By Juan Cole | —

The popular story about Thanksgiving is an environmental parable that we would do well to remember today. It was a harvest festival in 1621, participated in by the 50 (out of 100) survivors at Plymouth Plantation and 90 Native Americans. Some of these latter, such as Squanto, had shared with the white undocumented aliens arriving in Wampanoag territory their local techniques of fishing and corn farming. In some subsequent years there were droughts that threatened the colony.

If the Pilgrims faced Coldworld and its weather and agricultural challenges, today we face Hotworld. Just as they looked to the Native Americans for cues on how to survive in that cold environment, we should look at indigenous peoples’ current environmental initiatives to understand how to avoid heating the earth more than the further nearly 4 degrees F. that we already certainly will. (4 degrees F. is a global average, including the relatively cold oceans, and some places will experience a much greater increase in heat than that). It is obvious that the US Federal government will be useless or actually pernicious on this issue for some years to come, so we have to do this ourselves.

Today’s native Americans are fighting a wide range of human-caused climate crises or budding crises. There’s been relatively little coverage of it on corporate television news, but Native Americans of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and their supporters in North Dakota have for months been protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline [DAPL] . They fear oil spills and pollution of their water supplies, a perfectly reasonable apprehension. What is worse, burning petroleum certainly causes climate change, and the more drilling and the more pipelines, the faster we cook everybody on earth. Despite the constitution’s guarantee of the right of assembly for peaceful protest, the local authorities and the corporations have conspired to criminalize these rallies. A few days ago, in the frigid weather, police unleashed water cannons and tear gas canisters on the protesters, leaving some hospitalized.

ABC News: “Police Use Water Cannon on Dakota Pipeline Protesters [Drone Footage]”

The DAPL struggle is not the only one being waged by indigenous communities.

Native Americans in Canada largely oppose tar sands oil extraction, which is highly polluting and ruinous of water supplies. T

The Sioux in South Dakota had announced that the Keystone XL pipeline for dirty tar sands oil must not run through their land, by treaty with the US. That pipeline project was denied by the Obama administration in 2015 after years of review.

The Moapa Paiutes are celebrating the advent of solar power and the beginning of the end of coal power in southern Nevada. The Department of Energy says, “Located 30 miles north of Las Vegas, the 250-megawatt solar photovoltaic project is being built by First Solar and is providing jobs and training for members of the Moapa Band of Paiute Indians (Moapa Paiutes).” Some 25% of the workforce building the plant are themselves Moapa Paiutes.

They are having a solar plant built on tribal lands, which will allow them meet their own needs and to sell electricity to Los Angeles. Best of all, they can envision the closing of the dirty coal plant that has given them respiratory diseases.

The Reid Gardner coal plant is indeed closing, in 2017, after the the tribe was paid $4.3 million because of its adverse health effects on them. The bulk of the money will be used for clean-up.

The Sioux and the Paiutes are our modern-day Squantos, teaching us how to live sustainably in a North America they have inhabited for thousands of years longer than have Euro-Americans. The Pilgrims, despite their conviction of European superiority, were humble enough to learn what they could from the natives, which was the only way they could survive. Can we be as humble, today?

The pilgrims in 1621 faced a harsher climate than had Leif Erikson when he came to North America around 980 during the European medieval warming period. From 1550 to 1850, temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere fell by an average of about 1.3 degrees F (1 degree C.), during what has been called “the Little Ice Age.” This fall in temperature was exacerbated in the 1500s and 1600s by a slight decrease in atmospheric carbon of 6 to 10 parts per million. Stanford University geochemist Richard Nevle has argued that the great die-off of Native Americans, who were exposed to European diseases for which they had no antibodies, contributed to this decrease of carbon dioxide and fall in temperature. They ceased burning trees for fuel, and the forests recovered, with millions of new trees absorbing CO2.

Science News explains:

“By the end of the 15th century, between 40 million and 100 million people are thought to have been living in the Americas. Many of them burned trees to make room for crops, leaving behind charcoal deposits that have been found in the soils of Mexico, Nicaragua and other countries.

About 500 years ago, this charcoal accumulation plummeted as the people themselves disappeared. Smallpox, diphtheria and other diseases from Europe ultimately wiped out as much as 90 percent of the indigenous population.

Trees returned, reforesting an area at least the size of California, Nevle estimated. This new growth could have soaked up between 2 billion and 17 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air.”

That is, the cold winters that challenged the English immigrants (and which they played down in their letters back home) had in part been caused by the very European influx of which they were a part!

From about 1750, however, Europeans started substantially increasing their burning of wood and coal so as to drive steam engines and make the industrial revolution. In that year, there were roughly 278 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and it was relatively cold. Today there are over 400 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere and it is on average over 2 degrees F. (1.5 degrees C.) warmer now than then.

