Tag Archives: Fossil fuel industry

Countdown to World War NZE 2050

23 Sunday May 2021

Posted by in Anthropogenic Climate Disruption, Economy and Finance

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Some promises are made in good faith. Then, as often happens in our lives, another commitment that we consider more important or urgent sabotages our best intentions. This appears to be the case with pledges made by several of the 196 countries at the 2015 Climate Change Paris Agreement to lower their greenhouse gas emissions. What is alarming is that existing pledges, even if fully honored, fall short of attaining global net zero emissions by 2050. If we the people of Earth are to maintain habitable conditions for our species, we must get our priorities straight.

On May 18, 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA), made up of 30 member countries and 8 association countries committed to shaping a secure and sustainable energy future for Earth’s inhabitants, released a special report that is intended to put us on track. Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector is a comprehensive study of the way forward to a global Net-Zero Emissions Scenario (NZE) by 2050 with an emphasis on economic growth for all.

With just 29 years left for us to catch up, after decades on the path to planetary ruin, the NZE roadmap is no stroll along the beach or jog in the park. It calls for vast amounts of investment, innovation, implementation of skillful policy design, technology deployment, infrastructure building, international cooperation, and much more across all sectors. World War NZE 2050. A war for human survival. Success depends upon an unprecedented level of international cooperation.

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Only Oil Matters to the Empire

12 Sunday Jan 2020

Posted by in United States

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Oil drives our global economies. Oil is power. Oil fuels the Empire. Iraq and Iran together produce 8.3 million billion barrels a day of the liquid gold (figures from Offshore-Technology). Their joint oil reserves amount to 300,903 million barrels (figures from World Atlas). While the world’s largest oil producer with 12 mbbl barrels/day, the United States has only 39,230 million barrels of oil reserves. Venezuela tops the list with 300,878 million barrels. It’s no accident that the Empire is embedded in the Middle East. Controlling access to all that oil is vital to its continued survival.

Guyana will soon be part of that blessed-accursed herd of oil producing nations. With six billion barrels, and climbing, of oil reserves, Guyana now overtakes Venezuela in the overheated top seat. As a small country with racial divisive politics, the developing CARICOM member nation is easy prey for the Empire. It’s also corrupted at its core—the scourge of former colonial territories rich in natural resources. Trapped under the claws of the Eagle since its conception, the country is now secure in its nest.

In his letter to the editor of Guyana’s Kaieteur News on January 7, 2020, Dr. Gary Girdhari expresses misgivings about the legacy of oil giants in oil producing countries, even within their own home countries.

Guyana’s leaders, he writes, “ignore elemental facts, namely, in Africa, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere where oil wealth is secured in the pockets of Big Oil and a select few government officials and their cronies; and where inequality and extreme poverty spiral downwards.” 

Dr. Girdhari shares my concern about the impact of the fossil fuel industry on Earth’s environment and climate. He reminds the Guyanese people: “The International Press is replete with information regarding fossil fuel and its ruination to the environment – regarding carbon emission, depletion of the ozone layer, and extreme climate change. Already the world is witnessing the effects of permafrost melting in the Arctic and deforestation in Brazil and Africa. The tipping point is approaching sooner than we think.” 

I don’t share his hope “for total disbandment of oil in Guyana…and that good environmentally-friendly judgement triumphs.” I believe that it’s too late in the game. Guyana is already in the pockets of ExxonMobil and other players in the fossil fuel industry. 

To the Empire, only oil matters. It is prepared to use severe economic sanctions and military force to secure and control Earth’s oil reserves. Our lives—we the people of Earth—don’t matter. Let the trees burn. Let the ice caps melt. Let the wildlife die.

The Empire began 2020 with an act of war against Iran and Iraq. Warfare is Big Business. Warfare is barbaric. Warfare is self-destructive: It turns our young men into killers of innocent women, children, and babies. Heroes for the Empire.

I say NO to war with Iran. I say NO to the never-ending wars of the Empire. I say NO to more failed sovereign states. I say NO to ‘rubblized’ cities and uprooted broken families. I say NO to ecocide.

I say YES to ending our dependency on fossil fuels. I say YES to the Green New Deal.

 

Climate Disruption: Is ExxonMobil victim of its own deception?

17 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by in Anthropogenic Climate Disruption, Guyana, United States

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ExxonMobil Web of Climate Denial

ExxonMobil Web of Climate Science Denial
Photo Credit: DeSmogBlog

In spite of scientific consensus worldwide that we must transition to cleaner forms of energy and to keep fossil fuel reserves in the ground, ExxonMobil shows no sign of winding down its oil and gas explorations. In May 2015, they announced a significant oil discovery in the Stabroek (Guyana) block about 120 miles (193 kms) offshore. What elation for the newly-elected Guyana government! For a poor developing country, the prospect of oil riches seems a lifeline.

This month, the great news circulated across the fossil fuel industry. “The United States Geological Survey ranks Guyana-Suriname as the world’s second-most prospective, underexplored offshore basin, with an estimated 13.6 Bbbl of oil and 32 tcf of natural gas yet to be discovered,” declared the Offshore Magazine on July 7, 2016.

The article further stated that: “ExxonMobil is reportedly moving Liza [exploration well on the Stabroek block] into the pre-front-end engineering and design phase. Despite low oil prices, analysts such as Douglas-Westwood agree a fasttrack development, while capital-intensive, could provide large potential returns on investment.”

ExxonMobil is by no means alone in its pursuit of more profits. While its affiliate Esso Exploration & Production Guyana Ltd. (USA) holds 45% interest, its partners Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd. (USA) and CNOOC Nexen Petroleum Guyana Ltd. (Canada/China) hold 30% and 25% interest, respectively.

