Category Archives: big oil

We Needlessly Burn 150 Billion Cubic Meters Of Natural Gas Every Year

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That’s right. On almost every large drilling rig producing large amounts of oil there is a continuously burning flare of natural gas. This is a hold over from the days when natural gas was seen as a nuisance rather than a fuel source. BUT that was over 100 years ago. How long does it take to change the rules.

http://www.stoptheflares.org/

Stop the Flares

Together we will Stop Methane Flaring
The first and only organization working solely on the elimination of natural gas flares and venting! Stop the flares is organized to stop flaring by elevating awareness, increasing research and implementing proven solutions to get results. Stop the Flares will eliminate all flares worldwide by the 2020.

What are flares?

What is natural gas?

Why is methane flaring bad for you?

How does Flaring Methane affect the price of energy?

What could be done with the Flared Gas in Nigeria?

How can you help?

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Why is methane flaring bad for you?
According to the World Bank, flares waste 150,000,000,000 cubic meters of natural gas (methane) each year. This is the equivalent to the energy in 60,000,000,000 gallons of gasoline (estimate).
Wasting fuel increases the cost of energy for everyone!

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More tomorrow.

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Oil And Gas Speculators Are 15-30 % Of The Price

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Everyonce in awhile the Peak Oil website finds a real gem of an economic analysis or some other thing related to energy markets and energy consumption. The following is a dandy with the source website as well.

http://peakoil.com/

http://www.econmatters.com/2011/05/speculation-does-not-explain-high-oil.html

Friday, May 6, 2011

Speculation Does Not Explain High Oil and Gasoline Prices? Please!!

By EconMatters

WTI (West Texas Intermediate) Crude Oil futures traded at its lowest in almost two months in New York on Thursday, May 5 in its biggest selloff in two years, plunging 8.6% on the day to below the $100 mark (Fig. 1).  Brent crude on ICE also dropped as much as $12.17, or 10%, which was the largest in percentage terms not seen since the Lehman Brothers financial crisis, and the largest ever in absolute terms, according to FT.

The epic waterfall was partly due to the combination of a strengthening dollar after European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said he wouldn’t raise interest rates, and a surging U.S. first time jobless claim that sent oil, silver and other commodities plunging.

Big Speculators Moving Out

There has been a long debate about how much of a role speculators play in the oil market.  However, this latest big price move in one day strongly suggests something more than fundamentals is at work.

That is, some big players (i.e. speculators) decided to move out of commodities, either to take profits, or for risk off trades, as crude and gasoline market fundamentals have not changed much since the start of the year to warrant such a run-up of prices in recent months (Fig. 1).

Link Between Oil Storage & Speculation??

Some, like Ezra Klein at The Washington Post, and Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren, senior fellows at the Cato Institute, have suggested that speculators are not the ones causing high oil and gasoline prices.

For example, in this article, Klein partly quoted Michael Greenstone, an energy economist at MIT, and concluded that:

“Speculators make money by pulling oil off the market, putting it in inventory, and selling it later…So if you’re seeing speculation, you should be seeing a massive run-up in inventory. And we are seeing a bit of an inventory bump, particularly in recent weeks. But not enough of one.”

Taylor and Van Doren also drew a similar conclusion in an article at Forbes stating that since there’s not a massive increase in oil storage to cause a physical supply shortage, so do ‘put away the torches and pitchforks’ as speculators are not to blame for the rise in oil and gasoline price.

Reality Check – Shorts & Paper Barrels

I guess all four gentlemen live right next door to the U.S. Fed in the ivory tower and just as detached from reality.

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More tomorrow.

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Gulf Coast Residents Dying – Same thing happened in Alaska

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When they tried to find anyone who helped with the Alaska oil spill in Prince William Sound, they could not find anybody. Part of that was natural because it was 20 years ago. But part of it was not. See below.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/201138152955897442.html

Gulf spill sickness wrecking lives
Nearly a year after the oil disaster began, Gulf Coast residents are sick, and dying from BP’s toxic chemicals.
Dahr Jamail Last Modified: 09 Mar 2011 15:42 GMT
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National and State Parks along the Gulf Coast have posted health warnings along the coast [Erika Blumenfeld/AJE]

“I have critically high levels of chemicals in my body,” 33-year-old Steven Aguinaga of Hazlehurst, Mississippi told Al Jazeera. “Yesterday I went to see another doctor to get my blood test results and the nurse said she didn’t know how I even got there.”