We can make our Thanksgivings greener and greener in coming years.

We can make sure our homes are insulated, which will cut down on our fuel costs and carbon production, and will make them more cozy for guests.

We can put solar panels on our homes to generate electricity to run the television and other appliances for our family and guests.

Those who go to church, synagogue or mosque on Thanksgiving can make sure that their religious edifices are powered by solar panels. A temple that burns fossil fuels is paying dues to the devil, not glorifying the God of wisdom who commands good stewardship of earth.

We can drive to the homes of our family and friends for the dinner in electric cars or plug-in hybrids, fueled from the rooftop solar panels (which are falling steeply in price). If we fly, we can buy carbon offsets from the Nature Conservancy or eat vegetarian often enough to make up for it (solar-powered and biofuel-powered airplanes are around the corner).

We can lobby our electric utility to turn to wind turbines, as Iowa and Texas increasingly have, which supplements the solar generation. A third of Iowa’s electricity comes from wind. Not all states are equally blessed with its wind resources. But Michigan, e.g., does have promising wind generation areas in the Thumb and on the Lake Michigan shore, which it has quite shamefully done almost nothing with.

We can avoid beef, the most carbon-intensive protein (not so hard, since who eats beef on Thanksgiving?) and can try to buy local produce to prepare the meal.

Some will say these steps are not enough; but they are more than most Americans have undertaken and would be a good start.

Thanksgiving in the American popular tradition hasn’t only been about being thankful for food abundance. It has been gratitude for survival and adaptation in an alien clime. We are all now entering an alien clime, of a warming globe– a world hotter than it has been since the mid-Pliocene some 3 million years ago, when the seas were 25 yards/ meters higher and the northern hemisphere 10-20 degrees hotter than now (it had 400 ppm of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere too). Survival and adaptation require us now to change a lot of habits and become sustainable, and ASAP. Like the Pilgrims, half of whom died in their first year, we face an emergency.

A state prosecutor had sought to charge Goodman with participating in a “riot” for filming an attack on protesters.

A North Dakota judge has dismissed the “riot” charges against Amy Goodman for covering the Dakota Access pipeline protests, Democracy Now! confirmed Monday.

“This is a complete vindication of my right as a journalist to cover the attack on the protesters, and of the public’s right to know what is happening with the Dakota Access pipeline,” Goodman said in a statement on the website of Democracy Now!.

“We will continue to report on this epic struggle of Native Americans and their non-Native allies taking on the fossil fuel industry and an increasingly militarized police in this time when climate change threatens the planet.”

A North Dakota state prosecutor Ladd R. Erickson had sought to charge Goodman with participating in a “riot” for filming an attack on protesters after the prosecutor dropped criminal trespassing charges.

On Monday, District Judge John Grinsteiner found there was no probable cause in the charge against the Democracy Now! journalist.

Actress Shailene Woodley and Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein are other well-known figures who have been arrested for their protests over the US$3.7 billion project.

The pipeline is expected to transport over half a million barrels of oil a day through federal and private lands in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois.

Indigenous and environmental activists say the project will ruin sacred burial grounds and pollute local water supplies. While construction has been stopped along small sections, protesters have vowed to continue fighting the project until it is fully shut down.

Goodman said that the charges were changed because authorities realized they couldn’t make the trespassing “stick.”

“I wasn’t trespassing, I wasn’t engaging in a riot, I was doing my job as a journalist by covering a violent attack on Native American protesters,” said Goodman.

Goodman said she and her production team filmed live video of “the Dakota Access Pipeline Company’s security guards physically assaulting non-violent, mostly Native American land protectors, pepper spraying them and unleashing attack dogs, one of which was shown with blood dripping from its nose and mouth.”

Via TeleSur

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

Democracy Now! from last month: ” “Dakota Access Pipeline Company Attacks Native American Protesters with Dogs & Pepper Spray ”

Syrian refugees in Canada are using Facebook and web sites to raise donations for climate refugees from the massive tar sands fire that has destroyed much of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada and forced the evacuation of 80,000 people living in the city and its surroundings.

The worst fire disaster in the North American west coast in a century is expected to become even bigger in coming days, fanned by heavy winds. It will threaten further communities.

Naser Nader wrote,

“Hello. Canadians have provided us with everything and now we have a duty we must do we must help the people who lost their homes and everything in a fire Oil City. We all have our things in the home can donate them there would be a place to assemble the furniture. Get ready it’s time to fulfill

His FB friends replied:

A. Paul: Very thoughtful…so glad you have come to Canada.

C. Sunderlin: You are Canadians… and don’t let anyone tell you differently. heart emoticon

Sam Nammoura quoted Rita Khanchet at the Facebook page, “We understand totally what they’re feeling because we’ve passed through the same situation—we lost everything in just one second, maybe not from burning, but it still feels the same.”

