oil

Energy advice ignores the climate crisis

by Bryan Walker May 8, 2012

An extraordinary op-ed headline caught my eye in the NZ Herald this morning. “Oil and gas reserves can be part of low carbon future.” Professor Basil Sharp, director of the University of Auckland Business School’s Energy Centre and Frank Duffield, an Honorary Fellow at the Centre, argue that continuing exploration for oil and gas reserves [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

Reinventing Fire

by Bryan Walker February 29, 2012

Is there movement already under way in the world of industry which will outstrip the painfully slow progress of the political world in facing up to the challenge of climate change?  Amory Lovins certainly thinks so and his recent book, Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era, explains why. Lovins is the [...]

9 comments Read the full article →

Minister wants all options open

by Bryan Walker February 12, 2012

The Minister for Economic Development Steven Joyce had a curious op-ed in the Herald earlier this week. It was aimed at those pesky people who obstruct progress when government tries to remove roadblocks in the way of business development. And that’s when the problems start to arrive. The people who say “we want jobs” but [...]

7 comments Read the full article →

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 [...]

17 comments Read the full article →

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 [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

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 [...]

11 comments Read the full article →

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 [...]

7 comments Read the full article →

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 [...]

14 comments Read the full article →

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 [...]

28 comments Read the full article →

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 [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

← Previous Entries