Peak Oil is You

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Page added on July 11, 2021

The beginning of the end for Big Oil

After a pandemic and a price war sent petroleum prices tumbling in 2020, they are again on the rise. A new oil price super cycle — an extended period during which prices exceed their long-term trend — seems to be in the making.

That’s being driven by pervasive supply shortages from the lack of investment that has continued since the 2014 collapse in oil prices and, more recently, reduced investment in shale oil production. In addition, demand growth has been triggered by a strong recovery in countries such as China, a big stimulus package in the United States and global optimism about vaccines.

Nevertheless, this could be the last super cycle for oil because major economies appear committed to replacing fossil fuels, and car manufacturers have responded by committing to replacing internal combustion engine vehicles with electric vehicles. This shift will transform the oil market into one consistent with climate goals. But it also poses a risk of disorderly adjustment for economies dependent on oil, with far-reaching effects that in some cases could spill over their borders.

Oil investment crunch

Even with relatively lower oil prices, extraction and exploration companies have been highly profitable. At the same time, perhaps in recognition of a less buoyant future, they have reduced their investment. Production in oil fields and the number of wells are declining, and reserve depletion is rapid. The drop in both capital expenditure and replacement of oil reserves has persisted since 2014.

Covid has exacerbated the investment decline. For example, shale oil output — which has a shorter production cycle and therefore is more sensitive to changes in investment — is now increasing by half a million barrels a year, compared with 2 million barrels a year before the onset of the pandemic.

While the Biden administration’s announced ban on drilling on federal land in the United States will have little direct impact on shale production, it signals a shift in federal government sentiment against the oil industry. Shale producers have adopted a noticeably more cautious investment posture.

This reduced investment will lessen the role of shale as swing production and plants the seeds of a price super cycle.

The debate over peak demand

Several commentators and major oil market players, including BP and Shell, argue that global demand for oil peaked in 2019 at about 100 million barrels a day and that it will never again reach that level because of pandemic-related structural changes. That view seems supported by the sharp reduction in oil consumption for transportation, including jet fuel. After travelers started cancelling flying plans in March 2020, jet fuel consumption collapsed and has only began to creep up as travel restrictions start to ease.

With vaccine developments and optimism from a proximate reopening of the global economy, it is expected that oil consumption will continue to recover, but to a level lower than what prevailed before the pandemic — effectively the peak of oil consumption.

Yet proponents of the view that oil demand has peaked overlook the structural increase in consumption that will eventually offset any downward shift from Covid. Rising living standards and a growing middle class in China and India will lead to increased demand for individual cars and air travel. So even if economic growth slows, the large numbers of people crossing the income threshold that enables them to afford a car will support demand for travel. In emerging markets such as China and India, any shift toward electric vehicles will likely be slower than in advanced economies given concerns over the availability of charging stations. The rate of adoption of electric vehicles will, by and large, be the major driver of future oil demand because road fuel accounts for half of global oil demand.

The increase in oil demand, together with a persistent reduction in production from insufficient investment, will likely precipitate — and keep alive for some time — an oil price super cycle.

But will an increase in oil prices prompt more investment and lead to another price bust as has happened in the past?

Technology and its consequences

Technological innovation may make things different this time. Large investments will likely be discouraged by the new technology at the heart of carmaker plans to replace internal combustion engine vehicles with those that run on electricity.

A frenetic ramping up of production of electric vehicles is not without risk, however. It could cause supply to exceed demand — which would lead to negative cash flows, illiquidity and bankruptcies of car manufacturers. The automakers’ bet is driven both by the commitment of governments to achieving zero net carbon emissions and by the belief that consumers will want to adopt cleaner modes of consumption — transportation accounts for about a quarter of global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions.

Mass manufacturing will also eventually make the price of electric cars attractive, and a spike in oil prices would hasten the conversion. This last oil price super cycle will be consistent with climate goals and associated with commitments by large economies to net zero carbon emissions in the medium term.

However felicitous that will be for the global climate, however, it poses a risk that the oil reserves so many oil-dependent economies count on will be less valuable — especially for reserves where extraction costs are high. The reserves and the investment surrounding them become, in effect, stranded assets.