A. Colthorpe replied to him at FB, “I’m sharing on my site. Very proud of our Syrian friends reaching out. Those who have so little are ready to share! Like you said Sam, they know all too well what the people in Ft Mac are facing. Good for them to see the need and rise up!”

Annalise Klingbeil of the Calgary Herald wrote that the drive was begun with an Arabic posting on a private Facebook group for Syrian refugees in Alberta province by recent arrival Rita Khanchet:

“It’s not easy to lose everything. We can understand them more than anyone in Canada. We were in the same situation . . . Me and my family wanted to do something for these people. Canadian society helped us when we came to Canada . . . (Canadians) gave us everything. And now it’s time to return the favour . . .”

That's what I meant when I said refugees will make great Canadians! I didn't know it would happen so fast #ymmfire https://t.co/78tKbfbdj7

— Thomas A. Lukaszuk (@LukaszukAB) May 5, 2016

Syrians are collecting $5 apiece from the community to buy basic hygiene items for those who had to flee Fort McMurray.

Lucie Edwardson of the Calgary Metro also wrote on the story, and conveyed this touching anecdote– reporting that Khanchat explained what was happening to the people of Fort McMurray to her 5-year-old son, Elie, and he immediately understood and wanted to swing into action:

“He started collecting his toys and items for the other kids . . . He wants them to have them because he remembers too what it was like to lose his own.”

Calgary Syrian refugees give back with support for Fort McMurray evacuees. Because Canada. https://t.co/63TOF5nyWI via @metrocalgary

— Daorcey Le Bray (@Daorcey) May 5, 2016

Ironically, some of the turmoil in Syria derives from climate change, which exacerbated the country’s prolonged drought and drove rural farmers off their land to festering slums like East Aleppo and the bidonvilles around cities like Hama and Homs. These suffering populations in turn joined demonstrations against the regime, and when they were met with brute force, turned to Muslim fundamentalist militias, throwing the country into civil war. The war is complex and has many roots, but my guess is that 20% of the drought is climate change-related (the latter process causes droughts in the Middle East to be more frequent, last longer, and be hotter).

Today's fire danger map, via @NRCan. Most of #Alberta & #Sask with EXTREME danger. #skfire #abfire #ymmfire pic.twitter.com/B8VstkKFnz

— Liz Pittman (@LizPGlobal) May 4, 2016

The wildfire in northern Alberta is likewise exacerbated by human-caused warming because of burning fossil fuels (like tar sands!).

So the two sets of refugees have more in common than they perhaps even realize.

—–

Related video:

CBC: “Harrowing Fort McMurray wildfire escape”

Three and a half years ago, the International Energy Agency (IEA) triggered headlines around the world by predicting that the United States would overtake Saudi Arabia to become the world’s leading oil producer by 2020 and, together with Canada, would become a net exporter of oil around 2030. Overnight, a new strain of American energy triumphalism appeared and experts began speaking of “Saudi America,” a reinvigorated U.S.A. animated by copious streams of oil and natural gas, much of it obtained through the then-pioneering technique of hydro-fracking. “This is a real energy revolution,” the Wall Street Journal crowed in an editorial heralding the IEA pronouncement.

The most immediate effect of this “revolution,” its boosters proclaimed, would be to banish any likelihood of a “peak” in world oil production and subsequent petroleum scarcity.  The peak oil theorists, who flourished in the early years of the twenty-first century, warned that global output was likely to reach its maximum attainable level in the near future, possibly as early as 2012, and then commence an irreversible decline as the major reserves of energy were tapped dry. The proponents of this outlook did not, however, foresee the coming of hydro-fracking and the exploitation of previously inaccessible reserves of oil and natural gas in underground shale formations.

Understandably enough, the stunning increase in North American oil production in the past few years simply wasn’t on their radar. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the Department of Energy, U.S. crude output rose from 5.5 million barrels per day in 2010 to 9.2 million barrels as 2016 began, an increase of 3.7 million barrels per day in what can only be considered the relative blink of an eye. Similarly unexpected was the success of Canadian producers in extracting oil (in the form of bitumen, a semi-solid petroleum substance) from the tar sands of Alberta. Today, the notion that oil is becoming scarce has all but vanished, and so have the benefits of a new era of petroleum plenty being touted, until recently, by energy analysts and oil company executives.

“The picture in terms of resources in the ground is a good one,” Bob Dudley, the chief executive officer of oil giant BP, typically exclaimed in January 2014.  “It’s very different [from] past concerns about supply peaking.  The theory of peak oil seems to have, well, peaked.”

