Guardian Reports Environmentalists Say Shell Strategy Risks Catastrophic Climate ChangeLeaked internal Shell documents reveal Shell believes temperature will rise 4°C, then 6°C above today's

Terry Macalister at The Guardian reports that internal Royal Dutch Shell business planning documents have been revealed which show that Shell knows its current plans will cause Earth's surface temperature increase to exceed by 2 to 4 degrees Celsius the internationally agreed-upon maximum of 2°C, the level above which global climate change could easily run out of control. Shell has not yet publicly admitted that its production plans assume this larger temperature rise. Until the matter of this known deception is resolved, I recommend we do not believe any public statements by Shell. I suppose we should have known that one or more big oil companies would make matters as difficult as possible.

Interior Approves Shell Plan To Drill Arctic Starting In July

Servicing the Public
for Over 100 Years

In what can only be called an ill-considered but well-hidden hand‑job for Shell, the Department of the Interior announced on Monday its approval of Shell's plan to drill in Chukchi Sea in the Arctic Ocean, beginning almost immediately: July. The approval is conditional on Shell's obtaining all legally required permits to drill (a virtual certainty), authorizations under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (surely already a done deal) and all required Biological Opinions under the Endangered Species Act (I'm afraid I don't know what this means, but I do know it is surely no obstacle to what one of the world's largest megacorp's wants to do). The precipitousness of implementation deals a blow to all organized efforts to prevent the drilling or mitigate the inevitable damage both to the environment in the Arctic and, perhaps more significantly, to the global climate. (Do you think they even noted your signature on an online petition opposing this action? Me either.)

The Earthjustice article linked above has a good summary of the damage such drilling could easily cause:

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... The project Interior approved today is bigger, dirtier, and louder than any previous plan, calling for more sound disturbances and harassment of whales and seals, more water and air pollution, and more vessels and helicopters. It also runs the risk of a catastrophic oil spill that could not be cleaned in Arctic waters.

The company’s accident-filled efforts to drill in 2012 demonstrate that neither Shell nor any other company is ready to drill in the Arctic Ocean. Shell proved that again just last month when its Discoverer drillship was held in port due to pollution control failures. Drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean also takes us in the wrong direction on combating climate change.

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I have done contract IT work for Shell (more than a decade ago; I would not accept such work today) and I knew some of the people involved in designing the more ambitious drilling projects. Those at Shell are neither better nor worse than typical in the industry, but it is the nature of things that they appear to be self-assured to the point of arrogance about the outcomes of their work, in deep water and/or extreme weather. What could possibly go wrong? (*cough* BP Deepwater Horizon *cough*) Apart from that,  as of a couple years ago, it looked as if all the big oil companies, including Shell, were partnering with one of two Russian companies, both of which have bad track records regarding safety and environment.

Shell Kulluk Rig Damaged, Mar. 2013
(credit: National Geographic)

I'll let you know if I find any letter-writing campaigns or petitions to sign, but I suspect it's a done deal.

Naomi Klein On Oil Prices, Fossil Fuel Divestment, Better Climate Movement

Some of you know that my admiration for Naomi Klein is such that when my attempt to place a hold at Houston Public Library on her newest book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, failed, I actually promptly purchased the book, far out of my planned sequence of books to buy. Knowing that, it should hardly surprise you that I found an interview of Klein by May Boeve, executive director of 350.org, at a conference on divestment as an activist tactic, to be well worth reading. The interview is in three parts, dealing with oil prices, how to build a better climate movement, and fossil fuel divestment.

And if any old geezer (like me) says "they don't make activists like they used to," point them to Ms. Klein as an example: no, they don't make 'em like they used to; they make 'em better.

Coal Boss Donald Blankenship Indicted For Conspiracy To Violate Federal Reg's

This may be the only time in your life that you see a major player in the fossil fuel industry indicted for anything more than parking in a handicapped space (and that of course never happens either). Here's Dylan Scott of TPM:

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Surface coal mine, Wyoming

Blankenship, who, as the New York Times reported this week, grew up poor in West Virginia before rising to become one of the most powerful coal bosses in the United States, came to typify all the worst caricatures of ruthless industrialists. He broke unions. He dismissed federal regulations and dared inspectors to catch him in the act. He described his industry in evolutionary terms.

"It's like a jungle, where a jungle is survival of the fittest. Unions, communities, people -- everybody's gonna have to learn to accept that in the United States you have a capitalist society, and that capitalism, from a business standpoint, is survival of the most productive," he said in the 1980s.

Coal miner, 1930s

But with the death of 29 miners in the April 5, 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in southern West Virginia, Blankenship's long run may finally have come to an end. He was indicted last month on conspiracy to willfully violate federal mining regulations before the accident and to defraud the United States by making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission in its aftermath.

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If Blankenship were anyone else than his smug, self-satisfied self, someone might feel sorry for him, but as things are, hey, "it's like a jungle..."

I predict these outcomes:

• Blankenship will be acquitted of all charges;
• Not one single dangerous practice will be discontinued at his mines;
• None of us will live to see him accused of any other violations or frauds;
• Other energy corporation CEOs will feel free to ignore federal regulations;
• No other energy CEO will be indicted in your or my lifetime.

Have a nice day!