That could lead to severe economic woes, including bankruptcies and crises, in turn leading to mass migrations, especially from populous oil-dependent economies, many of them in Africa. Other larger oil dependent economies in the Middle East, central Asia and Latin America are also an important source of remittances, employment and external demand for goods and services that benefit many neighboring countries. The end of oil, then, could not only devastate oil-dependent economies but could also overwhelm their neighbors.

Oil-rich countries must diversify to become resilient to the changes in energy markets. An appropriate governance framework to manage proceeds from oil in good and bad times has always been important to fostering economic diversification. But with stranded assets a new risk, radical shifts in governance in oil-dependent economies are urgent.

Dubai, for example, facing the depletion of its oil reserves, transformed itself into a global trade hub. Countries and businesses reliant on these markets must formulate policies to address this transformation, including the development of renewable energy. To jettison their hidebound economies, which have led to low productivity and waste, oil-rich economies should commit to reforms that lessen obstacles to innovation and entrepreneurship. Reforming corporate governance and legal systems, promoting markets that have no barriers to entry and exit, and ending favoritism for both state-owned enterprises and politically connected private firms will help attract investment and change attitudes toward innovation.

KEYT

35 Comments on "The beginning of the end for Big Oil"

makati1 on Sun, 11th Jul 2021 5:32 pm

Ho Hum…The “END” began when the first gusher was seen in PA. There is nothing new for the oily writers to write about so they make things up to keep the gullible rats on board the sinking ship Capitalism. They keep playing the same tune.”The End is Coming! The End is Coming!” LMAO!

Ted Wilson on Sun, 11th Jul 2021 6:36 pm

Renewable energy excluding hydro increased by 12% in 2020 over 2019 while oil consumption was down 9%.
Pandemic did cause the damage for oil, coal and gas and this year should be much better.
Still renewable energy will grow further and continue to capture higher shares.

Ted Wilson on Sun, 11th Jul 2021 6:43 pm

Renewable energy excluding hydro increased 12% while oil decreased 9%. This year, oil will increase, still renewable will increase even more and capture higher share.

makati1 on Sun, 11th Jul 2021 6:44 pm

This one is for Cloggie…

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/still-more-green-hypocrisy-eu-time-hydrogen

Is it something in the EU water? after all, it is the home of Gretta “Big Mouth”…LOL

Triune on Mon, 12th Jul 2021 2:00 am

I don’t think there’s an end to the BIG OIL industry any soon.

https://triuneme.com/

Cloggie on Mon, 12th Jul 2021 3:07 am

Ah, makati has found a headline he likes, probably without reading the article, let alone understanding it:

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/still-more-green-hypocrisy-eu-time-hydrogen

The article is written by a Mish Shedlock, a US financial blogger and gold bug.

First, he is sloppy in his research:

“The plant will be built by Shell and ITM power and will be able to produce about 1,300 tonnes of hydrogen per year”

No, it HAS been realized already, and it DOES already produce:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2021/07/03/shell-completes-10-mw-hydrogen-in-germany/

Then he pretends to have found a make-or-break condition:

“Yet the pilot project depended on financing by the FCH JU at a 50% rate, meaning that the business case for a project ten times larger without public funding would be questionable at best.”

In Europe there is so much money available for renewable energy projects, that if the European Fuel Cell organization won’t cough up the money, somebody else will. And besides, it is way too early to worry too much about profitability (the only category greedy Americans like this Mish-fellow will ever be interested in, the environment be damned). It takes many years to bring a new technology to fruition. But Americans never look further than 3 months ahead. All over the world, but mostly in Europe and Japan and to a lesser extent in China, they are working on green hydrogen as the most plausible energy carrier and storage of the future. In America, they merely gloat.

“According to the article, the new plant will produce around 1300 tonnes of green hydrogen annually, provided sufficient amounts of renewable energy are available.”

More gloating. The plant is situated near Cologne, an industrial place with little room for wind turbines or solar panels. It’s not the ideal place indeed for green hydrogen. That’s why most hydrogen activities will take place near the coast, most of all in the north of the Netherlands…

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/?s=north2

…a country that ordered its #1 gas company Gasunie to retrofit the existing natural gas grid and make it fit for hydrogen. That’s a multi-billion decision. The Dutch government won’t have taken this decision lightly.

