Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard has a piece out calling for increased domestic oil production. He makes the case on the grounds of national (economic) security saying that producing oil in the US would stop the flow of petrodollars overseas and relieve prices at the pump. The first point is undeniably true. The second [...]
Mother Jones has a must read article on the wide array of consequences attributed to extracting oil from tar sands in Alberta, Canada. Everything from prostitution and drug use to rare forms of cancer and deformed fish — the place once renowned for its subtle beauty is turning into an industrial wasteland.
The article starts by [...]
Update: I’ve added a few thoughts on the jump.
James Howard Kunstler bluntly makes the case against America’s urban design, specifically suburbia. His argument centers on the cultural consequences of how we live. This is interesting because it is so rarely discussed.
I’ve posted the video below and added comments on the jump. The talk is 20 [...]
Republican John McCain was forced to clarify his comments Friday suggesting the Iraq war involved U.S. reliance on foreign oil. He said he was talking about the first Gulf War and not the current conflict.
Sure thing John, because everyone is talking about the Gulf War right now. And when you said that your energy policy [...]
I was reading VF Daily today when I came across David Roberts’ post on global warming. I could have ghost written the piece since it so closely mirrors my opinions on global warming:
The things environmentalists are trying to do in response to global warming make sense to do even if there is, in fact, no [...]
Chieftain of the Chevron reservation David O’Reilly predicated a few years back that low gas prices were unsustainable. Now that we’ve seen sustained skyrocketing prices at the pump, Wall Street Journal asked O’Reilly to ‘peer into the crystal ball again.’
He repeated his mantra: cheap oil is dead. Thus Americans can expect to be paying at [...]
I promise to make hot lunches free too!
McCain and Hillary’s unvarnished ploy for votes — the supposed “tax holiday” on gas sales across the country — is under an intense barrage of criticism.
Signs of the surveillance state
In Detroit, a mail carrier ‘illegally’ tipped off a resident that he was under postal surveillance, meaning all mail [...]
Peter Viles over at LA Land also comments on the suburbia-oil nexus:
Consider the effect of $4 gas. A 110-mile round-trip commute gets very expensive in a hurry. Consider that fast-growing areas such as the Inland Empire have suddenly lost a major source of economic vitality: home-building and all the economic activity it creates and sustains.
But [...]
Aaron Newton of Powering Down sounds off on the suburbia-oil nexus:
There is little doubt that during that last 60 years we here in America have transformed our manmade landscape in a way that is fundamentally different from any form of human habitation ever known. While many have flocked to this new way of organizing the [...]
Even though it’s not renewable or clean, the Air Force wants to fuel their planes with liquefied coal:
WASHINGTON — Squeezed by the soaring cost of oil-based jet fuel, the Air Force is converting its gas-guzzling fleet of aircraft to synthetic fuels and encouraging the creation of a liquefied coal industry that could tap the nation’s [...]
Considering oil is not a renewable resource in the human experience, peak oil — the point in which petroleum production peaks and forever declines — is a certainty. The question therefore is not whether it’s true or not but when we will reach it. Joseph Romm over at Salon makes the case that peak oil [...]
John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Company, said on Charlie Rose last night that oil demand cannot be met by current supply — foreshadowing rising petro prices and potential rebellion by consumers. Also, according to his analysis, we’re stuck with oil for at least another 20 years:
When Hofmeister speaks of drilling more in the US, [...]
Newsweek spoke to John Hess, CEO of Hess Corp., about the economics of petroleum:
Oil prices have quintupled in the past six years, from $20 to $100 a barrel. Why hasn’t that weakened demand?
The reason we’ve withstood the increase is that consumer income has grown faster than energy expenditures have. We spend about 6 percent [...]
Scientist and author Arthur C. Clarke passed away today at the age of 90. He released a thought provoking goodbye a few months back. In it he says that “the golden age of space is only just beginning … Space travel and space tourism will one day become almost as commonplace as flying to exotic [...]
The Department of Defense quietly published this press release at 5pm EST yesterday. In it we learn that the DoD’s Wal Mart, the Defense Logistics Agency, will spend $130 million on oil alone in 2008:
Shell Chemical Yabucoa, Inc., Yabucoa, Puerto Rico is being awarded a maximum $129,917,372 fixed price with economic price adjustment, partial set [...]
The following is excerpted from an essay by James Howard Kunstler published in the book Thrillcraft: The Environmental Consequences of Motorized Recreation (Chelsea Green, 2007). It’s really well written and thought provoking, read it all.
It’s compelling to see how NASCAR auto racing has risen to the level of a mania in early 21st century America, [...]
I’m sure you’ve seen these ads on CNN. They’re furnished by a group called ‘Americans for Balanced Energy Choices.’ After a little research, it turns out that by ‘Americans,’ they mean a collection of mining companies, coal transporters, and electricity producers–the coal industry.
The group’s message — that coal-fired power plants can be clean, and that [...]
Despite a UN arms embargo, Chinese made AK-47’s are turning up in bulk in The Democratic Republic of Congo, helping to fuel local instability:
UN arms expert Johan Peleman says that the Chinese arm trade is like a ‘business card.’ As opposed to purely financial motives sought by other small arms trading countries like Ukraine, China’s [...]
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Brian is a recent college graduate living in Washington, D.C.
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