“It’s always a good idea to start by asking about the facts.” So advises Noam Chomsky. “Whenever you hear anything said very confidently, the first thing that should come to mind is, ‘Wait a minute, is that true?’” De omnibus dubitandum—doubt everything—was Karl Marx’s motto and should be the motto of every thinking person. Question even or especially what the tribe most takes for granted.
Headlines abound about the massive surge in US shale oil production. The energy independence-cheering punditocracy hail this as a great victory. This includes President Trump.
It is a tragic irony of the contemporary environmentalist movement that in its opposition to nuclear energy, it is doing the bidding of the fossil fuel industry and increasing the likelihood of climate apocalypse.
June 7, 2019 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently renamed US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports "freedom gas." But freedom for who? For Europe who already has a cheap and reliable source of natural gas, but is being forced to switch over to more expensive US gas under the threat of sanctions?
On Tuesday May 21st, US energy secretary Rick Perry made headlines after paying a visit to the newly elected administration of Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The visit itself wasn’t the cause of the headlines but rather Perry’s hubristic attack on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline and prophesying that a sanctions bill against western companies building the pipeline will pass into law in the immediate future.
The US sent Energy Secretary Rick Perry to the inauguration of the new Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to announce the sanctions bill on Gazprom’s Nordstream 2 pipeline would pass.
I can’t tell what’s more pathetic at this point, the neocons in Trump’s administration thinking that sanctions actually achieve their goals or using them to suck up to a new president they don’t actively control yet.
I don’t write much directly about climate collapse, even though by any measure it is by far the most important issue any of us will face in our lifetimes. And I can gauge from my social media accounts that, when I do write about environmental issues, my followers – most of whom I assume share my progressive positions – are least likely to read those blog posts or promote them.
I have to consider why that is.
No Water. No Life. No Blue. No Green.
— Sylvia Earle
