Rediscovering Natural Gas By Hitting Rock Bottom

In recent years, natural gas producers in the United States have struggled, mostly in vain, to be taken more seriously in the energy world. Big oil companies like Exxon had concluded that natural gas reserves in the United States were not sufficiently abundant to warrant big investments in exploration and drilling. When small independent gas […]

Total

(Bloomberg) — Total SA Chief Executive Officer Christophe de Margerie said recent gains in oil prices reflect market anticipation of a supply shortfall within five years rather than current demand. Oil has advanced 60 percent this year in New York on signs the global economy may be on the brink of a recovery, boosting consumption […]

Obama: Climate Change May Lead to 'Irreversible Catastrophe'

U.S. President Barack Obama says inaction on climate change could leave future generations with an “irreversible catastrophe.” Mr. Obama urged more than 90 global leaders gathered for a climate change summit in New York City to work together to combat the problem. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the summit, and opened the session Tuesday by […]

Hummer Owners Claim Moral High Ground To Excuse Overconsumption

ScienceDaily The authors explain that Hummer owners employ the ideology of American foundational myths, such as the “rugged individual,” and the “boundless frontier” to construct themselves as moral protagonists. They often believe they represent a bastion again anti-American discourses evoked by their critics. Science Daily

Refitted to Bury Emissions, Plant Draws Attention

NEW HAVEN, W.Va. The experiment, which the company says could begin in the next few days, is riveting the world

Environmental Impacts of Oil Sands Development in Alberta

The oil sands are an issue of global importance. As conventional sources of crude oil are depleted, unconventional sources of oil, such as the bitumen found in oil sands, play a larger role in offsetting declining conventional production. The Canadian oil sands are the second largest proven oil reserve after Saudi Arabia. Most of the […]

All's not well with natural gas drilling near Bickleton

BICKLETON, Wash. — After spending 16 months and millions of dollars punching more than two miles into the earth in search of natural gas, Delta Petroleum says it’s disappointed with the results and is putting its plans for new wells on hold. The Denver-based company said its exploratory gas well, about 12 miles southeast of […]

Six Questions for Peter Maass on the Violent Twilight of Oil

…5. Is the American lifestyle, based on cheap fossil fuels, coupled with the political power of corporations like Chevron and ExxonMobil, enough to prevent the U.S. from significantly reducing its dependency on petroleum? This lifestyle is going to change, whether we want it to or not, whether Chevron and Exxon want it to or not […]

Is globalization's day in the sun over?

…Any discussion of “post-globalization” worth its salt must include a dash of peak oil and hyper-complexity talk. James Kunstler, author of “The Long Emergency” and “The Geography of Nowhere,” envisions a not-too-distant future when natural resources are scarce and transporting cheap goods over long distances will become impractical, if not impossible. Under such a scenario, […]

BOLI Commissioner Awards $127,713 in Sex Harassment Case

(PORTLAND, Ore.) – State Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian has issued a final order in the sexual harassment case against From the Wilderness, Inc. (FTWI) and Michael Ruppert of Ashland. In addition to awarding lost wages, Comm. Avakian ordered $125,000 in mental and emotional suffering damages paid to Lindsay Gerken for the workplace harassment and retaliation […]

Driving habits alter during recession, Census reports

The daily drumbeat of high unemployment, home foreclosures and plummeting retail sales drowns out a less obvious impact of the recession: its influence on America’s lifestyle. Census data released Monday reflect only the early months of the recession but already reveal its effect on:

Saudi Aramco Sees Idle Oil Fields Through 2010 on Weak Demand

(Bloomberg) — Saudi Aramco, the state-run oil monopoly, sees little chance of pumping crude from idle fields next year because a recovery in world demand has yet to begin, its chief executive officer said. Saudi Arabia has idled about 4 million barrels a day, or about one third of its crude-oil production capacity, according to […]

Former Pariah Qaddafi

(Bloomberg) — The families of Americans killed in the bombing of a jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 will protest Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi

Thomas L. Friedman: Real Men Tax Gas

Do we owe the French and other Europeans a second look when it comes to their willingness to exercise power in today But are we really that tough? If the metric is a willingness to send troops to Iraq and Afghanistan and consider the use of force against Iran, the answer is yes. And we […]

On Energy, We're Finally Walking the Walk

For a country where oil and coal use have been growing for more than a century, the fall since 2007 is startling. Last year, oil use dropped 5 percent, coal 1 percent and overall carbon emissions 3 percent. Projections for this year, based on Energy Department data for the first eight months, show oil use down by an additional 5 percent. Coal is estimated to fall by 10 percent. Altogether, carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels, including natural gas, dropped 9 percent over the two years.