The Arrival of a New Energy Triumphalism

With the advent of North American energy abundance in 2012, petroleum enthusiasts began to promote the idea of a “new American industrial renaissance” based on accelerated shale oil and gas production and the development of related petrochemical enterprises.  Combine such a vision with diminished fears about reliance on imported oil, especially from the Middle East, and the United States suddenly had — so the enthusiasts of the moment asserted — a host of geopolitical advantages and fresh life as the planet’s sole superpower.

“The outline of a new world oil map is emerging, and it is centered not on the Middle East but on the Western Hemisphere,” oil industry adviser Daniel Yergin proclaimed in the Washington Post.  “The new energy axis runs from Alberta, Canada, down through [the shale fields of] North Dakota and South Texas… to huge offshore oil deposits found near Brazil.”  All of this, he asserted, “points to a major geopolitical shift,” leaving the United States advantageously positioned in relation to any of its international rivals.

If the blindness of so much of this is beginning to sound a little familiar, the reason is simple enough.  Just as the peak oil theorists failed to foresee crucial technological breakthroughs in the energy world and how they would affect fossil fuel production, the industry and its boosters failed to anticipate the impact of a gusher of additional oil and gas on energy prices.  And just as the introduction of fracking made peak oil theory irrelevant, so oil and gas abundance — and the accompanying plunge of prices to rock-bottom levels — shattered the prospects for a U.S. industrial renaissance based on accelerated energy production.

As recently as June 2014, Brent crude, the international benchmark blend, was selling at $114 per barrel.  As 2015 began, it had plunged to $55 per barrel.  By 2016, it was at $36 and still heading down.  The fallout from this precipitous descent has been nothing short of disastrous for the global oil industry: many smaller companies have already filed for bankruptcy; larger firms have watched their profits plummet; whole countries like Venezuela, deeply dependent on oil sales, seem to be heading for receivership; and an estimated 250,000 oil workers have lost their jobs globally (50,000 in Texas alone).

In addition, some major oil-producing areas are being shut down or ruled out as likely future prospects for exploration and exploitation.  The British section of the North Sea, for example, is projected to lose as many as 150 of its approximately 300 oil and gas drilling platforms over the next decade, including those in the Brent field, the once-prolific reservoir that gave its name to the benchmark blend.  Meanwhile, virtually all plans for drilling in the increasingly ice-free waters of the Arctic have been put on hold.

Many reasons have been given for the plunge in oil prices and various “conspiracy theories” have arisen to explain the seemingly inexplicable.  In the past, when prices fell, the Saudis and their allies in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) would curtail production to push them higher.  This time, they actually increased output, leading some analysts to suggest that Riyadh was trying to punish oil producers Iran and Russia for supporting the Assad regime in Syria.  New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, for instance, claimed that the Saudis were trying to “bankrupt” those countries “by bringing down the price of oil to levels below what both Moscow and Tehran need to finance their budgets.” Variations on this theme have been advanced by other pundits.

The reality of the matter has turned out to be significantly more straightforward: U.S. and Canadian producers were adding millions of barrels a day in new production to world markets at a time when global demand was incapable of absorbing so much extra crude oil.  An unexpected surge in Iraqi production added additional crude to the growing glut.  Meanwhile, economic malaise in China and Europe kept global oil consumption from climbing at the heady pace of earlier years and so the market became oversaturated with crude.  It was, in other words, a classic case of too much supply, too little demand, and falling prices.  “We are still seeing a lot of supply,” said BP’s Dudley last June.  “There is demand growth, there’s just a lot more supply.”

A War of Attrition

Threatened by this new reality, the Saudis and their allies faced a painful choice.  Accounting for about 40% of world oil output, the OPEC producers exercise substantial but not unlimited power over the global marketplace.  They could have chosen to rein in their own production and so force prices up.  There was, however, little likelihood of non-OPEC producers like Brazil, Canada, Russia, and the United States following suit, so any price increases would have benefitted the energy industries of those countries most, while undoubtedly taking market share from OPEC. However counterintuitive it might have seemed, the Saudis, unwilling to face such a loss, decided to pump more oil.  Their hope was that a steep decline in prices would drive some of their rivals, especially American oil frackers with their far higher production expenses, out of business.  “It is not in the interest of OPEC producers to cut their production, whatever the price is,” the Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi explained.  “If I reduce [my price], what happens to my market share?  The price will go up and the Russians, the Brazilians, U.S. shale oil producers will take my share.”

