Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Scientists can’t say when fracking will cause earthquakes due to a “paucity of validated predictive models to forecast site-specific seismic hazard.” But the quakes not only pose threats to nearby communities, they can make further fracking more difficult and dangerous.
Here is how: in addition to your “climate strike”, or as a substitute to it if or when you get frustrated of being denied the kind of change you want, embark with all the strength and enthusiasm of your youth on an “energy diet”. A big, fat, relentless and endless energy diet. Not only on Fridays, but every single day of the week, 365 days per year, for the rest of your life.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund — a state-owned investment fund worth approximately a trillion dollars — recently announced it was divesting from oil and gas exploration companies around the world. Not surprisingly, many oil and gas stocks declined following the announcement.
I don’t know what will happen, because what will happen is what we make happen. That is why there’s a global climate strike. This is why I’ve started saying, Don’t ask what will happen. Be what happens. Today, you are what is happening. Today, your power will be felt.
Brexit, the resurgence of the far-right, and the danger of a coming collapse of the European Union, have all escalated on the back of a global migrant crisis that was fuelled by climate change.
And the solution to fracking’s profits problem — according to the likes of ExxonMobil — is Microsoft. Apparently cloud technology has been the missing ingredient in the Permian.
Whether Green New Dealers or carbon taxers no allowance seems to be made for opposition to the projects needed to get the US off the fossil fuel standard. The parties to the conflicts are not just climate defenders and deniers.
Presently although the EROI decline is quite clear the Net Energy is still well above 90%. The society feels pretty safe. The problem is that we are walking along a cliff and it is increasingly urgent to make an energy transition, before finally ending up in the abyss.
The Norwegian government has just mandated its sovereign wealth fund, the biggest such wealth fund, to divest from pure oil and gas explorers. This is a significant landmark in the global battle to abate global heating.
A new report traces the life cycle of plastic from the moment an oil and gas well is drilled to the time plastic trash breaks down in the environment, finding “distinct risks to human health” at every stage.
These communities—South Deering, Pilsen, and Little Village—all keep fighting back. The support of groups like the Sierra Club and Pilsen Alliance, standing in solidarity with them, makes them even stronger. As Cheryl Johnson said to me, it is important to “follow what you believe is wrong to try and make it right.” And that’s just what these communities are doing.
“We doubled production and got $9.5 billion less in royalties,” said Hughes. “We are not getting anything for the resource, and its production is having a huge impact on our GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions.” “Obviously we have to ramp production down, and we have to ramp down personal oil consumption.”