Aguinaga and his close friend Merrick Vallian went swimming at Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in July 2010.

“I swam underwater, then found I had orange slick stuff all over me,” Aguinaga said. “At that time I had no knowledge of what dispersants were, but within a few hours, we were drained of energy and not feeling good. I’ve been extremely sick ever since.”

BP’s oil disaster last summer gushed at least 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, causing the largest accidental marine oil spill in history – and the largest environmental disaster in US history. Compounding the problem, BP has admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons toxic dispersants, including one chemical that has been banned in the UK.

According to chemist Bob Naman, these chemicals create an even more toxic substance when mixed with crude oil. Naman, who works at the Analytical Chemical Testing Lab in Mobile, Alabama, has been carrying out studies to search for the chemical markers of the dispersants BP used to both sink and break up its oil.

Poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from this toxic mix are making people sick, Naman said. PAHs contain compounds that have been identified as carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic.

“The dispersants are being added to the water and are causing chemical compounds to become water soluble, which is then given off into the air, so it is coming down as rain, in addition to being in the water and beaches of these areas of the Gulf,” Naman told Al Jazeera.

“I’m scared of what I’m finding. These cyclic compounds intermingle with the Corexit [dispersants] and generate other cyclic compounds that aren’t good. Many have double bonds, and many are on the EPA’s danger list. This is an unprecedented environmental catastrophe.”

Aguinaga’s health has been in dramatic decline.

“I have terrible chest pain, at times I can’t seem to get enough oxygen, and I’m constantly tired with pains all over my body,” Aguinaga explained, “At times I’m pissing blood, vomiting dark brown stuff, and every pore of my body is dispensing water.”

And Aguinaga’s friend Vallian is now dead.

“After we got back from our vacation in Florida, Merrick went to work for a company contracted by BP to clean up oil in Grand Isle, Louisiana,” Aguinaga said of his 33-year-old physically fit friend.

“Aside from some gloves, BP provided no personal protection for them. He worked for them for two weeks and then died on August 23. He had just got his first paycheck, and it was in his wallet, uncashed, when he died.”

National health crisis

Many of the chemicals present in the oil and dispersants are known to cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, kidney damage, altered renal function, and irritation of the digestive tract. They have also caused lung damage, burning pain in the nose and throat, coughing, pulmonary edema, cancer, lack of muscle coordination, dizziness, confusion, irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, difficulty breathing, delayed reaction time and memory difficulties.

Further health problems include stomach discomfort, liver and kidney damage, unconsciousness, tiredness/lethargy, irritation of the upper respiratory tract, hematological disorders, and death. Pathways of exposure to the chemicals are inhalation, ingestion, skin, and eye contact.

Al Jazeera has talked with scores of sick people across the Gulf Coast who attribute their illnesses to chemicals from BP’s oil disaster.

Paul Doom, 22, from Navarre, Florida, was training in preparation to join the US Marines, until he became extremely ill from swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.

“I stopped swimming in July because I started having severe headaches that wouldn’t go away,” Doom told Al Jazeera. “But each time I went to the doctor they dismissed it.”

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More tomorrow.

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Oil Prices, Gas Prices Sky Rocket – Just in time for the weekend

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Needing no introduction…

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/market-turmoil-as-iea-warns-age-of-cheap-oil-is-over-2230581.html

Market turmoil as IEA warns ‘age of cheap oil is over’

Unrest in the Middle East drives Brent crude above the $117 per barrel mark

By Nikhil Kumar

Thursday, 3 March 2011

Growing fears of an enduring oil crisis prompted huge volatility on investment markets yesterday – with shares in the world’s biggest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, slumping to a 22-month low – as a top energy official warned that the “age of cheap oil is over”.

Concerns about the turmoil in Libya triggered sharp sell-offs in stock markets across the Gulf, with shares in Kuwait and Dubai sliding to six-year lows. Oil prices also remained volatile throughout yesterday, with Brent crude futures for April delivery breaching the $117 (£72) per barrel mark in late afternoon trading.

In London, the FTSE 100 fell sharply in the morning, declining by more than 2 per cent at one point, before recovering to close only slightly lower on the day.