In adopting this strategy, the Saudis knew they were taking big risks.  About 85% of the country’s export income and a staggeringly large share of government revenues come from petroleum sales.  Any sustained drop in prices would threaten the royal family’s ability to maintain public stability through the generous payments, subsidies, and job programs it offers to so many of its citizens.  However, when oil prices were high, the Saudis socked away hundreds of billions of dollars in various investment accounts around the world and are now drawing on those massive cash reserves to keep public discontent to a minimum (even while belt-tightening begins).  “If prices continue to be low, we will be able to withstand it for a long, long time,” Khalid al-Falih, the chairman of Saudi Aramco, the kingdom’s national oil company, insisted in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The result of all this has been an “oil war of attrition” — a struggle among the major oil producers for maximum exposure in an overcrowded energy bazaar. Eventually, the current low prices will drive some producers out of business and so global oversupply will assumedly dissipate, pushing prices back up. But how long that might take no one knows. If Saudi Arabia can indeed hold out for the duration without stirring significant domestic unrest, it will, of course, be in a strong position to profit when the price rebound finally occurs.

It is not yet certain, however, that the Saudis will succeed in their drive to crush shale producers in the United States or other competitors elsewhere before they drain their overseas investment accounts and the foundations of their world begin to crumble. In recent weeks, in fact, there have been signs that they are beginning to get nervous.  These include moves to reduce government subsidies and talks initiated with Russia and Venezuela about freezing, if not reducing, output.

An Oil Glut Unleashes “World-Class Havoc”

In the meantime, there can be no question that the war of attrition is beginning to take its toll.  In addition to hard-hit Arctic and North Sea producers, companies exploiting Alberta’s Athabasca tar sands are exhibiting all the signs of an oncoming crisis.  While most tar sands outfits continue to operate (often at a loss), they are now postponing or cancelling future projects, while the space between the future and the present shrinks ominously.

Just about every firm in the oil business is being hurt by the new price norms, but hardest struck have been those that rely on “unconventional” means of extraction like Brazilian deep-sea drilling, U.S. hydro-fracking, and Canadian tar sands exploitation.  Such techniques were developed by the major companies to compensate for an expected long-term decline in conventional oil fields (those close to the surface, close to shore, and in permeable rock formations).  By definition, unconventional or “tough oil” requires more effort to pry out of the ground and so costs more to exploit.  The break-even point for tar sands production, for example, sometimes reaches $80 per barrel, for shale oil typically $50 to $60 a barrel.  What isn’t a serious problem when oil is selling at $100 a barrel or more becomes catastrophic when it languishes in the $30 to $40 range, as it has over much of the past half-year.

And keep in mind that, in such an environment, as oil companies contract or fail, they take with them hundreds of smaller companies — field services providers, pipeline builders, transportation handlers, caterers, and so on — that benefitted from the all-too-brief “energy renaissance” in North America.  Many have already laid off a large share of their workforce or simply been driven out of business.  As a result, once-booming oil towns like Williston, North Dakota, and Fort McMurray, Alberta, have fallen into hard times, leaving their “man camps” (temporary housing for male oil workers) abandoned and storefronts shuttered.

In Williston — once the epicenter of the shale oil boom — many families now line up for free food at local churches and rely on the Salvation Army for clothes and other necessities, according to Tim Marcin of the International Business Times.  Real estate has also been hard hit.  “As jobs dried up and families fled, some residential neighborhoods became ghost towns,” Marcin reports. “City officials estimated hotels and apartments, many of which were built during the boom, were at about 50-60% occupancy in November.”

Add to this another lurking crisis: the failure or impending implosion of many shale producers is threatening the financial health of American banks which lent heavily to the industry during the boom years from 2010 to 2014.  Over the past five years, according to financial data provider Dealogic, oil and gas companies in the United States and Canada issued bonds and took out loans worth more than $1.3 trillion.  Much of this is now at risk as companies default on loans or declare bankruptcy.  Citibank, for example, reports that 32% of its loans in the energy sector were given to companies with low credit ratings, which are considered at greater risk of default.  Wells Fargo says that 17% of its energy exposure was to such firms.  As the number of defaults has increased, banks have seen their stock values decline, and this — combined with the falling value of oil company shares — has been rattling the stock market.

The irony, of course, is that the technological breakthroughs so lauded in 2012 for their success in enhancing America’s energy prowess are now responsible for the market oversupply that is bringing so much misery to people, companies, and communities in North America’s oil patches.  “At the beginning of 2014, [the U.S.] was pumping so much oil and gas that experts foresaw a new American industrial renaissance, with trillions of dollars in investments and millions of new jobs,” commented energy expert Steve LeVine in February.   Two years later, he points out, “faces are aghast as the same oil instead has unleashed world-class havoc.”

The Geopolitical Scorecard From Hell

If that promised new industrial renaissance has failed to materialize, what about the geopolitical advantages that new oil and gas production was to give an emboldened Washington? Yergin and others asserted that the surge in North American output would shift the center of gravity of world production to the Western Hemisphere, allowing, among other things, the export of U.S. liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to Europe.  That, in turn, would diminish the reliance of allies like Germany on Russian gas and so increase American influence and power.  We were, in other words, to be in a new triumphalist world in which the planet’s sole superpower would benefit greatly from, as energy analysts Amy Myers Jaffe and Ed Morse put it in 2013, a “counterrevolution against the energy world created by OPEC.”

