Yesterday, over 12,000 people came from across North America and Canada to the White House to call on President Obama to stop the highly controversial Keystone XL pipeline. The thousands of protesters, some carrying a long black inflatable replica of a pipeline, formed a human chain around the White House. Some chanted “Yes we can, … Read More
Featured
How to buy a pipeline? Buy Congress.
As thousands gather around the White House tomorrow to urge President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline, let’s take a minute to look at some of the ways the project has garnered political support so far. Because in the end this is a political decision. A yes indicates support for Big Oil and the … Read More
Military Wisdom: Pentagon strategy doesn’t include Canadian oil
We have discussed a number of times on this blog how energy security cannot be attained through importing more oil from Canada or increasing domestic drilling. These false solutions give the impression something is being done to ease the burden of high oil prices on the nation but in reality make no difference. So it … Read More
The Downsides of “Extreme Energy”
So its official: fracking causes earthquakes. Just minutes ago, a report published by the oil company Cuadrilla as to whether its drilling operations caused two “earthquakes” back in April and May, concluded that fracking was the “highly probable” cause of the small seismic events. Cuadrilla suspended fracking operations in June, over fears of a link … Read More
Oil and Democracy Don’t Mix
I remember years ago going to a lecture by a senior executive from Premier Oil about operating in Burma and he said that oil men liked working in authoritarian regimes as they were much more predictable than democracies. Ironically they were more stable. Over the last year, the Arab spring has challenged this concept to … Read More
The Living Dead: will Big Oil’s record profits turn us all to zombies?
$100 Billion. That’s what the big 5 oil companies have made in profits since January 1. $102.85 billion to be more precise, according to my own calculations (see table below). That means that they’re on course to top $140 billion for 2011. More if oil prices keep rising. And that’s in a year when unemployment … Read More
Shell “Threatens” the EU with Long-Term Exit
Last Friday, oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, announced that it had doubled third quarter profits to $7.2 billion. So where is this cash coming from? Let’s not forget that Shell has spent millions over the last fifteen years trying to remould its image from a dirty oil company implicated in human rights abuses to a … Read More
Britain Backs Canadian Bullying Over Tar Sands
Britain was joined by some Eastern European countries yesterday in backing Canada in its dirty fight to force the EU not to discriminate against the tar sands in the Fuel Quality Directive. A meeting of European environment experts yesterday had been expected to vote on a proposal by the European Commission to give a different … Read More
Talking Dirty in the President’s Ear
The revolving door between the Obama Administration and TransCanada keeps on spinning, despite a decision on the hugely controversial pipeline just weeks away. Let’s not forget the first revolving door story, which revolves around Paul Elliott, who is TransCanada’s lobbyist promoting Keystone XL. Elliot worked for Hilary Clinton during her 2008 campaign. Recently released embarrassing … Read More
From selling cigarettes to dirty oil
For anyone who has watched the parody film “Thank you for smoking”, they would know that being a spin doctor for a tobacco company is one of the more dubious ethical career choices. If anyone had the inclination, there are thousands of internal tobacco industry documents online that show that the tobacco industry has systematically … Read More