Earth Policy Institute

Canada should put oil sands on hold: climate change expert

MONTREAL – Canada should be doing much more to tackle climate change, and consider closing down the oilsands projects in northern Alberta, the head of an international scientific panel on climate change said Monday. Canada should follow the European Union, which has pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 25% below 1990 levels by […]

Carolyn Baker – Disaster: the gift that keeps on giving

Or, finding paradise in hell …Major loss in our personal lives usually isolates us from the community whereas “When the loss is general, one is not cast out by suffering but finds fellowship in it.” One of the most profound impacts of disaster for its survivors is the extent to which their deep longing for […]

The New Homesteaders: Off-the-Grid and Self-Reliant

…The specters of financial crisis, climate change, uncertain energy reserves and a fragile food supply loom large for the new generation of survivalists Lately, homesteaders of all political stripes have settled upon a common concern: globalization. The shock waves of any crisis

Population growth driving climate change, poverty

PARIS (AFP) The UN currently projects that global population will rise from 6.8 billion today to between 8.0 and 10.5 billion by mid-century. The researchers said that with one and a half million more humans climbing aboard the planet every week, a recipe is looming for ecological overload, famine and broken states. …The papers, authored […]

Kunstler: Original Sin

…Suburbia was engineered as the antidote to the Kramden’s apartment: country-living-for-everybody. The evacuation of the cities to the new outlands proceeded as relentlessly as the landings at Normandy. It wasn’t until the program was well underway that the self-destructive essence of it became obvious — that every new housing subdivision killed the original rural character […]

Greens Not Happy About EPA Guidelines

New fuel-economy rules proposed by the federal Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency are the first major move by the U.S. toward cracking down on greenhouse-gas emissions. The proposed program includes miles-per-gallon requirements and national emissions standards under the EPA’s greenhouse-gas-emissions guidelines for model years from 2012 to 2016. You’d think that environmental […]

Bracing for a time of tumult

It was all Sturm und Drang at the Friday morning presentations at the Global Business Forum. Participants were jolted awake by the comments made by author and journalist Gwynne Dyer, whose grim message was that the world is heating much faster than scientists anticipated. Without strong and swift action aimed at reversing the trend, said […]

China Emerges as the Yin and the Yang of the Global Warming Problem

BEIJING — Staring up at the dazzling, $32 million screen of light-emitting diodes suspended above one of this city’s luxury shopping malls, it’s hard to see China as a struggling “developing” country. Sitting on a stone ledge with 34-year-old Wai Shen Ching hundreds of miles away in the remote village of Bai Bulou, it’s hard […]

Mind-sized Hubbert

The bell shaped Hubbert curve is commonly observed when a non renewable, or slowly renewable, resource is exploited in a free market. But what is the origin of the curve? Ugo Bardi and Alessandro Lavacchi have recently published a simple “mind sized” model of the Hubbert behavior in “Energies”. Fat cows and lean cows are […]

11 Great Things to Do With Sewage

The new oil is the old black. While mining conglomerates and big oil scour the world’s oceans and deserts for uncharted deposits of natural resources, a handful of companies are looking closer to home. Wastewater and all of the other stuff that goes down the drain is a veritable treasure trove of select raw materials, […]

Total issues oil shortage warning

The head of oil giant Total has told the BBC the world could face a shortage of oil because of underinvestment. Chief executive Christophe de Margerie warned that too little has been spent trying to tap into new oil reserves because of the economic crisis. “If we don’t move [now] there will be a problem,” […]

NY Post Gets Yes Men Treatment

After last November’s fake New York Times treatment, lefty political pranksters The Yes Men are back with a fake “Special Climate Edition” of the New York Post. The front page story, “WE’RE SCREWED,” covers, in Bizarro-world Post fashion, the catastrophic events which the scientific community expects humanity to endure due to climate change. You can […]

Firms Start to See Climate Change as Barrier to Profit

As the real-world impacts of climate change begin to materialize and regulation of greenhouse gases appears more likely, corporate America has begun to grapple with a challenging question: How do you quantify the risks associated with climate change? The answer depends on one’s perspective. But companies are beginning to show increased willingness to disclose the […]

Fair carbon means no carbon for rich countries

WHAT might a truly fair and effective solution to climate change look like? One answer to that question has just been released and it makes for disturbing reading. For one thing, the scale and speed of emissions cuts required by developed nations is far greater than the commitments governments are currently willing to make. The […]

Audit Finds Waste in 'Green' Projects

The four drafty buildings had been fixtures of the Energy Department complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., for more than half a century. They burned energy like 1950s sedans. The buildings seemed like perfect candidates for a federal conservation retrofit program that relies on private contractors that receive a percentage of the money they save. A […]

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