Category: Influential People
Indisputable!
Most of us have no question that greenhouse gases are a danger to human health. Faced with fossil energy lobby disinformation, genuine scientists need to keep beating the drum.
National Academies Publish New Report Reviewing Evidence for Greenhouse Gas Emissions and U.S. Climate, Health, and WelfareA new National Academies report reviews evidence gathered by the scientific community since 2009 on greenhouse gas emissions and their effects on U.S. climate, health, and welfare.KEEP IT IN THE GROUND!
The Worst = Big Oil
We need to keep beating the environmental drum. Even though anyone who is awake knows the role big oil continues to play in our lunge toward oblivion, we are too easily diverted from the fundamental fact that burning fuel and making single-use plastic stuff is killing the planet.
LNG = Huge Mistake
Not in the Public Interest
The reason for liquifying natural gas it to move it to parts of the planet where the price is better for the drillers. The domestic market is flooded, and most of us know that burning it or making plastic of it is harming generations to come, not just us. But energy companies pay nothing for these tragic collateral effects of taking gas out of shale.
As Trump Pushes Liquified Natural Gas Exports, Residents in Pennsylvania Towns Push Back to Stop a Proposed LNG Terminal – Bucks County BeaconAlong the Delaware River, the communities of Chester and Eddystone are facing the possibility of a new $7 billion liquified gas facility that will export Pennsylvania’s plentiful fracked gas.Tell ’em to leave it in the ground.
Mendacity as a Climate Strategy
Trump’s energy chief, a former fracking CEO, aims to tinker with key climate reportsHe’s doing “exactly what Stalin did.”The big lie strategy is alive and well in Washington. The Administration hopes to blunt outrage at lax policies for the fossil energy industry by institutionalizing climate denial.
Fracking Economics
Paul Krugman’s 5-13-25 column provides a key insight into the relationship between renewable energy and fossil energy. Renewables are competitive, even when we don’t take into account the hidden subsidies society provides fossil fuels by tolerating the externalized environmental damage. If a driller can’t get at least $60 a barrel for oil produced, it doesn’t pay to drill. Gas has a similar threshold of profitability. So when the energy industry waxes poetic about the benefits of drilling, look for the dodge and the gimme. The driller needs a premium price for the energy he mines. And the cost of renewables will continue to drop.
Here’s a quote from Krugman’s article:
In the case of shale, it’s all about prices. Drilling new shale wells is expensive. In fact, Trump’s vision of drastically lower oil prices never made any sense, because any large drop in oil prices would make new shale wells unprofitable. And since production from any given shale well drops quickly over time, anything that caused new drilling to fall substantially would quickly translate into declining oil production.
How low would prices have to go to shrink the U.S. oil industry? Recently the Dallas Fed did a survey which suggested that drilling in many major fields would stop if the price per barrel fell below the low 60s:
And that was before Trump’s tariffs raised costs, so the critical price is probably higher now. And guess what: oil prices right now are at a level where we can expect production to fall. Here are oil futures:
Source: Bloomberg
Why did oil get cheap? Look at the sudden drop on April 2, aka Liberation Day, when Trump first announced extreme tariffs. It’s obvious that oil prices are down thanks to pessimism about the global economy, which in turn is tied to Trump’s trade war. And by the way, that war is by no means over. A new analysis by the Yale Budget Lab finds that the damaging effects of Trump’s tariffs are only modestly mitigated by his surrender to China.
And as for renewables: Trump hates them, wind power in particular. He offers crazy justifications for that hatred — did you hear about his claim that offshore wind farms kill whales? — but it’s pretty clear that he has been nursing an irrational grudge ever since he was unable to stop a Scottish wind farm that he thought ruined the view from a golf course he owns.
Oh, and I’m pretty sure that MAGA types in general dislike renewable energy because they don’t consider it manly.
So what will be the economy-boosting effects of drill, baby, drill? Nil, baby, nil.
No Regard for Climate
No regard for the obstacles deservedly placed in the path of businesses that exploit natural resources. It is all about commerce and profits. The greater public good is a distant priority.
GOP Advances Bill to Fast-Track Fracking, Logging and Mining on Public LandsThe legislation would make it harder to file legal challenges against controversial mines and pipelines.Footnote: The source of the above article is Truthout, an extremely left-biased source. Although they don’t usually publish lies, they do omit context and considerations that tend to favor the right.
Shapiro Criticized
Pennsylvania Health Advocates Say Gov. Shapiro Has Let Residents Down on Fracking Protections – Inside Climate NewsPublic health advocates assessing Josh Shapiro’s first two years as Pennsylvania’s governor concluded that he hasn’t done enough to protect residents from the damaging effects of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas—despite charting a roadmap for such actions almost five years ago while he was attorney general. Environmental Health Project (EHP), a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit, said Shapiro […]Push Back!
The PR firms and energy lobby work relentlessly to promote fracking. They have outsized influence on legislators, particularly at the state and local levels. When the rest of us are disengaged or complacent, bad things happen. Consider Ohio . . .
Huge majorities in Ohio oppose fracking our state parks, but state leaders just ignore all concerns • Ohio Capital JournalWho do Ohio lawmakers represent in the fracking free-for-all carving up acres of our state parks and public land for oil and gas money? They sure as heck don’t represent the people. Public resistance to fracking in Ohio State Parks is almost universal.Politics and Fracking
Here’s the CBS News explanation of why the issue is controversial.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/why-fracking-is-a-major-issue-for-securing-pennsylvania-voters