So far, there is little evidence of such a geopolitical bonanza.  In Saudi attrition-war fashion, for instance, Russia’s natural gas giant Gazprom has begun lowering the price at which it sells gas to Europe, rendering American LNG potentially uncompetitive in markets there.  True, on February 25th, the first cargo of that LNG was shipped to foreign markets, but it was destined for Brazil, not Europe.

Meanwhile, Brazil and Canada — two anchors of the “new world oil map” predicted by Yergin in 2011 — have been devastated by the oil price decline.  Production in the United States has not yet suffered as greatly, thanks largely to increased efficiency in the producing regions.  However, pillars of the new industry are starting to go out of business or are facing possible bankruptcy, while in the global war of attrition, the Saudis have so far retained their share of the market and are undoubtedly going to play a commanding role in global oil deals for decades to come (assuming, of course, that the country doesn’t come apart at the seams under the strains of the present oil glut).  So much for the “counterrevolution” against OPEC.  Meanwhile, the landscapes of Texas, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, and Alberta are increasingly littered with the rusting detritus of a brand-new industry already in decline, and American power is no more robust than before.

In the end, the oil attrition wars may lead us not into a future of North American triumphalism, nor even to a more modest Saudi version of the same, but into a strange new world in which an unlimited capacity to produce oil meets an increasingly crippled capitalist system without the capacity to absorb it.

Think of it this way: in the conflagration of the take-no-prisoners war the Saudis let loose, a centuries-old world based on oil may be ending in both a glut and a hollowing out on an increasingly overheated planet. A war of attrition indeed.

Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of The Race for What’s Left. A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation. Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse’s Tomorrow’s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa, and Tom Engelhardt’s latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

Copyright 2016 Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

CCTV: “Texas fracking boom hits hard times after oil price collapse”

Contrary to predictions from energy industry insiders, President Obama has rejected TransCanada’s application to build the Keystone XL pipeline across the United States-Canada border.

The president downplayed the pipeline’s contribution to carbon emissions, but he did say that approving it would have undercut America’s role as the “global leader” on tackling climate change. This makes Keystone XL the first major transnational fossil fuel extraction project to be rejected expressly on climate-related grounds.

Although no one factor is likely responsible for the president’s decision, the climate change activists who mobilized grassroots opposition to the pipeline can rightfully take some credit for it.

According to my research into climate change activism, 350.org – an advocacy organization cofounded by environmental author Bill McKibben – and its allies employed a number of communication tactics to achieve what is one of the biggest symbolic victories for the US climate movement to date.

Specifically, climate activists embraced the following strategies to scuttle the pipeline: shifting the final decision from the State Department to the White House; effectively counter-framing pro-pipeline arguments; and successfully combining digital organizing with offline actions.

In some ways, however, these successful tactics in influencing the public discussion on Keystone may have hurt activists’ cause by further polarizing the climate movement.

From State to the White House

After prominent climate scientist Dr James Hansen declared that allowing the Keystone XL project to proceed would mean “game over” for the planet in terms of carbon emissions, 350.org and its allies decided to try to stop the pipeline.

But although the president took center stage in announcing the pipeline’s demise, the decision technically resided with the State Department, as it does with similar transnational infrastructure projects. Presidents then usually just affirm their agencies’ decisions.

This presented a challenge for climate activists: unlike the presidency and Congress, which are heavily politicized arenas of public contention that receive plenty of attention and media coverage, few people follow the ins and outs of federal regulatory decisions and even fewer journalists cover them beyond the specialized press.

The solution: place the decision squarely on the president’s shoulders. Activists targeted the president as the final decision-maker, which politicized the issues and brought public attention to it. For example, activists staged a massive civil disobedience campaign in 2011, during which more than 900 people were arrested in front of the White House.

Digital activism

Before 350.org and its allies began its campaign, supporters framed Keystone as a job-creation engine and a tool for US energy independence. The climate movement instead emphasized the potentially catastrophic consequences of extracting oil from Canada’s tar sands, a more carbon-intensive source of oil than conventional wells. Activists referred to Keystone as a “carbon bomb” and incessantly repeated Dr Hansen’s “game over” assertion, even as they downplayed Keystone’s job-creating potential.

Activists also framed Keystone XL as a question of public accountability for the president. As they saw it, Obama had promised to fight climate change and support clean energy – and they expected him to keep his word. This call to hold the president accountable for his campaign promises was even echoed in the signs that some activists brought to the Keystone demonstrations. Protesters were often seen with signs that said “NOXL,” in which the letter “O” consisted of the well-known Obama campaign logo.

Although 350.org is well versed in the latest social media-based forms of activism, it did not rely solely on these tools to campaign against Keystone. Instead, the group used technology to support and augment the power of the offline actions that were the centerpieces of its campaign: civil disobedience and rallies.

