I had a very satisfying book signing over the weekend at Borders Ward Center. Big thank yous to all who came, and to Diane DeCorte of Borders, who made the excellent arrangements.
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Let's review where we are today on Peak Oil and Global Warming. While the White House and industry in general, especially fossil fuel companies, remain almost arrogantly dubious about both, there seems to be a growing tide of concern around the world. (I even posted an article on The Huffington Post with the title, "Why Don't Republicans Like Fossil Fuels and Not Care That Much for the Environment?" Go to http://huffingtonpost.com/, type my name in the upper right corner box, click on SEARCH and click on my June 24 paper.)
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Oil prices last week dropped around $20 from the $147/barrel high of two weeks ago, and pushed back up above $130/bbl today. It's becoming almost predictable, but a slight increase in petroleum futures resulted in a slight drop of the Dow today. When oil goes up, the stock market drops. When oil prices fall, the market rises. The national economy is most definitely worsening, and Hawaii in particular will suffer the most, primarily because aviation travel, on which tourism is based, is totally dependent on jet fuel, which is largely refined from imported oil. When the First Energy Crisis hit in 1973, the U.S. was importing 35% of the petroleum used. Today, our foreign dependency is just about double that, almost 70%.
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Have we reached Peak Oil? It almost doesn't matter, for it not yet, with the expanded use of this resource by China, India and other developing nations, it is soon to come, almost surely jerking the price beyond $200/barrel. Wall Street made this prediction earlier this summer and both Goldman Sachs and Allianz (German insurance company) said this would occur in two years.
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So you say, big deal, we can then turn to Canada and Venezuela to increase tar sand production and unleash our greatest resource, for we are known as the Saudi Arabia of oil shale. Well, no, for coal and these options produce twice the carbon dioxide of, say, natural gas, and there are those bad things many have predicted from the Greenhouse Effect. I even joined in by taking an extreme swipe with my two posting in the Huffington Post on June 9 and 10 earlier this summer entitled, THE VENUS SYNDROME, where life on Planet Earth is forever destroyed by temperatures of 900 degrees Fahrenheit. There were few comments, very few.
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If that's not bad enough for you, re-read my blog of yesterday on hurricanes. And speaking of these storms, Tropical Storm Bertha is now in really cold waters east of Canada, but is maintaining sustained winds of 70 MPH, just below hurricane strength. Tropical Storm Cristobal drenched North Carolina and will move parallel to the Eastern Seaboard, but is projected to during midweek turn east, then southeast into warmer waters by the weekend. Hmm. Tropical Storm Dolly passed over Cancun, and is now in the Gulf of Mexico at 50 MPH and could become a Category 1 hurricane when it hits the Mexican or South Texas Coast soon after midweek. In the Pacific, Remnant Elida could bring some showers to Hawaii in a few days. Winds remain at 35 MPH, but the passage will be south of the Big Island. Hurricane Fausto, at 80 MPH, is somewhat weakening as it continues to move west northwest in a path that should take it north of Hawaii...if nothing changes. A tropical depression just formed today off southern Mexico, and, currently at 35 MPH, is projected to move west northwest, sort of the same direction as Fausto.
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