This post summarizes the criticism of Biden’s pro-fracking position from Bill McKibben (New Yorker), Emily Aiken (Heated), Joe Romm (Front Page Live), and David Roberts (Vox), as well as from The Sunrise Movement, 350.org, Greenpeace, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Wilderness Society, Center for Biological Diversity, and the Sierra Club.…

“[We] are drilling all over the place — right now. That’s not the challenge . . . we don’t have enough pipeline capacity to transport all of it to where it needs to go — both to refineries, and then, eventually, all across the country and around the world.”

” [My] strategy … will … further reduce our dependence on foreign oil, put more people back to work, and ultimately help to curb the spike in gas[oline] prices that we’re seeing year after year after year.”

– President Obama. Cushing, Oklahoma (March 22, 2012)

Eight years ago, with oil prices high and the body politic restless, President Obama gave a speech in the oil boondocks, specifically in Cushing, Oklahoma. At the central hub for American crude oil pipelines, he pitched his Administration’s record on oil and gas as if he was a friend, not a conniving foe.…

“[Climate] is not only a crisis—it is the most thorough and complete crisis our species and our civilizations have ever faced, one there is no guarantee that we will survive intact.” – Bill McKibben (2020)

“[The fossil fuel industry] is Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our planetary civilization.” – Bill McKibben (2012)

“Welcome to the Climate Crisis Newsletter,” featuring Bill McKibben, states the New Yorker. The new feature from the glassy-eyed, fringe fossil-fuel critic is the latest example of foregone scholarship and, in an election year, Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The ultimate crisis? The end of civilization as we know it? Isn’t this what is under debate, with climate optimism a viable position given the protective role of wealth and abundant fossil fuels?

To McKibben and his mainstream media prop, it is all assumption, and false ones at that.…

“Many inside the company, including Tony Hayward, had long thought that [John] Browne was distracted by his pet issues of climate change and environmentalism, and by his flirtations with the public spotlight. They thought he had been obsessed with branding the company and lowering its carbon footprint at the expense of BP’s real business, producing and selling oil.” – Abrahm Lustgarden, Run to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster (2012), p. 203.

“The world’s carbon budget is finite and running out fast. We need a rapid transition to net zero.” – Bernard Looney. CEO, BP, quoted in Financial Times, February 12, 2020

British Petroleum Company, then BP Amoco, then BP, has had a troubled history since it went political in the 1990. That history deserves revisiting given its latest rebranding effort.…