Tag Archive | "media critique"
Shale oil and water wars
11/24/08 by dugan Mark Twain never heard the phrase "shale oil," but he was dead on when he said of the West, "Whiskey’s for drinking, water’s for fighting. Whiskey-wise, I’d like a double sinker after hearing that the Bush administration is close to reopening shale-oil mining and extraction from public lands in the West, which [...]
Continue reading...Chevron’s relentless greenwash
Friday, November 21, 2008
11-21-08 by dugan We at OilWatchdog have been relentlessly critical of Chevron’s faux-green ad campaigns (here, here, here and here.) I’ve recently heard from reporters who are sniffing around the ubiquitous image ads–the fortune Chevron is spending on the ads is so obviously out of proportion to the size of the piddling green projects the [...]
Continue reading...OWD and “Black Gold” on CNBC
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
9-24-08 by dugan Yes, it’s hard to give up an episode of CSI, but take a look tonight at a CNBC investigative documentary, "Black Gold," airing at 9:30 Eastern (or whenever President Bush’s speech on the financial bailout ends.) The CNBC investigation, on the future and politics of oil, will certainly exceed the fun quotient [...]
Continue reading...Palin’s big fat oil tax
Thursday, September 4, 2008
9-4-08 by dugan In her first speech Wednesday as a VP candidate, Sarah Palin got whooping cheers for her accomplishments as governor of Alaska, including a big state budget surplus. But Palin didn’t mention how she did it: with a big windfall profits tax on oil production. I wonder how Palin will respond when the [...]
Continue reading...Cap and trade, explained
Thursday, August 28, 2008
8-27-08 by dugan There’s no question that tough, enforceable reductions of carbon emissions are the only way to reduce the threat of global warming. Or that the world is heading into a market-based "cap and trade" emission credit system (Though a straight carbon tax would be more efficient, if unpalatable to the corporate world). It’s [...]
Continue reading...The Bakken! Invest now!
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
8-27-08 by dugan A friend asked me today about all the investment hype and other excitement surrounding the so-called Bakken Formation oil reserves. Here’s the gist of what I told him, which might make him decide to keep the retirement fund under the mattress. Yes, there’s a bunch of oil in the deep, deep pockets [...]
Continue reading...Gold medal in greenwash
Sunday, August 17, 2008
8-17-08 by dugan Watching ExxonMobil’s ad blitz on NBC during the Olympics, you’d think it was a company dedicated to teaching science, mentoring young engineers and eradicating malaria in the Third World. At an estimated $750,000 per 30-second spot, its 2.5 minutes of ads on Day 1 cost $3.75 million. At that pace the full [...]
Continue reading...Drill or not? Here’s the answer
Thursday, August 7, 2008
8-7-08 by dugan Sometimes comedy is just the right cure. Here’s the last word, from Jon Stewart, on why no one should trust the folks saying we need to "drill now, drill everywhere" in the U.S. for oil.
Continue reading...What comes after newspapers?
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
7-22-08 by dugan The cratering of the L.A. Times and the rest of Tribune Co. has me worrying, again, about who will hold the powerful, the corrupt and the incompetent to account when all the investigative and beat reporters are fired. One small but notable point of hope is ProPublica, a well-financed online nonprofit network [...]
Continue reading...Beggar with an ermine cup
Monday, July 21, 2008
The PR departments of the major oil companies are madly developing their spin for the yet-another-record 2nd quarter profits they’re about to report. What they’ll say: "Without these gigantic profits (including billions in taxpayer subsidies), we couldn’t explore and drill and supply oil for the future." "We’re not really so rich, compared to other industries." [...]
Continue reading...Bubble’s leaking. What next?
Thursday, July 17, 2008
7-17-08 by dugan As the price of a barrel of crude oil dropped to under $130 today, down from its high of $145-plus a barrel, I picked this as quote ‘o the day: "We have gasoline demand coming down, and that’s putting pressure on the market," said Darin Newsom, senior analyst at DTN, a commodities [...]
Continue reading...‘Hotrod’ defends ethanol’s MPG
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
7-15-08 by dugan I’ve long heard that a car with the engine correctly adjusted for ethanol can run as economically as a car running on gasoline. Yet AAA, which publishes daily gasoline and diesel prices nationwide, publishes a "BTU adjusted price" for E85 fuel that always shows E85 effectively costing well over the price of [...]
Continue reading...Beware T. Boone Pickens
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
7-9-08 by dugan I woke up this morning and found out that oilman T. Boone Pickens may save the Earth–at least according to much of the MSM. Here’s USA Today on energy billionaire Pickens’ lavishly financed campaign to supplant oil with natural gas and wind power. Here’s an LA Times column. I’m assuming these [...]
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Monday, November 24, 2008
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