state of emergency into place. Predicted power outages certainly a concern.

  12. 12.

    Hal

    Who cares? I will be raptured to heaven and won’t have to worry about this planet falling apart. Eat it suckers!

    It is gay, liberal Democrats who get raptured, right?

  13. 13.

    gbear

    I read that story and wondered if I should just retire from my job now instead of in 4 years. The work that I do has increasingly had to deal with building damage due to the blow down of trees by severe straight line winds. It’s starting to scare the shit out of me because some of the buildings that were repaired are being hit for the second time, and I’m wondering if I should just start visiting all the natural wonders of the US before they start disappearing. This has suddenly become very disturbing.

  15. 15.

    Citizen_X

    @Emma:

    Ain’t the only place: The Arctic is doing it too.

    Um, Siberia is in the Arctic. And Subarctic.

  20. 20.

    Anoniminous

    @NotMax:

    First time in recorded history a hurricane may hit Hawaii from the east. It’s also an angular hurricane and they are very, very, rare.

    So.

    Look on the bright side: you are about to experience an historic event.

  22. 22.

    Fatcow

    Ahh yes. Methane… the evil culprit of the empending fartocalypse. More hot air from the balloon juice kool-aid machine.

  24. 24.

    Comrade Dread

    Yep. Our kids and grandkids are well and proper fucked.

    Sorry. I hope that in due time when civilization collapses and everything descends into a mad anarchy where every man is against every other man, that they will have banded together just long enough to ensure that the Republicans were eaten first.

    Also, I’m hoping that worms evolve into giant sized beasts that can be ridden across the sands, because that would at least be a nice consolation prize for them.

  25. 25.

    Suffern ACE

    @Comrade Dread: I read that as “worms evolve giant sized breasts” which I don’t think they need, but which would be weirdly entertaining to behold.

  28. 28.

    Mike S

    Is anyone else have trouble accessing Balloon-Juice with Google Chrome? I have had to use IE to read B-J for the last two days. Adblock didn’t make any difference. It just partly loads the page and then freezes.

    I really don’t want to have to use two browsers all the time. Is this an MS conspiracy maybe?

  30. 30.

    Amir Khalid

    @Bob In Portland:
    Do you know if Ukraine and the US have provided that information to the MH17 investigators? That would serve the investigation better than publishing it. Alternatively, do you know that these two countries have refused to provide such information?

    Incidentally, the investigation already has the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, which the Malaysian team persuaded the separatists to release. The latter will have a record of those conversations.

    Also, you are suggesting that the crash site being unsafe for investigators is due to the Ukrainian government wanting to hinder the investigation. The site is in a war zone, as everyone knows; if the separatists really want the investigation to exculpate them as soon as possible, maybe they should avoid fighting there.

  32. 32.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mike S:

    There are problems with Chrome right now — people at my office used to use it for our web-based apps, but they had to switch back to Firefox or Safari. No idea what Google broke in Chrome, but they broke it good.

  33. 33.

    Schlemizel

    WE have not seen the real worst yet. No, I don’t mean that the hockey stick theory of things getting a whole lot hotter in a run away fashion. That will happen & cause a lot of upheaval & death. But the real disaster will happen when the dipshit finally understand how fucked we all are & DEMAND that extraordinary measures be taken. Several will be tried & they will be what ultimately wipes humans off the face of the earth.

  34. 34.

    lurker dean

    @Mike S: Yes, in another thread a few of us commiserated about problems with Chrome. I have to use a different browser for BJ now, it blows.

  38. 38.

    dmbeaster

    @Anoniminous:

    Most hurricanes that hit Hawaii come in from the east. They all originate pretty much due east of Hawaii off the Mexico coast, and a few are curving northward when they get out to Hawaii. But the typically storm track is from the east.

    Not to pick on the typo, but it is an “annular” hurricane. It refers to the very round and complete formation of clouds around the eye to some depth (i.e., no gaps or ragged portions).

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