The nerves among investors were evident in the movements in the gold price, which touched a record high above $1,440 per ounce. The yellow metal, the traditional destination for investors seeking to preserve their wealth during times of turmoil, was up 6 per cent in February, recording its biggest monthly rise since August.

Last night’s swings came as the chief economist of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, warned that the world may have to face up to the prospect of high oil prices over the long term. “The age of cheap oil is over, though policy action could bring lower international prices than would otherwise be the case,” he said.

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http://www.suntimes.com/business/4012230-418/gas-prices-in-chicago-climb-17-cents.html

Gas prices in Chicago climb 17 cents

BY FRANCINE KNOWLES Staff Reporter/fknowles@suntimes.com

Feb 26, 2011 04:45PM

Ouch! Gasoline prices in Chicago spiked 6 cents a gallon from Thursday to Friday and jumped 17 cents this past week.

The average price of unleaded regular gasoline in Chicago was $3.50 a gallon Friday, up from $3.33 a week earlier and up from $3.44 Thursday, according to AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express.

Blame it on continuing political unrest in Libya, which has caused the price of oil to spike, even though the country supplies less than 2 percent of the oil consumed globally.

“Everyone’s a nervous wreck,” PFGBest analyst Phil Flynn said. “What we’re seeing is perhaps the greatest threat to global oil supply since the Persian Gulf War.”

The Libyan rebellion has all but shut down exports from the oil-rich nation, and traders say it’s hard to gauge how much world supplies — and prices — will be affected as similar uprisings unfold in North Africa and the Middle East.

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As always, go there read more. More next week.

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Maumar Gaddafi – Mercenaries strike protesters and oil goes over 100 $$$

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I hope the lunatic rots in hell.

http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2011/02/libya-oil-updates.html

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Libyan Oil Grinding to a Halt

Here’s the latest:

At least 300kbd-400kbd of oil production are shut-in already, and likely more, but the situation is still confusing.

As much as a quarter of Libyan oil output has been shut down, Reuters calculations showed on Wednesday, as unrest prompted oil companies to warn of production cuts in Africa’s third-largest producer.

Austria’s OMV said on Wednesday it might be heading for a full production shutdown in Libya. Total, Repsol, Eni and BASF have also said they are either slowing or stopping output.

The latest comments point to a growing impact on oil output from Libya, which produces 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) of high-quality oil, or almost 2 percent of world output. About 1.3 million bpd is exported, mainly to Europe.

According to Time Magazine’s Robert Baer, anonymous sources close to Gaddafi say he is now giving orders to sabotage Libya’s oil industry:

There’s been virtually no reliable information coming out of Tripoli, but a source close to the Gaddafi regime I did manage to get hold of told me the already terrible situation in Libya will get much worse. Among other things, Gaddafi has ordered security services to start sabotaging oil facilities. They will start by blowing up several oil pipelines, cutting off flow to Mediterranean ports. The sabotage, according to the insider, is meant to serve as a message to Libya’s rebellious tribes: It’s either me or chaos.

Libyan ports are shutting down:

Libyan cargo port operations have shut down due to increasing violence sweeping the country, Reuters has reported.

Operations at Tripoli, Benggazi and Misurata Mediterranean ports, which handle general cargo and container shipping, have closed.

In particular, oil exports appear to be halting completely:

Operations at Libyan oil ports were disrupted by a lack of communications, trade sources said, and flows from marine oil terminals in Libya were halted on Tuesday, an Italian government source said.

“The situation is worrying. This morning the oil terminals were blocked in Libya,” the government source said.

It was not possible to get through by phone to Libyan oil ports or shipping agents on Tuesday.

“Everything is out,” said a source with a major oil company. “We can’t get through to anyone. Our operations people say contact is impossible with the shipping agents, port officials, anyone. The lines are all down.”

The country appears to be descending into civil war:

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya kept his grip on the capital on Wednesday, but large areas of the east of the country remained out of his control amid indications that the fighting had reached the northwest of the country around Tripoli.

Libyans fleeing across the country’s western border to Tunisia reported fighting over the past two nights in the town of Sabratha, home of an important Roman archeological site 50 miles west of Tripoli. Reuters reported that thousands of Libyan forces loyal to Col. Qaddafi had deployed there.

