Ukraine attacks Russia’s oil industry, Canada attacks Canada’s oil industry… are you sure you want us to join NATO? – Watts Up with that?
Ukraine adapts to a much larger rival and sheds light on the trap Western governments have created for themselves
Recently, Ukraine conducted large-scale drone attacks against Russian oil refineries/infrastructure. Seems reasonable, what with the invasion and all.
In fact, it’s more than reasonable and as reasonable as possible. The Russians know this too; When they really want to shake the chain, they will target the energy infrastructure of Western Ukraine.
Energy is the lifeblood of everything, and at this point in history, hydrocarbons are the blood in the system. Don’t be under any illusions there. No one anywhere is seeking to gain a strategic military advantage by blowing up wind turbines or covering solar fields with tarps.
Interestingly, the West is confused by this issue. Western governments rightfully and fully support Ukraine, and therefore would theoretically strongly support Ukraine’s bombardment of Russian oil refineries. But it’s not that simple.
Russia is not the isolated country the West hoped for. Wave after wave of sanctions against the country have not worked as hoped, because Russia is adapting like Ukraine, and Russian oil is finding its way into the market.
The West is caught up in a strange dance in which it implements policy after policy against hydrocarbons, attacking its own indigenous supplies, while consuming more or less the same amount as it always has. Have. The West wants to cancel its production or stifle it, and at the same time wants Russian oil out of the market, but ironically, most of all, it wants low oil prices, because consumers are worried when the price is not low.
An alien would look down at the situation and have nothing to say other than the intergalactic equivalent of “WTF.”
Russia can cut off strategic oil supplies in a heartbeat with little consequence to its own production. For example, Kazakhstan produces 1.5 million barrels of oil per day and ships most of that oil to Europe via pipelines through Russia. Imagine the impact on global oil prices if that trans-Russian pipeline “fell out the window,” so to speak, the same thing that happened to so many irritants in Russia. Even if Russian production is harmed to some degree by a certain policy, as long as that oil is kept off the global market, the Russians can calculate as well as anyone: Yes, Russia definitely needs revenue! But 6 million barrels/day at $80/barrel is equivalent to sales of 4 million barrels/day at $120/barrel.
So the West, especially in an American election year, will be stuck. Anything that increases the price of oil materially will hit the wallets of every consumer on earth and cause inflation, and every politician knows that inflation will unleash its fury. And governments cannot afford a prolonged war on inflation anyway – imagine having to raise interest rates again in this fragile economic environment. The most obvious highlight is the fact that the US government now spends more on interest payments than on defense.
Behind closed doors at the highest levels of power, tensions must be enormous. Especially in the West, with these very contradictory must-win/ambitions: crush Russia, contain China, win the climate war or whatever these days call whatever. What, keep energy prices low to stave off outraged citizens and, following suit, do whatever it takes to keep their fat hands firmly on the controls. We could certainly see strange results: attacks on our fuel systems without suitable replacements; attacks on ordinary citizens because they believe in what are now derisively called ‘populist’ beliefs (although the history of ‘populist’ beliefs spans the entire political spectrum ), and Western foreign policy seems paralyzed because it is ill-equipped to deal with, for example, the rise of BRICS.
And then, as a final but dramatic gasp of weak state control, witness Canada’s madness in controlling the situation with…
To the thugs: Canada cracks down on any speech it doesn’t like, with sweeping rules measured against ill-defined regulations and entering the historical pantheon of regulated nations legendary bad behavior
We have all heard about Bill C-59, the Canadian government’s crackdown on any comment regarding emissions reduction efforts that do not comply with “internationally recognized methods”. It was a Soviet-style effort to suppress any discussion of what companies were doing to reduce emissions, or of anything they were doing to reduce “environmental causes or impacts.” environment, society and ecology of climate change”.
The monkeys in charge and their sycophants say hey, it’s not censorship at all, you can talk about reducing emissions all day long, as long as it meets some national standards has not been established, and the burden of proof is on anyone making a claim to show that they are not violating some non-existent “internationally recognized method.”
This whole debacle is of course a one-way street; the freedom to say anything reinforces the narrative that the climate emergency remains gloriously unchecked. For example, energy commentator David Blackmon recently listed on LinkedIn the number of countries/regions believed to be warming faster than the global average: Canada, Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Arctic, Asia, Africa, the US, Europe, Russia, Australia, China and Finland all claim to be warming faster than the global average. The high priest of modern politicized science, Scientific American, say The ocean is also warming 40 percent faster than expected, and the ocean absorbs up to 90 percent of human-made carbon emissions, and SA also take notes that Antarctica is warming “three times faster than the global average.” So, as experts say, everywhere is warming faster than everywhere else.
Extrapolating from this, according to the necessary mathematical precedents as to how averages work, the few remaining areas not mentioned must have plummeted in temperature, because that is how operating averages. And I mean sharp declines, if that alone offsets above-average increases in the rest of the world. It’s strange not being able to find a title that has that effect.
The speech police have no problem with such mathematical crimes, because stupid statements are made under the banner of ‘science’. It must be concluded that mathematics is not one of the “internationally recognized methods”.
No problem. As always, it’s a matter of silencing discussions and piercing through whatever ideological garbage they can while still clinging to power like a bee to a speeding windshield.
Welcome to Canada, where if global shaming were an Olympic sport we’d be wearing yellow forever. We’re joking though; We elected these people. We now clearly understand why Canada’s status as an investment haven has plummeted like a duck shot. (Don’t direct me to legendary genius Warren Buffett, who says he feels comfortable investing in Canada; Buffett buys existing businesses that have moats, and the Canadian government is working to build those moats as quickly as possible. maybe. Remember this rule of investing for the foreseeable future: existing infrastructure gets more and more valuable, because building things gets harder and harder.)
It is perhaps unfair to single Canada out for such harsh criticism when other Western countries are on similar energy suicide missions. Australia, Britain, Germany… all are fascinated by radicals who will accept nothing less than a complete “victory” by nihilistic energy, a crown that seems to mean deindustrialization and subjugation. Dress citizens in cars they don’t want, do things they don’t want, and aren’t allowed to say what they want. (New Zealand is also in that club, but recently lifted its ban on oil and gas exploration when it realized that oil fields were in decline and would not produce at a steady rate permanently without investment. True So, Western governments have actually enacted that law while at the same time having a shocking lack of understanding of how energy actually works.)
For Canada’s hydrocarbon sector, the most important thing to do during this period is to stay calm. [down] and continue to provide the energy the world so desperately needs. And that means everyone, including Guilbeault’s Greenpeace and the soup that makes Just Stop Oil look stupid. If the feds are going to talk about outlawing emissions, let them… the rotten foundations of their world cannot stand much longer.
No one stands taller than a company that provides reliable and affordable energy to citizens of the world. Get back to work and wait patiently for the inevitable to happen, the day when governments can no longer pretend to be blind to reality. It will be epic.
What the world desperately needs – clear energy. And a few laughs. Select The End of Fossil Fuel Madness, oneavailable at Amazon.ca, Indigo.caor Amazon.com.
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