3 Months Of Hell: U.S. Economy Drops 32.9% In Worst GDP Report Ever

The coronavirus pandemic triggered the sharpest economic contraction in modern American history, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. Gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic activity — shrank at an annual rate of 32.9% in the second quarter as restaurants and retailers closed their doors in a desperate effort to slow the spread of […]

Fears devastating fungus could starve world’s population to death in global famine

A little-known yet devastating fungus could starve the world’s population to death if it spreads far enough, scientists fear. Stem rust, caused by the Puccinia graminis fungus, is considered a serious disease that affects cereal crops such as bread wheat, durum wheat and barley. It has been blamed for crop failures and devastating famine in […]

Fewer people, or less consumption?

It’s one of the great ironies of 2020 that in a year spent trying to save so many people, we’ve come to the conclusion we have too many on the planet. That was the gist of a large number of emails (our inbox was certainly overpopulated) that Upside readers sent in on the subject of […]

The Fed’s Oil and Gas Bailout Is a Mistake

The coronavirus pandemic and the necessary public health response have significantly decreased U.S. economic activity, placing a severe financial strain on businesses and households. More than 30 million people were receiving unemployment assistance at the end of June, and gross domestic product (GDP) may have declined by more than 30 percent in the second quarter […]

OPEC+ Prepares to Pump More Oil

From quiet skies over Europe to sparse traffic in America’s biggest cities, a recovery in global oil demand is faltering amid the resurgence in coronavirus. That poses a particularly delicate challenge for the OPEC cartel and its partners, who next week plan to resume some of the crude output halted during the depths of the pandemic. While […]

The Arc Of Our Future

In last week’s open post, I noted that I didn’t have anything in particular planned for this fifth Wednesday of the month, and asked my readers what they wanted to hear about. Quite a few subjects got brought up for discussion—among others, the novels of Hermann Hesse, Carl Jung’s concept of synchronicity, and the metaphysics […]

Will AI Save Us From Ourselves?

Humanity and AI putting the pieces together. Copyright (C) Andrey Popov It is the year 2050. The world population is roughly two billion people, just 25% of what it was thirty years ago. Back in 2018, the United Nations had predicted that we were approaching the point of no return on climate change. Unfortunately, by […]

Energy Basics: What is Energy?

In response to listener demand, we are launching a new mini-series on the Energy Basics. If you have found yourself occasionally challenged to follow some of the more technical conversations we have here, or even if you just want to brush up on the fundamentals, this mini-series is for you! We hope these episodes will […]

Ocasio-Cortez Could Deal A Fatal Blow To US Oil Pipelines

The U.S. oil and gas pipelines industry has had a rough month, with court setbacks for two critical oil pipelines and a ditched plan for a new natural gas pipeline. And July isn’t over yet, for on the horizon looms yet another potential blow to existing and future oil and gas pipelines. That blow could […]

Banging the drum for gas

Gas and LNG have somewhat lost their ‘golden age’ lustre in the last six months. Record low prices and a global economic contraction that threatens rosy demand projections have dealt body blows to the industry. Speaking to Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) secretary-general Yury Sentyurin, Petroleum Economist found him in a realistic mood about the […]

Kunstler: The Insane Leading the Blind

The NFAC warriors on the march, led by Grand Master Jay. On our way to becoming a nation of hobos, the Democratic Party’s Antifa shock troops brought out the lethal weapons this weekend, hoping to provoke a Kent State 2.0 type bloodbath that would clinch the election for the mummified remains of Joe Biden, currently […]

Fighting Overpopulation: Ten methods to exterminate most of humankind

  First of all, a disclaimer: I am not advocating the extermination of anyone! This post is just an attempt of mine to place myself in the boots of the bad guys who could think of doing such a thing and examine how they could do it. Could these scenarios occur for real? I don’t […]

US GoM 2019 Summary: Part III – Production

Overall Annual Production US Gulf of Mexico C&C production has had a series of peaks; firstly two from shallow oil, the middle acceleration probably caused by the mid seventies oil shock; followed by deep oil development and finally by ultra deep oil, with a dip in the middle from the Deep Horizon drilling hiatus. Most […]

We Are On Our Own In The Post-COVID World

Even before the coronavirus pandemic hit, things weren’t all that great for the bottom 90% of households. The median household was barely scraping by with ultra-low financial reserves, meager retirement savings and high levels of debt. All while being relentlessly crushed by cost of living inflation running far higher than the blatantly fraudulent government statistics […]

The oil crisis shakes industry

As expected, the two largest oil services companies Schlumberger and Halliburton have announced figures that highlight the scale of the oil and gas crisis shaking the planet. Schlumberger is laying off 21,000 of its 85,000 employees in 120 countries. Halliburton has already separated 4,500 out of 55,000 employees. Falling oil prices and demand have forced […]

Narrative Is Crumbling

It’s difficult to understand what’s going on in the world. It’s difficult to understand what’s going on in the world because powerful people actively manipulate public understanding of what’s going on in the world. Powerful people actively manipulate public understanding of what’s going on in the world because if the public understood what’s going on […]

It’s All Downhill From Here: US Oil Production Peak Already in the Rear-view Mirror

It’s a shame that the drive for U.S  Energy Independence only lasted for about a year.  Even worse, U.S. Shale Oil Industry responsible for the country’s energy independence is now in serious trouble as the companies have cut drilling by 75% while they are drowning in debt up to the eyeballs.  This is a “No-Win” […]

Heinberg: Doom or denial: Is there another path?

