US Greens Wary Of Ecological Cost Of Record Oil

US environmental advocates are nervous that record crude oil prices will lead to a boom in production of fossil fuels like motor fuel from coal, Canada’s tar sands, or shale in Colorado that would emit more planet-warming gases than conventional oil.

“High oil prices are a double-edged sword,” said Deron Lovaas, an automobile expert at green group the Natural Resources Defence Council.
Rising crude prices were once a no-brainer for US greens; the steeper the price, the more likely car-pooling and public transportation would rise in the world’s largest oil consumer and eventually tame demand.

But it is no longer an easy reaction as global demand rises as cars and highways multiply in places like China and India while global reservoirs of quality crude oil that refiners prefer to process become harder to find and drill.

The oil price leap to $135 a barrel — almost double the price at this time last year — has been more abrupt than the gradual rally since 2002, leading to fears of a rush to unconventional fossil fuels and a breakdown of US barriers to drilling in protected places.

“The signals that (record oil) could send are a little scary,” said Chris Walker, the North American director of The Climate Group, an international non-profit.

Planet Ark