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2Q-2010 MasterResource Update: The Progress Continues

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 3, 2010

MasterResource, a free-market energy blog, continues to attract new talent and a growing audience. We have had approximately 45 authors to date, and our cumulative views have exceeded one-half million.

We are not a mega-blog, but we are an important addition to the energy literature that will, like a good book, be accessed and referenced for years to come.

At Technorati, MasterResource has consistently been in the top 25 (out of 1,550) “green” blogs and has reached as high as #7. But more importantly, serious students of energy policy are regulars at our site, reading our once-a-day, in-depth post or tracking down material on what Enron/Ken Lay really did, what Jim Hansen or John Holdren really said, or what BP was doing under John Browne. We preserve the excesses of the smartest-guys-in-the-energy-room for posterity.…

Harvard Business Review Article: BP as Environmental Role Model (Part III on global warming as the great environmental distraction)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 1, 2010

[Editor note: Part I in this series reviewed the praise for BP and Enron from the Worldwatch Institute. Part II delved into the reasons that BP tried to rebrand itself as “beyond petroleum.”]

“Such [progressive] leadership [on climate change] may give BP Amoco better access to government-controlled oil deposits and more operating flexibility.”

– Kimberly O’Neill Packard and Forest Reinhardt, “What Every Executive Needs to Know About Global Warming,” Harvard Business Review, July/August 2000.

The Worldwatch Institute sang the praises of BP’s it’s-a-problem, we-can-solve-it approach to climate change. Far Left environmentalist Joe Romm featured John Browne/BP in his book Cool Companies as a leading example of corporations going green for profits and virtue.

Both Worldwatch and Romm were wrong–dead wrong–about BP, just as they were also wrong about climate-alarmist Enron and Ken Lay.…

BP’s ‘Beyond Petroleum’: Climate Alarmism as the Great Environmental Distraction (Part II: Why the ‘greenwashing’?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 29, 2010

[Editor note: Part I in this series examined praise for BP and Enron from the Worldwatch Institute. Part III examines a Harvard Business Review article linking BP’s ‘beyond petroleum’ strategy to special government favor, including drilling on government domain.]

Consumer boycotts of Shell and pressure from Greenpeace … [and] speculation that Shell might shift its position on climate change led BP CEO John Browne to look more closely at climate change. He decided to set a new company policy that would set BP apart from the competition—the product differentiation strategy.

– Gary Gardner, “Accelerating the Shift to Sustainability.” In Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2001 (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), p. 101.

With great big blobs of oil washing up on the shore, it is almost comical—no, it is comical—to see some of BP’s erstwhile friends in academia and other centers of high-minded thought running for cover.

They Loved BP and Enron: Climate Alarmism as the Great Environmental Distraction (Part I: Worldwatch Institute quotations)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 28, 2010

Smart Meter Chaos: Maryland PSC Gets Real (consumerism, anyone?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 25, 2010

John Browne’s 1997 Stanford University Speech: The “Beyond Petroleum” Beginning (and beginning of the end of BP?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 19, 2010

Remembering a Biased Energy Encyclopedia (2004 Review of the “Hummer” 6 Volume Set)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 5, 2010

Paul Gipe on Wind’s Ecological Problems Circa 1995: Worth Another Look?

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 3, 2010

Kerry–Lieberman: A “Simple” 987-page Bill? (Enron postmodernism in a Senator’s voice)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 19, 2010

ENRON APPLAUDS SENATE CAP-AND-TAX PROPOSAL

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- May 12, 2010