I was recently asked to comment on a dustup between some members of Extinction Rebellion (see Thomas Nicholas, Galen Hall, and Colleen Schmidt, “The Faulty Science, Doomism, and Flawed Conclusions of Deep Adaptation”) and Jem Bendell, founder of Deep Adaptation (see his “Letter to Deep Adaptation Advocate Volunteers about Misrepresentations of the Agenda and Movement”). […]

Why The Unraveling Will Accelerate

Sclerotic, hidebound institutions optimized for linear stability and permanent growth are simply not designed to adapt to non-linear change and disruption of permanent growth. Since the first news of pandemic in late January, I’ve been discussing potential accelerants to the unraveling of our fragile financial system: second-order effects (initial travel restrictions and layoffs were first-order effects, new waves of layoffs […]

Frac is Back

U.S. fracking is set for its first monthly rise this year, according to a new Rystad Energy analysis. The independent energy research company outlined that new fracking operations in the country are on track to grow above 400 wells in July, after dropping to a bottom of 325 wells in June. The business said its […]

Why the death of oil has been much exaggerated

There was a certain inevitability that the coronavirus pandemic and its associated lockdowns would revive the claims that the oil era is all but over. There is no doubt that the coronavirus was, and indeed remains, a massive shock to the global economy. It has led to a rethink of almost everything we do — […]

Saudi king chairs cabinet meeting from hospital, in stable condition

Saudi King Salman held a cabinet meeting via video call from hospital in the capital Riyadh on Tuesday, a day after the 84-year-old monarch was admitted with what state media said was inflammation of the gall bladder. FILE PHOTO: Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz delivers a televised speech regarding the outbreak of the coronavirus disease […]

A Plague Is an Apocalypse. But It Can Bring a New World.

It’s strange that we now see America threatened by a plague. Because without plague, America, as we know it, wouldn’t exist. It may have been the most devastating epidemic in the history of humankind — surpassing in its mortality rates any before or since, including the Black Death in the Europe of the mid-14th century. […]

$40 Oil Isn’t Enough For Saudi Arabia

Despite the recommendation of the OPEC+ JMMC to ease the oil output cuts by 2 million bbl/d, oil markets maintained their bullish sentiment over the past week as Brent was trading above $43 while WTI was trading above $40. A surge in COVID-19 cases in several counties including the US, Spain, and Australia capped oil […]

The decline of the family-owned oil company

Since the first US oil well was drilled in 1859, countless families have made a name for themselves in the industry. There were many private, family-owned oil and gas firms across the US. America’s first billionaire, John D. Rockefeller, built his fortune from the founding of Standard Oil in 1870. This dynasty exists in various […]

The African continent is very slowly peeling apart

In one of the hottest places on Earth, along an arid stretch of East Africa’s Afar region, it’s possible to stand on the exact spot where, deep underground, the continent is splitting apart. This desolate expanse sits atop the juncture of three tectonic plates that are very slowly peeling away from each other, a complex […]

American Death Cult

Last October, the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security compiled a ranking system to assess the preparedness of 195 countries for the next global pandemic. Twenty-one panel experts across the globe graded each country in 34 categories composed of 140 subindices. At the top of the rankings, peering down at […]

Kansas; 1918

This is July 18, 1918 and Kansas Natural Gas Company is in the process of discovering the Elk City Field in Elk County, Kansas. The well name is the Simmons No. 2 and its cable tools had just banged out about 3 feel of Mississipian Limestone at 1,340 feet. When she came in she lauched […]

Kunstler: Is Thinking Cancelled?

Everything’s in play now. Consensual reality is on the run — the old certainties of US history and the receding promises of the future sink into a fiery sludge of the corona virus present. Things happen without apparent consequence. Authority is on the lam. Coercion stalks the land rooting out thought-crime. Fantasies and delusions rush […]

Has the coronavirus killed the oil sands industry?

The spectacular collapse in oil prices caused by the coronavirus pandemic has brought the costliest – and most polluting – oil projects such as tar sands to a standstill, a development some analysts say could be definitive. Even though oil prices have partly recovered from the April market crash, they have not returned to pre-crisis […]

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LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Is It Time To Abandon the Idea of Phasing Out Oil and Gas?
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