My writings - and those of others.
Good reading
I’ve finished two books in the last ten days. The first was an audio version read by its author Rachel Maddow entitled Blowout. It’s a history of the fossil fuel industry.
She is not someone I watch regularly on TV - but what I have seen suggests that she comes with strong views, a focus on facts and a wry wit. These are all borne out in the recent book - which I first heard about at the end of 2019 at an environmental seminar.
Her view is hardly unbiased and starts from the premise that the point of the industry is to make money come hell or high water and basically do as it pleases. No government anywhere has ever come close to controlling it.
She alternates between its development in Russia and in the United States and focuses on the fact of industry greed without having any idea of the consequences of its actions. Part of its success relates to its size and reach across the entire planet.
A blowout happens when the pressure of an oil or gas well builds up beyond the limits of its control system and backs up in an explosion. In the process blowouts have affected water systems and have caused earthquakes though the development of horizontal drilling. Never mind killing pets and making countless people sick who reside close to wells.
The book ties together a number of fascinating stories ranging from incompetent Russian spies, to a multimillion dollar playboy from Equatorial Guinea who enjoys giving his girlfriends $80,000 for shopping trips in Malibu, while three quarters of the citizens of his country starve. We move through entrepreneurs in Oklahoma, Texans who want to secede. Always lurking behind the scenes is Vladimir Putin who will do whatever he can to stir the pot. From Standard Oil to the present, one of the inevitable results is all countries depending on industry support for the election of its officials - who then use government money to return the favour in the form of government subsidies to the most profitable industry on earth.
Changing this will be an enormous challenge everywhere. What will count, Maddow says, is paying attention and asking questions. Our futures will undoubtedly depend upon that.
