CO2 emissions: The trend is not your friend

When the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported in late March that energy consumption in 2018 rose at the fastest rate in a decade, it confirmed something that most of those who truly understand the climate crisis already know: Collectively, humanity is making almost no progress in doing anything significant about climate change. So, it's not surprising that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has hit yet another record high.

While the dominate public narrative has been that we are making great leaps toward a low-carbon economy through the rapid deployment of renewable energy, the IEA report showed a civilization moving inexorably toward climate catastrophe.

Of the growth in energy demand—the extra energy needed to power the world economy in 2018 versus 2017—70 percent was supplied by fossil fuels. When we hear, as the IEA tells us, that solar energy generation increased by 31 percent last year without appropriate context, we fail to understand that this is off a very small base relative to fossil fuel energy.

Helium is a finite resource—who knew?

Almost precisely 10 years ago I wrote about the likelihood of a shortage of helium in the not-to-distant future in a piece entitled "Let's party 'til the helium's gone." Last week worries about a helium shortage appeared in my news feed. It seems that we are indeed going to party 'til the helium's gone as no steps that I know of have been taken to avert the inevitable shortage.

That the shortage comes as a surprise results from a certain scientific illiteracy about the makeup of the universe and the geology of the planet. More on that later.

It also results from a peculiar type of economic thinking that is pervasive today that states that when shortages occur of any commodity, prices will rise to incentivize exploitation of previously uneconomical resources and automatically solve the problem. This intellectually lazy pronouncement does not consider whether the new supplies will be affordable. (As I pointed out in another piece about helium in 2013, "Things do not have to run out to become unavailable.")

Does Chevron know exactly what shale oil and gas are worth?

Welcome to the bidding war that didn't happen. The decision last week by international oil giant Chevron Corp. to leave its takeover bid for shale oil and gas-heavy Anadarko Petroleum Corp. unaltered in the wake of a higher offer from rival bidder Occidental Petroleum Corp. surprised some who had expected a back and forth escalation between the two competitors.

Chevron's CEO told Bloomberg, "Winning in any environment doesn’t mean winning at any cost." Chevron's hesitancy to pay up for Anadarko's assets suggests a measured assessment about what Anadarko might deliver, one tempered by emerging political developments and perhaps a less sanguine view about the durability of the shale boom.

Anadarko, after all, has considerable operations in Colorado which recently enacted a bill increasing the ability of municipalities to curtail oil and gas development, authorizing more stringent air quality monitoring and rules, and turning the commission which was tasked with "fostering" oil and gas development into one which actually regulates it. That spells less oil and gas development in a state that has been critical to Anadarko and to the shale boom.

Risk 'misunderestimated': War, sleeping pills, and the Extinction Rebellion

One day before the presidential election in 2000, president-to-be George W. Bush told an audience in Bentonville, Arkansas that his vanquished primary opponent, Sen. John McCain, had "misunderestimated me."

That malapropism became one of the most famous of his many linguistic missteps. But, it was Bush, or rather his vice president and Ph.D. advisors, who "misunderestimated" the risk involved in going to war with Iraq. The predicted "cakewalk" into Iraq turned into a bloody nightmare occupation lasting more than a decade. The unforeseen consequences of war are very often "misunderestimated."

I began thinking about "misunderestimated" risks this week when I read an article about the U.S. Food and Drug Adminstration slapping a more visible warning on popular sleeping pills. I went through a serious bout of insomnia many years ago. For months I only slept every third night. I understand how desperate people get under such circumstances. But is it wise to take a sleeping pill, the known side effects of which can be driving while asleep and even suicide?

Taking a short break - no post this week

I'm taking a short break from posting this week. I expect to post again on Sunday, May 5.

Is matter conscious? If so, does it matter?

I'm messing with you a little bit to get your attention. This is because I believe the question posed in my title is at the heart of many conflicts we see around the world. This appears to be an astounding claim for so esoteric a question, one seemingly suited to some obscure corner of physics and philosophy.

We are, however, nevertheless joined in a giant struggle in practically every aspect of society over the value of subjective experience versus objective experience, a struggle that features the nascent realization on the part of some people that subjective and objective worlds—which most have long believed were separate—are, in fact, two aspects of the same reality. And, they are not obliquely connected. They are, in fact, part of a unified reality.

To understand the argument for the consciousness of matter, you can read this piece which does a fairly good job of answering the objections from opponents of this idea. I won't recite those arguments here. You can read them yourself. I want to show how the emerging attempt to return to a state of being that values both the subjective and the objective is creating conflict.

Life imitates art: Norway rejects oil prospecting in sensitive Arctic islands

In what seemed like an episode of the Norwegian television drama Occupied, Norway's largest political party joined smaller ones in the nation's parliament to prevent oil exploration in the scenic Lofoten archipelago. The Labor Party's environmental wing made climate change and scenic beauty big issues.

Unlike another contentious oil resource, Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, these islands get around 1 million visitors each year. That implies that many Norwegians have actually seen the islands.

In the history of oil-rich nations, Norwegians have followed an unorthodox path. While most such nations have chosen to subsidize domestic prices of petroleum products or at least keep them cheap by policy, Norway has taxed consumption of oil and oil products as if the country were an importer trying to economize on petroleum use.

Taking a short break - no post this week

I'm taking a short break from posting this week. I expect to post again on Sunday, April 14.

Carbon emissions reach record: How can we build solidarity to fight climate change?

When carbon emissions appeared to level off from 2014 through 2016, some people were hopeful that industrial civilization just might be able to decouple carbon emissions from economic growth. After all, the world economy had been growing and yet carbon emissions had not grown with it.

Fast forward to today. It turns out that humans are still burning lots of carbon to support economic growth as carbon emissions in 2018 reached a new record. The temporary halt from 2014 through 2016 was primarily due to the rapid replacement of coal-fired power plants with natural gas and renewable energy sources, a trend that by itself cannot solve the climate crisis.

So, once again, policymakers are asking how they can possibly achieve the rapid decline in emissions which the world's scientists say is necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change. The answer is actually simple and extremely painful. They must stop focusing on growth and make an all-out effort to reduce emissions.

The Russians are coming (and they're bringing oil)

As America's Russia hysteria is stirred once again by the arrival of the long-awaited report of the U.S. Department of Justice on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, a surge in Russian oil imports has arrived on America's shores.

The surge was little noticed by what passes for the U.S. foreign policy apparatus these days which has now become obsessed with toppling the current regime in Venezuela—a regime unloved by American oil interests who saw their property expropriated by the Venezuelan government.

By effectively preventing the national Venezuelan oil company from getting paid for its cargoes to the United States, the U.S. government has forced Venezuela, previously a major source of imported oil, to seek other customers for its mostly heavy crude.