350.org relied heavily on digital technology to recruit volunteers to get arrested in front of the White House and others who could support it in various ways: spreading word about the arrests online, helping with bail, etc. The group also circulated videos and photos of the arrests through digital platforms to demonstrate the extent of opposition to the pipeline and raise morale within the movement.

Hollow victory?

This victory will embolden the climate movement as we approach the Paris climate talks which start later this month.

Unlike 2009, when activists went to Copenhagen dejected from the United States’ failure to enact comprehensive climate legislation, this time they will head to the UN climate talks with a win under their belts.

The most vocal elements of the movement will point to Keystone as a demonstration that their demand to keep as much fossil fuel as possible “in the ground” can work, and will push for this approach in Paris. Activists will also use this victory to bolster their calls for various institutions to divest from all their fossil fuel holdings.

The legacy of the Keystone campaign in US politics, however, is more uncertain and, perhaps, less positive.

By overtly politicizing the issue, the activists may have further polarized attitudes about climate change and moved the country closer to a scenario in which climate change is considered a Democratic issue, while opposition to climate-friendly policies becomes a litmus test for Republicans.

Luis Hestres, Assistant Professor of Digital Communication, The University of Texas at San Antonio

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

“ VICTORY! President Obama just announced that he will reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.. After more than seven years of hard work and amazing dedication, we achieved a monumental victory in the fight to protect our planet from the disastrous effects of fossil fuels and carbon pollution.

Thank President Obama for taking courageous action by rejecting Keystone XL and protecting our climate! sc.org/KXLthanks

Note: This clip overlays Obama’s 2007 campaign speech against the ‘tyranny of oil’ over the Keystone XL victory.

National Sierra Club: “Thank You President Obama for rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline”

Alas the reality of Friday’s press conference rathet contrasted with this feel-good victory video, with Obama sticking to his ‘all of the above’ diction and pooh-poohing how dangerous Keystone XL was (if it had started a lot of tar-sands distribution points and encouraged tar sands extraction, it was very dangerous to the planet indeed). That 2007 speech on the tyranny of oil is long gone from memory. He kind of ruined the moment, which has become kind of a signature of his late second term. – JC

The White House: “The President Delivers a Statement on the Keystone XL Pipeline”

TransCanada Seeks to Suspend Keystone Pipeline Review

Appendix

Last winter at The Conversation Peter Erickson and Michael Lazarus of the Stockholm Environment Institute took their cue from President Obama and researched how much extra C02 would be emitted if Keystone XL were built. They concluded it could be 40 to 140 million tons annually, far beyond the State Department estimate. The higher range here would be half the annual emissions of the whole country of Poland. Obama had said it should not be built if it substantially increased emissions – JC

How should we calculate the CO2 impact of the Keystone pipeline proposal?

Peter Erickson and Michael Lazarus

Big energy infrastructure projects – power plants, coal mines, long distance transmission lines – take time, resources and, typically, some political muscle. They create highly visible if short-lived construction jobs, and can spark polarizing debates about land use and other short- and long-term environmental impacts.

The Keystone XL pipeline, intended to carry crude oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, presents the most hotly debated infrastructure decision in recent US history.

Much of the discussion has focused on the immediate direct impacts. The pipeline would create jobs, at least in the short term. It would provide a nearby source of oil – at least to the extent it’s refined locally. It could also affect local habitats and communities.

President Obama, who holds the ultimate decision (current legislative action notwithstanding), has offered another yardstick: the pipeline would need to be “on net, something that doesn’t increase climate change” and that does not “significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”

How should one measure that? There are many ways the pipeline might contribute (or even reduce) carbon pollution, or carbon dioxide emissions.

There are the direct, immediate, impacts, such as how many tons of CO2 are released in building the thing. But there are other, less-immediate effects, too, related to the pipeline doing its job in the long term – its job being to move about 830,000 barrels of crude oil every day to markets more cheaply, and more reliably, than would other routes.

And then there are the impacts its installation would have long after the current battles have faded. Would the pipeline (or the high-profile decision about it) lead to or enable broader changes in the economy, and in oil use?

Obama’s yardstick

At the Stockholm Environment Institute, we’ve started to look hard at fossil fuel supply infrastructure, including pipelines.

KXL makes an interesting place to start, given the recent debate and Obama’s statements. We mapped out what the various CO2 impacts might be, from extracting and processing oil sands, to constructing and operating the pipeline, as well as any end market effects on overall oil consumption (for which we used a simple, and common, economic model).

Our research, published in a Nature Climate Change paper last year, found that KXL’s biggest impact likely hinges on whether it enables the Canadian oil sands to expand faster than they otherwise would and, in turn, whether more oil ends up flowing to global oil markets, and being consumed, than otherwise would.

