Energy

Time to prioritize solving critical problems again, before destruction of the Earth systems we depend on triggers civilizational collapse, and humanity’s brief jaunts into space become a barely-remembered memory or even just a myth.

We will likely shed more than a few tears at modernity’s passing, and that’s understandable. But joy awaits as well.

In a shock announcement, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak revealed earlier this week plans to abandon or delay core parts of his government’s climate strategy.

Just a single proposed terminal that I talk about in the New Yorker piece—the so-called CP2 LNG plant proposed for Cameron Parish, Louisiana—would over its lifetime be associated with twenty times the greenhouse gas emissions of the huge Willow oil complex that Biden controversially approved earlier this year.

I do think it’s necessary to control Big Oil, and to stop governments subsidising fossil fuels, and given the sheer scale and influence of the oil companies I’m not sure what we’re going to have to do make that happen.

The speed of economic growth hinges to a large extent on the supply of fossil fuel, especially of oil and gas, which depends in turn on pipeline capacity. Thus, if we are to turn the tide against economic growth, pipelines are a good strategic place to start.