“The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority; it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind; it is the appeaser’s intellectual abdication that invites them to take over. When a culture’s dominant trend is geared to irrationality, the thugs win over the appeasers.”

“Moral cowardice is fear of upholding the good because it is good, and fear of opposing the evil because it is evil. The next step leads to opposing the good in order to appease evil, and rushing out to seek the evil’s favor.”

– Ayn Rand

ExxonMobil switched strategies from principle to appeasement early in the first term of President Obama. I have watched, step-by-step, a great corporation become mediocre for the first time in its storied history.

I long for Lee Raymond, who was honest and demanding–with impressive results for the shareholder, employees, consumers, and the national/international economy.…

There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. 

The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now.  The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the USSR in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.  —  Newsweek

Another climate-scare article? Yes, but it is from April 28, 1975, almost a half-century ago.

There is nothing wishy-washy about the assertions in popular press stories on the environment.…

“Given the receptive nature of the Middle Eastern countries to future oil and gas projects, oil giants from Europe are also planning to increase their investment in the region’s unceasing oil juggernaut.”

“The notion that the world is moving away from fossil fuels is incorrect, at least as per the production and consumption numbers of oil, gas, and coal worldwide. The Middle East scenario gives a better picture of where the future of oil is headed.”

On Earth Day, President Joe Biden was busy trying to persuade the ‘oil-guzzling’ countries to reduce their fossil-fuel dependency. But the great global oil juggernaut rolls on. Countries in the Middle East, especially, are optimistic about a coming decade of increasing oil and gas exports. 

Media Silence

In contrast to the anti-fossil fuel-oriented policies of the West, the Middle East remains very committed to their primary revenue resource: oil and gas.…

Ed. Note: From time to time, MasterResource reaches back in energy history to document bad governmental ideas. The example before is surprisingly recent–just before the shale revolution destroyed the case for synthetic oil and gas (not to mention wind, solar, and even nuclear in power generation) as market-competitive.

“In March [2006], the [U.S. Department of] Energy Secretary, Samuel K. Bodman, said in a speech that making diesel fuel or jet fuel from coal was ‘one of the most exciting areas’ of research and could be crucial to the President’s [George W. Bush] goal of cutting oil imports.” (below)

Synthetic oil and gas: World War II, Korean War, postwar, 1970s. All projects a failure, completed or suspended-in-construction. But a last hurrah came in 2006, a period when none other than George W.…