“We think it is plausible that the EU’s hydrogen development will wind up being dependent on Russian gas.”

We don’t give a f* what Americans like this Mish thinks. Green hydrogen will come from multi-GW offshore wind farms in the North Sea, that are currently under construction. This Shell project is a pilot, it works and it is built in Cologne because they have a direkt application for the hydrogen and now, as a next step they will expand it with a factor of 10. And money will absolutely NOT be problem… because the entire hydrogen enterprise has the backing of the EU.

In America, absolutely nothing is happening on the essential hydrogen front. They just want to sit on their asses and gloat that it is not going to work. Americans have long stopped being relevant.

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2021/07/11/germany-finally-falling-for-its-own-products/

Duncan Idaho on Mon, 12th Jul 2021 9:53 am

Our repug friends are good at reasoning:

https://i2.wp.com/digbysblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/gopdoesnotpratcicepreachnordoreligiousevangelicas.jpg?resize=768%2C765&ssl=1

And when you use a finite resource, it disappears.

makati1 on Mon, 12th Jul 2021 5:35 pm

Cloggie, Reality is a bitch and she is going to kick your ass someday. Wait and see.

Your dream world has a lot of other dreamer$ writing $hit for $$$. Real, factual articles outnumber your “Green Tech” propaganda articles by at least 1,000 to 1. You just ignore them as you ignore reality, but she will hit you with that proverbial 2X4 soon. Wait for it! LOL

Duncan Idaho on Mon, 12th Jul 2021 8:50 pm

Trump supporters think they’re players — but they’re still just pawns

(The best grift works by convincing the mark that they’re part of the con)

https://www.salon.com/2021/07/12/trump-supporters-think-theyre-players–but-theyre-still-just-pawns/

Being stupid doesn’t help either

Cloggie on Tue, 13th Jul 2021 4:15 am

Bye-bye Big Oil:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2021/07/13/50-gw-green-hydrogen-plan-for-west-australia-by-2030/

“50 GW Green Hydrogen Plan for West-Australia by 2030”

Cloggie on Tue, 13th Jul 2021 4:39 am

“Innolith Doubles Energy Density Li-Ion Batteries”

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2021/07/13/innolith-doubles-energy-density-li-ion-batteries/

A Swiss startup has developed a new lithium-ion technology that doubles the specific energy density, as well as solves the flammability issue. E-vehicle ranges of 1000 km are now possible.

Americans like makati are technologically irrelevant. Nothing comes from Nigeria, nothing comes from America. What else is new?

all im sayin is elite whitey supertard solzhenitsyn is wrong there are no moderate on Tue, 13th Jul 2021 5:59 am

elite whitey (((supertards)))

200 years together

please feel at ease among friends, we’re all lovers of supremacist muzzies here

Duncan Idaho on Tue, 13th Jul 2021 1:20 pm

And The Horse You Rode In On: The Final Glad Surrender of Charlottesville’s Confederate Losers

https://www.commondreams.org/further/2021/07/11/and-horse-you-rode-final-glad-surrender-charlottesvilles-confederate-losers

Will our friends from the South ever stop worshiping losers? I know often being fat and stupid doesn’t help.

Duncan Idaho on Tue, 13th Jul 2021 1:43 pm

New York’s legal hammer is descending on the Trump crime family.

The question is, what will the Fat Boy do?

Theedrich on Wed, 14th Jul 2021 1:32 am

The Democrat Party is a concoction from hell. It is composed of thieves, parasites, liars, sadists, criminals and various psychopaths of every sort whose only aim is to destroy. It draws its power from the increasing insanity of the American White snowflake and his narcotics-addled brain, steered by the yidbox. The universities are governed by deranged idiots savants with their woke fanaticism.

Collapse is the only future for this vampire empire. No “patriotism,” no “return to normal,” no Republican or other election victory will any longer save a system so thoroughly rotten. The masses themselves are crazed beyond repair. And their leaders have nuclear weapons ready to exterminate all higher civilization in order to impose their version of paradise on the earth.

