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Carbon trading. Oh, yawn. Too weird and complicated. MEGO. Leave me alone. But wait a minute: A new website, Carbon Watch, could change your mind about keeping up with cap and trade. It's a joint project of the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting and PBS's "Frontline," and aims to put the central battle on global warming in terms that engage all of us.

Why is it that media reports on oil company profits only compare them to the previous quarter and the previous year? This week's third-quarter profit reports for Exxon, Shell, Chevron and friends showed profits down by half or more from last year's pigs-at-the-trough delirium. Less than $5 billion for Exxon! Less than $4 billion for Chevron! They sound like the jobless should be giving part of their unemployment check to poor little Exxon. Let's get a grip on how much we don't want these profits to "recover" to what they were a year ago.

It's hard to even keep track of the sex scandals--was that a governor or a senator? Which state? But one of the best of last year was in the even more boring Interior Department--the sex, cocaine and corruption-fest at the federal oil Royalty-In-Kind program. An investigation found that employees ran wild with the oil guys they're supposed to oversee. (Guess they did see them all over.) It won't happen again, though,...

Maybe it's just my cynical nature, but Chevron's "smoking gun" video alleging corruption in Ecuador has its fishy points. Chevron has gotten some media on a charge that the video shows the judge in a big civil case against Chevron may or may not be implicated in an attempted bribe, but even the Wall Street Journal story was restrained to the point of doubt. My first question: Why did the contractors who provided the video risk wearing a camera, when exposure would have queered a genuine bribery plot then and there?

California has a forward-looking climate policy, but everything depends on how it's implemented. And buying the face time band private access needed to make things better for industry just gets easier: the state Chamber of Commerce is actually selling access to Gov. Schwarzenegger's much-touted governors' climate summit Sept. 30. Here's the gist of it...

Oil Price Spike, As Exxon And Others' Profit Skids, Shows Potential For New Economy-Killing Energy Roller Coaster, Says Consumer Watchdog. Profit reports offer more proof that oil prices are disconnected from actual petroleum.

Chevron keeps throwing money against the lawsuit by Ecuadoran peasants whose land and water were spoiled by oil drilling's toxic leftovers. But the U.S. oil giant lost again in a Supreme Court ruling yesterday refusing to force Ecuador's national oil company to join the suit and share the liability. The ultimate bill to Chevron shareholders may be as much as $27 billion, which makes me wonder why the company's stock rose yesterday.

Chevron's evasions about its "upgrade" of a Northern California refinery to process dirtier, heavier oil got in well-deserved trouble with a state judge recently, thanks to unrelenting pressure from people who live near its already-dirty Richmond refinery (see poster below). Areas with less-organized citizens--including rural Mississippi and northern South Dakota--risk being mowed down by the oil industry's shift to tar-like heavy oil, for instance from Canadian tar sands.

The best use of biofuels like ethanol is not in the tank, but in making electricity to fuel all-electric cars, says a new study in Science magazine (free abstract, subscription pdf). I expect that's right from a pure science view, but let's start by using biofuels directly in hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles--what OilWatchdog suggests in its "Road to Cleaner and Cheaper" report. 

Chevron is spending a little now to save a lot later. California children, state parks and the disabled can pick up the tab instead. The oil giant just threw another $250,000 in donations to Gov. Schwarzenegger, reports the LA Times. Given the timing of the contribution, after the Gov's failed election package, Chevron's aim has to be protection from an oil production tax, something every other oil-drilling state collects.