“The revolutionary committees are trying to kill everyone who is against Qaddafi,” said a doctor from Sabratha who had just left the country, but who declined to give his name because he wanted to return.

Of course, as for the oil production losses, the Saudi’s say they stand ready to make up the difference:

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Go there and read the rest. More tomorrow I am afraid.

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Oil Prices Surge – Tinpot dictator bombs crowd

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OK, I do not normally do politics. But Moammar puts the tin in tinpot. Bombing your own people? Blowing up you own munitions stockpiles? Threatening to set the oil field on fire? Screwing with energy markets? There are any number of reasons to quit burning oil but he is reason number one.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/21/markets/libya_oil_unrest/

Libya: Why the oil market is nervous

oil prices

Click chart for oil and other commodity prices

By Ben Rooney, staff reporterFebruary 22, 2011: 9:42 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Libya is the first oil exporting nation to be engulfed in the political upheaval spreading across North Africa and the Middle East, and investors are worried that further chaos in the region will drive crude prices even higher.

U.S. oil prices soared more than 7% early Tuesday, coming within $2 of $100 a barrel. That’s on top of the 6% surge on Monday. The price spikes follow violent protests in Tripoli, Libya’s capital, that claimed an estimated 200 lives over the weekend.

Libya produces about 2% of the world’s oil but is a major regional player. In 2010, the country produced about 1.65 million barrels per day, making it Africa’s third-largest crude producer, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It also supplies several hundred thousand barrels per day of natural gas and other liquid petroleum products.

In addition, Libya sits atop large reserves of oil and gas that have yet to be developed. Libya holds around 44 billion barrels of oil reserves — the largest in Africa — according to Oil and Gas Journal, an industry publication.

By contrast, Russia produces 10.1 million barrels per day, while the United States produces 9.8 million barrels per day, according to the Energy Information Administration. Saudi Arabia, currently observing OPEC production quotas, produces 8.57 million barrels per day. Those numbers include oil from ethanol, natural gas liquids and other products.

The world consumes 87.5 million barrels of oil day.

U.N. sanctions in place since 1992 had prevented most Western oil firms from operating in Libya after agents from the country’s intelligence service were implicated in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270. The sanctions have left most of the country’s natural gas reserves, along with a lot of its oil, fairly undeveloped.

The sanctions were lifted in 2004, after Libya said it was disbanding its nuclear program and finished cooperating in the Pam Am case. In 2006, the United States officially took Libya off its list of states that sponsor terrorism. That opened the door for renewed investment in the oil and gas sector

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Oil is verging on 100 $$$ per barrel and once it goes past that. Who knows. Please see the article for more balanced analysis. More tomorrow.

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Christiane Amanpour Chats With A General – Candidly or not

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This speaks for itself, but is this leftist?

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/gen-hugh-shelton-bush-administration-offic

October 25, 2010 03:00 AM

Gen. Hugh Shelton: Bush Administration Officials Pushed to Go to War With Iraq ‘Almost to the Point of Insubordination’

This Week’s Christiane Amanpour talked to former Joint Chief Chair Gen. Hugh Shelton about the rush to invade Iraq by members of the Bush administration which he described as “almost to the point of insubordination.” Color any of us that were paying attention at the time not surprised by this latest revelation. The PNAC crowd surrounding him in the White House were pushing to invade Iraq long before Bush was selected by our Supreme Court to be president or becoming members of his Cabinet.

AMANPOUR: Let’s go back to when you were Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and even slightly afterwards, when President Bush decided to go to war in Iraq. You talk about it was based on faulty intelligence and indeed on lies and deceit, but you also say something about insubordination. You say, for instance, during meetings, “some people were kept on after Bush had tendered his opinion and issued an instruction based on that opinion. Yet certain strong-willed individuals seemed to disregard him and forge ahead with their own agendas, almost to the point of insubordination.” That’s a very strong indictment.

SHELTON: Well, there was a very strong push in those days for us to go into Iraq, and there was absolutely no intelligence, zero, that pointed toward — pointed toward the Iraqis. It was all Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. And yet there was an element there that was — that was pushing to go into Iraq at the same time.

AMANPOUR: But what do you mean by insubordination?

SHELTON: The fact that the president says himself, we’re not going to do that right now, let’s focus on Afghanistan, the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Yet below the surface, we still had the sentiment that said, let’s keep planning for Iraq just in case we can convince him that we can go.