Note that, despite all of the weeping and wailing about the poverty, backwardness, criminality, etc., of the “Global South,” and the “legacy of White colonialism” (i.e., you and only you are guilty, Whitey), there is absolutely no mention whatsoever of the average intelligence level of the different races. Because even to harbor thoughts about such an un-woke suspicion would be to brand one as “racist.” Meanwhile the countries with high average IQs (e.g., Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and Mongoloid nations generally) and undominated by the insanity of Communism and/or engrained corruption, have done quite well. Because of the intensifying Western psychosis of compulsive egalitarianism, however, which piggybacks on Christian mythology, American pseudo-democracy and its puppet nations have, like teenage girls with bulimia, put themselves on a compulsory, immutable suicide course. Driven by this obsessive psychosis, self-delusion and rage against all sane people have become the order of the day. The descent into hell is greatly exaggerated by the global narcotics pandemic spread by multiple international criminal syndicates who pay off left-leaning politicians in the U.S. and its vassals while poisoning the entire world. Exhibit “A” is U.S. President Joe Biden and his sewage son, Hunter, the crackhead funnel for bribes into the head of Yankeeland.

May the disintegration be soon and severe, starting with the wokesters.

Biden's hairplug on Wed, 14th Jul 2021 4:27 am

“Moving on: why the EU is not missing Britain that much”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/23/moving-on-why-the-eu-is-not-missing-britain-that-much

The big senior-junior swap Anglos-Euros is immanent.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E6ByulHX0AEEVWi?format=jpg&name=medium

There is a future for white people after all.

makati1 on Wed, 14th Jul 2021 4:37 am

White folks will make good dumbed-down slaves on the Islamic plantations. That is, those who survive the GMO JAB! Seems that the “1st world” is going to suffer the most “side effects” while the rest of the world is waiting and watching. Sometimes, it is better to NOT be the first in line. LOL

Cloggie on Wed, 14th Jul 2021 5:41 am

More beginning of the end for Big Oil:

https://www.wattisduurzaam.nl/34535/energie-besparen/transport/voorwaardelijke-order-voor-200-elektrische-19-persoonsvliegtuigen/

US carriers United Airlines and Mesa Airlines have each ordered 100 battery-electric aircraft from Swedish startup Heart Aerospace. The first aircraft could be operational as early as 2026.

Yabut…

Dredd on Wed, 14th Jul 2021 6:47 am

“The beginning of the end for Big Oil”

Or else (Quantum Oceanography – 7).

Cloggie on Wed, 14th Jul 2021 9:02 am

Even more beginning of the end for Big Oil:

EU present new climate package with increased ambitions:

https://www.politico.eu/article/brussels-drops-landmark-climate-package-to-hit-emissions-goals/

“Brussels unveils landmark climate package to hit emissions goals”

The European Commission Wednesday proposed a mammoth package of new laws to set the EU on course to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by 2030 and reach climate neutrality by 2050.

Duncan Idaho on Wed, 14th Jul 2021 9:34 am

“A former Chicago bank executive was convicted on Tuesday of financial crimes related to his facilitation of millions of dollars in high-risk loans to Paul Manafort, all in an effort to obtain a coveted position in the Trump administration.

A jury in New York unanimously found the banker, Stephen M. Calk, 54, guilty of one count each of financial institution bribery and conspiracy to commit financial institution bribery.”

If he donates a few more bucks, the Fat Boy will do what he can.

Biden's hairplug on Wed, 14th Jul 2021 10:59 am

“White folks will make good dumbed-down slaves on the Islamic plantations.”

Anti-white gloating by makati. You have been lying about your identity for years, you are at least half-Asian. Nothing wrong with that, but there is something very wrong with lying about it. One two-legged false flag operation.

FamousDrScanlon on Wed, 14th Jul 2021 11:51 am

clog, what’s happening in Holland? Have you been pissing in the fields again?

Organic spud is rotting in the mud because of ‘plant-destroyer’

“Phytophthora, from the Greek for ‘the plant-destroyer’, is a type of mold which does particularly well in the warm and humid conditions which have been prevalent this summer. It spreads very rapidly and farmers who spot the condition must burn the affected plants. Farmer Annewillem Maris from Dinteloord in Noord Brabant, who stands to lose some 30,000 kilos of potatoes, said the disease would be eradicated in a few years’ time when new, resistant varieties come in. ‘But for now I will lose a huge amount of money,’ he told broadcaster NOS.”