Other players have also gotten on board. In January 2016, Guyana’s Minister of Natural Resources signed a petroleum prospecting license and production-sharing agreement with the joint-venture team of Tullow Guyana BV (UK) and Eco (Atlantic) Guyana Inc. (Canada?) with 60% and 40% interest, respectively.

Commercial production is not expected to begin until another four years. That’s 2020. With continued record-breaking hot temperatures since 1880, Earth’s climate system already shows alarming changes. Rising sea levels, due to melting ice caps, is not good news for Guyana where the majority of the population lives along the low-lying coastal region. Will Guyana’s petrodollars come in time to relocate its capital and build a new port for the oil tankers?

While Guyana plans for its oil-rich future, ExxonMobil continues to fund climate science denial. Although they knew decades ago that carbon dioxide emissions from the use of their products could result in dangerous climate change impacts, ExxonMobil chose to deceive their shareholders and oil-addicted consumers.

During their presentation before the U.S. Senate on July 11 and 12, nineteen Senators repudiated the ways America’s largest oil and gas multinational corporation and others in the fossil fuel industry “developed a sophisticated and deceitful campaign that funded think tanks and front groups, and paid public relations firms to deny, counter, and obfuscate peer-reviewed [climate science] research.”

The degree of deception demonstrates the industry’s lack of moral values. To endanger the lives of millions of people across our planet is a crime against humanity. Could it be that ExxonMobil and its facilitators have become victims of their own deception?

What about the people of Guyana? What environmental risks do they face in the not too distant future?

 

Disobedience: The Courage to Break Free

30 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by in Anthropogenic Climate Disruption

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Disobedience - The Courage to Break Free

The new film Disobedience about the global movement to break free from fossil fuels is now available for free download and streaming at watchdisobedience.com!

The film is a powerful journey, featuring Break Free organizers in Canada, Germany, Turkey and the Philippines as they prepare to mobilize for major actions this May. It shows that the global movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground is growing in size and courage.

Disobedience features author and activist Naomi Klein, 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, as well as board member Lidy Nacpil and dozens of inspiring voices from front-line fights around the world.

It’s about 40 minutes long, and I think it makes for inspiring watching ahead of the Break Free wave of action starting a few days from now.

If you’re inspired by what you see — and I think you will be — then I hope you will both share the film, and join thousands of people across the planet in Break Free actions next month. Across the United States, people are standing up to the power and pollution of the fossil fuel industry — from the frack fields of California, to the tar sands networks of the Midwest, to the oil train rail lines in the Northeast. This is where you can go to join Break Free.

Onwards, to a future beyond fossil fuels,
Duncan Meisel
350.org

Climate Disruption: Thought of the Week

13 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Anthropogenic Climate Disruption

≈ 8 Comments

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Infrared view of natural gas leak – Aliso Canyon Storage Facility
Southern California Gas Company – January 6, 2016

California’s 1,200 Tons Methane a Day Leak

California is facing the largest natural gas leak ever recorded. The leak has displaced over 2,000 families in Porter Ranch, a neighborhood about 25 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. It’s caused evacuations and forced two schools to close. And it’s been going on for two months.
~ Learn more about the leak at Environmental Defense Fund

State of Chronic Crisis

18 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by in Human Behavior, Nature and the Environment, United States, Urban Violence

≈ 14 Comments

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Police Special Force - Manhunt for Charlie Hebdo assailants - France - January 2015Police Special Forces – Manhunt for Charlie Hebdo assailants
Northern France – January 8, 2015
Photo Credit: Francois Lo Presti / AFP

 

Terror struck Parisians on January 8, 2015, when jihadist gunmen targeted the cartoonists and writers of the French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo for their profane depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.

We continue to kill each other in defense of our gods and our freedom.

How long will we persist in feeding on half-truths and fabrications dished out by the global minority power elite? How long will we persist in allowing them to manipulate tragic events to perpetuate fear of The Other? How long will we persist in responding to violence with more violence that makes our lives more insecure?

Our global “War on Terror” foments terror in distant regions under fire and propagates new generations of terrorists. In the name of our homeland security, we in the West now live in militarized police states under electronic surveillance of our movements and communications. Only those freedoms that serve the agenda of the global power elite are tolerated and promoted.

When are we going to wake up from our stupor? When are we going to realize that we are disposable pawns of the global power elite? When are we going to take action to end our state of chronic crisis?

While we are manipulated to fear, hate, and kill The Other, the profit-driven transnational corporations, run by the global power elite, are destroying our planet’s ecosystems that support human life. In pursuit of continual economic growth – which means more money in their coffers – they destroy natural habitats and contaminate our air, water, and soils. We are not without guilt. As voracious consumers, we are collaborators in their plunder and destruction.

We delude ourselves that we can continue on the path of our globalized capitalist economic system without self-destructing. We delude ourselves that we are not responsible for Earth’s climate disruption. We delude ourselves that we are separate and above the natural world.

We have come to a period in our civilization when we must end dumping greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. We urgently need to come together as members of the human species to work towards transitioning to life-sustaining societies. We cannot allow the power elite of the fossil fuel industry to frame laws intended to phase out our use of fossil fuels and transition to clean renewable energy resources.

In February, I will introduce a new weekly blog feature: Climate Disruption – Thought of the Week (up to 50 words). My goal is to spread awareness of the greatest challenge of our times, share success stories at home and abroad in addressing anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD), and offer resources for individual involvement in making the transition.

To fail to act now is to condemn our children, grandchildren, and future survivors (if any) to a world of widespread chaos.