AMANPOUR: And you think they could have convinced him?

SHELTON: Not at that time. I think that, as President Bush told me at Camp David, you know, I just don’t see it. You know, we may go get Saddam and take him out, but it will be at a time and place of our choosing. It won’t be as a part of the Afghanistan operation. He got it from day one. When he was briefed by the CIA…

AMANPOUR: So you’re saying he was pushed into it?

SHELTON: I think eventually that that same drumbeat continued, and Afghanistan, remember, was going very, very well. The drumbeat back here in Washington was still pushing, coming out of the Pentagon, let’s go to Iraq, let’s get — take him out. And he finally said, let’s go. We walked out on the limb before we could build a coalition of the — either the United Nations or NATO, one of the two.

AMANPOUR: You’re very — you have some harsh words about then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Is he part of the group that you are targeting here?

SHELTON: Well, I personally like Secretary Rumsfeld, but he was part of the group, he and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, that continued to push to go into Iraq. And I think that’s been documented on a number of occasions.

And making me wonder how much this interview was edited, I transcribed the portion of the video above. It’s not included in ABC’s transcript. The portion below however, is in ABC’s transcript but missing from the video.

AMANPOUR: But you also say that in terms of dealing with defense secretaries that Secretary Rumsfeld was more in the (INAUDIBLE) mold, which you said was, you know, based more on sort of heavy pushing and on those kinds of relationships.

SHELTON: And those were my observations. I’ve had the opportunity to work for a number of secretaries of defense while I was in Pentagon. And, for example, Secretary Bill Cohen, great team-builders, tremendous leader, (INAUDIBLE), made you want to do things because they were the right things to do and because we all pulled together to get it done.

But the leadership that Secretary Rumsfeld brought was totally different.

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More tomorrow.

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John Stossel And Energy Policy – He fosters the misuse of the word independence

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All right wing conservatives have to pick there own facts or their own definitions to win arguments. Winning on the merits is never an issue. Family values of course has nothing to do with modern families. It is only about modern christian families. In this Stossel piece, independence is replaced by dependence on the cheapest source. What he side steps is the idea that a country with a balanced portfolio of wind, solar, geothermal, micro hydro, bio and natural gas energy sources is both its own producer, so it is independent from foriegn manipulation and independent in that it is not overly depended on one source of energy, thus insulated from natural interruptions.

August 20, 2008

The Idiocy of Energy Independence

By John Stossel

It’s amazing how ideas with no merit become popular merely because they sound good.

Most every politician and pundit says “energy independence” is a great idea. Presidents have promised it for 35 years. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were self-sufficient, protected from high prices, supply disruptions and political machinations?

The hitch is that even if the United States were energy independent, it would be protected from none of those things. To think otherwise is to misunderstand basic economics and the global marketplace.

To be for “energy independence” is to be against trade. But trade makes us as safe. Crop destruction from this summer’s floods in the Midwest should remind us of the folly of depending only on ourselves. Achieving “energy independence” would expose us to unnecessary risks — such as storms that knock out oil refineries or droughts that create corn — and ethanol — shortages.

Trade also saves us money. “We import energy for a reason,” says the Cato Institute’s energy expert, Jerry Taylor, “It’s cheaper than producing it here at home. A governmental war on energy imports will, by definition, raise energy prices”.

Anyway, a “domestic energy only” policy (call it “Drain America First”?) is a fantasy. America’s demand for oil is too great for us to supply ourselves. Electricity we could provide. Not with windmills and solar panels — they are not yet close to providing enough — but coal and nuclear power could produce America’s electricity.

But cars need oil. We don’t have nearly enough.

That doesn’t keep the presidential candidates from preying on the public’s economic ignorance.

“I have set before the American people an energy plan, the Lexington Project — named for the town where Americans asserted their independence once before,” John McCain said. “This nation will achieve strategic independence by 2025”.

Barack Obama, promising to “set America on path to energy independence,” is upset that we send millions to other countries. “They get our money because we need their oil”

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Wonder who is picking up his tab. More tomorrow.