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/07/organic-spud-is-rotting-in-the-mud-because-of-plant-destroyer/

Has your garden effected by the warm & humid conditions this year?

Cloggie on Wed, 14th Jul 2021 12:15 pm

“Has your garden effected by the warm & humid conditions this year?”

Summary about my garden:

May was a lost month, with every night near freezing point. My first batch of beans could be written off.

The positive points:

– potatoes are always good and easy (even if it is against my keto policy).
– beets were for the first time seeded in the greenhouse and are doing fine now; expect loads of borscht
– tomatoes, always easy and abundant.
– kale, same story
– cabbages have been eaten by birds, without me noticing it in time
– red cabbage is doing fine, because I protected them with cover
– cucumber, easy, have eaten several of those
– strawberries, easy, have had several plates with cream
– hundreds onions are doing great, because I gave them a head start in the greenhouse in small pots
– second batch of beans are doing well
– melons are a failure, too wet, not enough sun

My strategy is to make soup of everything, will probably produce 200 units, another record, sufficient for half a year, since I only eat once a day, not to endanger my BMI-22. Will need to buy 2nd freezer.

The summer so far has been rather (too) wet, which is good for the long term, the drought of the past few years has been solved in the Netherlands:

https://www.parool.nl/nederland/na-jaren-droogte-heeft-nederland-weer-genoeg-grondwater~b908bd89/

Temperatures are moderate. On average, room temperature (21 C), no really hot days so far, nothing over 28 C, but sufficient beautiful days.

After this season I will buy 2 large water containers, like these:

https://www.huchem.nl/gedemineraliseerd-water-demi-water.html

…and connect them to the downspout. My water company was already inquiring (complaining) about my sudden increase of water consumption.

makati1 on Wed, 14th Jul 2021 4:38 pm

Actually Biden’, I am a 10th generation German. my parents are of German and Scotch-Irish decent. There may be some Asian in there somewhere, but more likely a bit of African blood. Most Amerikans have some African blood. Slaves, you know. Ditto for Europeans also.

I have a family tree that traces my ancestry back to the first to come to Amerika in 1734. No names even remotely Asian or African. Male or female. I just have an open mind, recognizing that every race has its bad apples. Caucasians have been putting down everyone else for centuries. The tide has changed. Adjust! LOL

Biden's hairplug on Thu, 15th Jul 2021 4:26 am

Yeah, I know that story. You don’t have an open mind… you gloat about the (seemingly) unstoppable demise of your own kind: “LOL”

You make it sound as if you can distance yourself from your own skin.

Well, you can’t. You will find that out the hard way if the US and China become embroiled in a fight about the Philippines and the Chinese win.

Say hello to the Uighurs from me.

“LOL”

Duncan Idaho on Thu, 15th Jul 2021 11:06 am

“The report – “No 32-04 \ vd” – is classified as secret. It says Trump is the “most promising candidate” from the Kremlin’s point of view. The word in Russian is perspektivny.

There is a brief psychological assessment of Trump, who is described as an “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex”.

The Russians seem to have good intelligence–

makati1 on Thu, 15th Jul 2021 4:43 pm

Biden’s, Amerika deserves what is happening and coming. They have plundered the world for centuries. Payback is a bitch and she is taking revenge. Ditto for Europe. So be it!

I “distanced” myself from greedy, insane Amerika 13 years ago and it was the best decision of my 77 years. No regrets.

Your fear mongering does not work because I see and live in the real world, not the MSM Sinophobic/Russophobic propaganda fantasy world from the West. Amerika is the terrorist country, not China (or Russia).