Investment in infrastructure to transport fossil fuels can especially affect markets where there are bottlenecks or supply constraints. For example, absent expanded coal terminals along the North American west coast, vast coal deposits in Wyoming could be largely landlocked and shut off from global markets. Or in this case, without a reliable way to reach global markets, production of crude oil from the oil sands deep in Canada would be limited.

Obama’s remarks at George Washington University in December suggest he’s thinking about this too:

“This is Canadian oil passing through the United States to be sold on the world market…We’ve got to measure [the pipeline’s benefit] against whether or not it’s going to contribute to an overall warming of the planet.”

The debate over whether Keystone may enable expanded oil sands expansion has been brought into an even sharper light by the drop in oil prices in recent months. It’s a development that, on balance, would seem to increase the likelihood that KXL will increase and hasten oil sands flows, since building KXL would lock in a low-cost route to market that may not be otherwise available. Even the US State Department acknowledged that at lower prices (between $65 and $75/barrel), KXL could expand oil sands production by as much as its full capacity. This cost range may have since shifted due to other economic factors (e.g., exchange rates), yet it is the long-term price expectations that matter most.

Indirect effects

We found that to the extent KXL does increase oil sands production, global oil consumption would increase 0.1 to 0.8 barrels for every barrel increase in oil sands production. If access to the pipeline enables production to increase by KXL’s full capacity, global emissions of heat-trapping gases could increase by 40 to 140 million tons CO2e annually, significantly greater than the State Department’s upper-end estimate (27 million tons CO2e).

To date, this kind of global market analysis has rarely been conducted for large infrastructure investments. However, that could soon change.

Draft guidance from the White House Council on Environmental Quality in late 2014, for example, makes it clear that greenhouse gas analysis of federal actions should include “downstream” emissions associated with combustion of new fossil fuel supplies enabled by the action,” and that it is not acceptable to take a “fatalist” approach that assumes the same amount will be consumed no matter what the government does.

Such a change could help to bridge the gap between our national climate policy that has focused on using less fossil fuels and on our energy supply policy that has focused on producing more.

Peter Erickson, Senior Scientist, Stockholm Environment Institute and Michael Lazarus, Senior Scientist, Stockholm Environment Institute

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

“Keystone XL pipeline opponents are being interrogated by the FBI who are using what one lawyer called “intimidation” and “force,” according to recent reports. This comes after President Barack Obama vetoed legislation that would have authorized the building of the pipeline last week. Accounts suggest that the FBI had been inquiring about activists’ actions and colleagues until earlier this year, raising questions about the FBI’s interest in civil disobedience cases and whether the agency is overstepping its bounds. We take a look at the controversy, in this Lip News clip with Gabriel Mizrahi and Jo Ankier.”

TheLipTV: “Keystone XL Opponents Interrogated by FBI”

As promised, US President Barack Obama has vetoed a bill from Congress which will halt construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

Defying the wishes of the Republican-led House and Senate, the president on Tuesday rejected the years-in-the-making would-be legislation that sought to pave the way for a 1,179-mile pipeline to carry crude tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

Congress authorized the bill more than a week ago, and in recent days it was handed off to the White House.

“The president does intend to veto this pace of legislation, and we intend to do it without drama or fanfare or delay,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said at a scheduled media briefing early Tuesday afternoon in Washington, DC. It was confirmed later in the day that the president had, in fact, vetoed the bill.

Ahead of the president’s expected decision, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – top-ranking Republicans representing Ohio and Kentucky, respectively – published an op-ed condemning Obama’s intentions.

“The allure of appeasing environmental extremists may be too powerful for the president to ignore. But the president is sadly mistaken if he thinks vetoing this bill will end this fight,” they wrote. “Far from it. We are just getting started.”

The National Journal noted that the president’s action signifies only the third time that the Obama administration has issued a veto. According to reporter Clare Foran, the move may “usher in a new era of hostile confrontation between the president and the Republican Congress.” President Obama previously vetoed bills in 2009 and 2010.

Indeed, the predominately right-leaning House and Senate may try to override the president’s veto, but doing so would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers to accomplish as much — a feat which, according to the Associated Press, is uncertain at the time being. AP reported on Tuesday that Sen. John Hoeven (R-North Dakota), the bill’s top GOP sponsor, said the Republican Phttp://rt.com/usa/235227-obama-veto-pipeline-bill/arty is still about 15 votes short of obtaining a majority. According to Fox News, the House and Senate will need 281 and 67 votes to override the president’s veto — not a far cry from the 270 and 62 votes that lawmakers in those chambers cast when they approved the Keystone pipeline before sending it to the White House.

Via RT

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Related video added by Juan Cole:

What President Obama’s veto means for Keystone’s future