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Ann Coulter And Energy Policy – Ann supports just about everything that is wrong with this country’s energy policy

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Poor Ann. She has ranted a raved for so long that she, like Sarah Palin, has become a parody of herself. She once said that , “when the democrats talk about new forms of energy they don’t actually create any new form of energys, they talk about old forms of enenrgy like solar power, wind power and barley power”. Did she miss physics in college or what?

http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/printer_friendly.cgi?article=262

THIS IS NOT A DRILL
by Ann Coulter
July 16, 2008

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or as she is called on the Big Dogs blog, “the worst speaker in the history of Congress,” explained the cause of high oil prices back in 2006: “We have two oilmen in the White House. The logical follow-up from that is $3-a-gallon gasoline. It is no accident. It is a cause and effect. A cause and effect.”

Yes, that would explain why the price of oral sex, cigars and Hustler magazine skyrocketed during the Clinton years. Also, I note that Speaker Pelosi is a hotelier … and the price of a hotel room in New York is $1,000 a night! I think she might be onto something.

Is that why a barrel of oil costs mere pennies in all those other countries in the world that are not run by “oilmen”? Wait — it doesn’t cost pennies to them? That’s weird.

In response to the 2003 blackout throughout the Northeast U.S. and parts of Canada, Pelosi blamed: “President Bush and Rep. Tom DeLay’s oil-company interests.” The blackout was a failure of humans operating electric power; it had nothing to do with oil. And I’m not even “an oilman.”

But yes — good point: What a disaster having people in government who haven’t spent their entire lives in politics! That explains everything. A government official with relevant experience or knowledge about an issue is obviously a crisis of gargantuan proportions.

This must be why the Democrats are nominating B. Hussein Obama, who finished middle school three days ago and has less experience than a person one might choose at random from the audience of “American Idol.”

Announcing the Democrats’ bold new “plan” on energy last week, Pelosi said breaking into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve “is one alternative.” That’s not an energy plan. It’s using what we already have — much like “conservation,” which is also part of the Democrats’ plan.

Conservation, efficiency and using oil we hold in reserve for emergencies does not get us more energy. It’s as if we were running out of food and the Democrats were telling us: “Just eat a little less every day.” Great! We’ll die a little more slowly. That’s not what we call a “plan.” We need more energy, not a plan for a slower death.

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She claims to be a comedian. But she declared that an attempt to toss a pie in her face, an age old comedic twist was attempted assault. Soupy Sales where are you? More tomorrow.

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Victor Hanson – Man made climate change does not exist

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Look, the argument goes Weather refutes Climate. But really, did Russia burn last summer. Isn’t Climate change about Climate Instability. Aren’t the Russian, USA and Canadian Militaries gearing up to patrol a nearly naked Alaska during the summer. And what about oil there? Oh wait is that why they want the warming to continue because it will reveal more oil…

http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson122710.html

December, 27 2010

The Obamaites’ About-Face

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

Californians have been experiencing ten days of the wettest, snowiest weather in recent memory. In the usually arid San Joaquin Valley, flooding is ubiquitous. The high Sierra passes are locked in snow well before the first of the year. If the United Kingdom is dealing with the irony of its elites’ recently warning of an end to snow on a now snowy island, out here our version of that embarrassment is water everywhere after Energy Secretary Chu warned us that our farms would blow away and that he could envision an end altogether of California agriculture — logically, he asserted, given that 90 percent of the annual Sierra snowpack would soon disappear.

While the state struggles with flooding and blizzards, Governor Schwarzenegger is advertising himself to the Obama administration as a possible post–Van Jones green czar, to regulate energy for the country as he has done for a now insolvent California. But then, once global warming morphed into climate change, too much rain, snow, and cold could become as symptomatic of too much man-made carbon being released as too little rain, snow, and cold once were. Start that engine, and thou shalt both burn and freeze in hell.

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dot dot dot as they say

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When one loses one’s faith, the aftermath can be startling. As gas hits $3 a gallon at Christmas, with fears of $4 by summer-vacation time, expect suddenly to hear of plans to tap more natural gas, build more nuclear reactors, and lift the suppression of offshore drilling — all beneath a loudly trumpeted but very thin wind and solar veneer. What are we to expect next — a few windmills fastened atop a drilling rig in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, some solar panels on the domes of new nuclear-power plants, a supercharger as an upgrade on the Chevy Volt?

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About Face. Forward harch. More tomorrow.

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