If there is a war, (which I doubt) it will be global, not just in Asia. The Philippines is under the Chinese umbrella and the US will be kept away. The people here remember when The Ps was used by The US in WW2 and over 1,000,000 Filipinos were killed and Manila destroyed by Americans. Better you worry than me. The next war will be the last one.

rockman on Wed, 21st Jul 2021 5:27 pm

“End of Big Oil”? Obviously not looking at at the last 50 or so years of oil patch history. Occassionally short spurts of Little Oil but always crumble to some degree when prices fall. As time marches on Big Oil will continue to grow. Not all of the Biggies of course. Total oil production will decline but as that happens some of the Biggies will gobble up the Little Oils when prices are low as well as some of the smaller Biggies who see more profitas the in liquidating then staying in the game. I would guess Exxon and Chevron as the 2 USA Biggies that will last the longest. And at times be more profitable then ever before in their history. Profit won’t be based upon how much oil the world is producing but upon what % of that production a company controls.

FamousDrScanlon on Wed, 21st Jul 2021 11:14 pm

clog’s serving Horse-Shit soup daily at the Techno-Dreams cafe.

The Smoke and Mirrors of Electric Vehicles

Elon Musk and the Chinese Communist Party play the same EV game.

“Environmentalists anticipate a future where more responsible behavior of individuals, corporations, and governments, pulls us back from the brink of climate catastrophe. Yet, environmentalism is often as much about feelings as about reality.”

“…when one digs beneath the surface, it crumbles. Like other climate-related behaviors, this makes people feel better despite worsening carbon emissions. The underlying psychology is comparable to religious rituals.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/202104/the-smoke-and-mirrors-electric-vehicles

Other people’s ‘feelings’ is the easiest instrument to learn to play & can pay better than most rock stars.

Feelings, nothing more than feelings,
The chimp social brain is built for feelings
Feelings, wo-o-o feelings,

https://youtu.be/RrkVyXFsx6Y

Cloggie on Thu, 22nd Jul 2021 2:29 am

An e-vehicle with a battery, charged with electricity from solar and wind, has no emissions.

Got that?

(apneaman is not an engineer, but a leftist activist, who can’t tell a kWh from a Volt)

North-America is full of those:

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/07/thomas-dilorenzo/the-new-segregationists-of-the-left/

On a positive note, the North-American problem the world has, is solving itself, thanks to these activists, as they are turning their country into a territory where nothing works, a mirror image of the USSR. The US is not evolving, it is regressing.

FamousDrScanlon on Thu, 22nd Jul 2021 3:02 pm

a leftist activist? What left politics are you imagining I’m advocating for?

How about none you paranoid dumb fuck, since I don’t advocate for anything.

Right wing-nuts have always been paranoid by default, but in these times it’s a whole new level & it’s not just them.

We’re past the point now where if you are not actively waving their team flag, you’re an activist for the other tribe.

The world is viewed as either black or white for political radicals like clog – with us or against us. Y’all look & sound the same to me. I’ve been called a big oil shill & right wing activist & such by untold numbers of self styled progressives on various blogs & social media.

Y’all are boring & unoriginal clog. You have your box of prefabricated beliefs & your mission is to try & convert others to carry around an identical box. Team left has their box of prefabricated beliefs & the exact same mission.

It doesn’t really matter what narrative is in the boxes as long as it’s contrary to the other boxes. Being contrary to the other tribe is what gives you your identity. Reverse identity. Whatever is in the others box is immoral & bad by default & you are NOT that & DON’T believe those bad things. You are the opposite – good. As long as there are other tribes with different beliefs the paranoia will continue. What if your child looked in the other’s box & preferred it?

If any tribe eradicated all the others, within 7 minuets they would find some minor differences between themselves & their brothers in the next town or region over & proclaim it as ungodly or immoral & cause for a preemptive strike. It’s the same shit over, again, once more. Not being the bad guys gives you meaning & purpose & soothes that fragile human ego & insecurity & ever present death terror.

Talking chimps acting out your biological programming.

From Love to Voting: Who Really Decides, You or Your Brain?

You might think you’re in control, but 95% of decisions get made by your unconscious mind! Here a few examples that might shock you.

“According to Eagleman, 95 per cent of our decisions are made by our unconscious mind throwing fundamental beliefs about free will out the window. In fact, new research from the Max Planck Institute in Germany shows that even when we think we’ve made a conscious decision, our brain has already made up its mind up to seven seconds before — a lifetime in terms of brain activity.”

https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/my-brain-made-me-do-it-who-decides

—

This neuroscientist says your sense of free will is an illusion

The acclaimed author and neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky explains the deep biological roots of human behaviour, from racism to religion to romance

“It’s complicated because there’s a very strong tendency to want to come up with attributions that involve harsh judgments for behaviour instead of remembering that we are all subject to biological forces we have very little control over. So, yeah: complicated.”

