oil

The wrong road to take

by Bryan Walker January 19, 2012

It’s difficult not to become repetitive when blogging about climate change. The basic science is well-established. The dangers global warming poses to human society are clear and in some places present. The solutions lie with drastically cutting the level of greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to changes already unavoidable.  The mitigation solution in particular continues [...]

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The blind leading…

by Bryan Walker October 5, 2011

Evidence this week that the New Zealand Energy Strategy, trumpeted by the government as a key to the country’s prosperity, is making good on its promise to advance oil and gas exploration.  The NZ Herald carried a report of a meeting on Monday of high-powered global oil and gas exploration companies hosted by New Zealand [...]

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Energy Strategy in Denial of Climate Change Reality

by Bryan Walker September 1, 2011

From a climate change perspective the New Zealand Energy Strategy 2011-2016 is hopelessly compromised by its determination to exploit all the oil and gas that can be found, including deep sea methane hydrates. Take a look at this extract, the second paragraph in the strategy document: “Globally, there are two energy challenges: energy security and [...]

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The absurd “moral superiority” of tar sands oil

by Bryan Walker July 31, 2011

In a rational world the notion that Canadian tar sands oil is ‘ethical’ by comparison with oil from many other sources would be laughable. But I wrote earlier this year that the Canadian Conservation Minister Peter Kent used the term with some emphasis in his defence of the tar sands operation. This week I read [...]

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Life Without Oil

by Bryan Walker May 17, 2011

“A gradual contraction into more sustainable patterns of resource use is not the norm for a society that is exploiting the environment. The norm is a last-ditch effort to maintain outward displays of power, and then a sudden, and dramatic, collapse.”   That’s one of the foreboding statements with which Steve Hallett and John Wright punctuate [...]

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Bearing witness: oil at sea

by Bryan Walker April 11, 2011

Pursuing the last drop of oil should not be on the agenda of any country which takes climate change seriously. That’s why I applaud the Greenpeace and Te Whanau a Apanui action in endeavouring – successfully for a time – to stop the Petrobas seismic testing vessel off the East Cape. Potential danger to the [...]

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Earle: everything in the oceans at risk

by Bryan Walker March 19, 2011

“We are committed to developing deepwater energy supplies offshore.” Those blunt words from the US Administration were put to oceanographer Sylvia Earle by Stephen Sackur late in a captivating BBC Hardtalk interview I watched a few days ago. What chance, he asked, did her message about the plight of the oceans stand in the face [...]

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Moving the earth for oil

by Bryan Walker January 11, 2011

Ethical oil. That’s what Canada is producing from its massive tar sands operation, according to the newly appointed Environment Minister Peter Kent. I admit to having missed that dimension in what I have read of the oil extraction from tar sands. I understood that when the CO2 emissions from its production is added to the [...]

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Hansen: shelter from the storm

by Bryan Walker December 28, 2010

James Hansen has long been a leading climate scientist and he is also an excellent communicator of the science to the public. What he had to say about the scientific picture in his recent interview with Bill McKibben, a different aspect of which I highlighted in yesterday’s post, is of interest for its clarity and [...]

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Prepare for business as unusual

by Gareth November 12, 2010

Here’s something thought provoking for a Friday: The ultimate roller coaster ride: a brief history of fossil fuels, a five minute encapsulation of humanity’s flirtation with coal and rock oil. Narrated by Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute, animated by Monstro Design. Worth five minutes of your day.

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