“Some primates are monogamous, some are promiscuous, then there’s us. We hate violence, except when we like it. We go down the middle.

We’re right down the middle in so many different ways. That’s what allows us to live in so many different ecosystems, to have so many different mating systems and so many different cultures. It’s all very charming, all that diversity stuff, but it also means we’re a terribly confused species.

We’re also very attuned to Us versus Them. That comes natural to us?

It does, and the thing that really gets me with it is that it’s simultaneously the most damned discouraging fact about us as a species while nonetheless containing enormous grounds for optimism. We are so hardwired to dichotomize into Us and Them and to automatically decide Us is better in all sorts of irrational ways and to decide we really don’t like the Them a whole lot. The strength of the dichotomizing can be seen in how quickly and unconsciously the brain processes group differences (a few hundred milliseconds to distinguish by race), how soon it emerges in young children—who by three or four years group people by race and gender and perceive other-race faces as angrier—and our tendency to group by arbitrary markers like dress, markers that are imbued with power. So, it’s inevitable—except it’s so easy to manipulate people as to who counts as Us or Them. We just change those categories within seconds. It is easy to get us to switch categories as to who is subject to all that xenophobia.

We can expand our Us to quite a large group, yes, but do you think we still need to have someone on the outside? If it’s all of humanity, then do we require aliens, somebody to contrast?”

https://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/this-neuroscientist-says-your-sense-of-free-will-is-an-illusion/

FamousDrScanlon on Thu, 22nd Jul 2021 3:56 pm

Here’s some more dirt on Rockman & his criminal co conspirators.

Are we being kept safe from ‘forever chemicals’ injected into fracking sites?

Not willing to rest their laurels on the theft of the future, the fossil fuel industry is now salting the earth with forever chemicals.

“In a bombshell exposé from Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and the New York Times last week it was revealed that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) were readily used at fracking sites across the US.

PFAS never break down, a disconcerting fact that has led many to call them “forever chemicals”. Such durability comes with surprising mobility as these chemicals have proven preternaturally gifted at gliding through geological and geographic borders with ease. Oh, and they are toxic.

None of these worrisome properties proved sufficient to dissuade the fossil fuel industry from injecting PFAS into at least 1,200 fracking wells in the United States, including in states where wastewater from oil and gas operations is routinely sprayed on roads and farms.

This revelation comes days after Unearthed released a video of fossil fuel executives bragging about just how easy it has been to sabotage legislation aimed at addressing climate change and petrochemical pollution, including PFAS.”

https://www.fasterthanexpected.com/2021/07/21/are-we-being-kept-safe-from-forever-chemicals-injected-into-fracking-sites/

Yabut it was sooooooo worth it because in addition to the money, Rockman & his buddies got to be American energy Princes for a decade. Swinging dicks strutting around (rolling around for Rockman) the Houston energy scene getting status dopamine squirts galore. Hell they were even considered American energy independence heroes to millions of dupes for over a decade. Most importantly, Rockman got to hold court here at peakoil.com & strut & strut his stuff (status dopamine squirts). As for all the folks whose towns, farms, kids etc got poisoned – that ain’t Rockman & his criminal co conspirators fault. It’s the ‘consumers’ fault. Those folks who got poisoned is collateral damage to consumer demand.

New Report: Fracking with “Forever Chemicals”

“Fracking with “Forever Chemicals,” a report presenting previously unpublicized evidence that major oil and gas companies, including ExxonMobil and Chevron, have used per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), or substances that could degrade into PFAS, in hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) for oil and gas in more than 1,200 wells in six U.S. states.

Toxic in minuscule concentrations, these man-made chemicals accumulate inside the human body and do not break down in the environment – hence their nickname, “forever chemicals.” Various PFAS have been linked by the U.S. EPA to low infant birth weights, effects on the immune system, cancer, and hormone disruption.”

https://www.psr.org/blog/new-report-fracking-with-forever-chemicals/

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The beginning of the end for Big Oil

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