It would NOT TAKE ROCKET SCIENCE to make huge increases in energy efficiency and reduction of greenhouse gasses in the USA. Here is an interview I gave, from Caracas in late 2009, to Erica Dingmann., on what needs to be done in transportation infrastructure and energy to REALLY make some big, practical gains in the USA. It does NOT require big breakthroughs in technology.
Tell me what you think.
Northampton, MA (Area of “the five colleges,” UMass Amhers, etc.)
On Thursday, the lead headline story in the WSJ asserted “New Cracks in Oil Cartel: OPEC Fails to Agree on Production Boost Amid Rising Saudi-Iran Tensions.” The “cracks” may have widened at this meeting, but they are hardly “new.” Continue reading
Posted in OPEC
Tagged Ali Al-Naimi, Business and Economy, geopolitics, Iran, MENA, Middle East, Northampton Massachusetts, oil rents, OPEC, Persian Gulf, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United States, Wall Street Journal
Boston, MA (From the road, with visits to Lynn and Marblehead)
I had the unexpected opportunity yesterday to hear the Governor Patrick of the State of Massachusetts and local Boston U.S. Congressman Ed Markey – Chair of the House Select Committee on Energy and Environment –talk to a meeting of union activists who will be canvassing local Boston voters to ascertain their concerns before the next elections. I spoke briefly with the congressman.
Markey has been instrumental in the recent attempts to repeal Bush-era federal legislation that grants subsidies to oil companies to encourage them to drill for oil in US territory. As he pointed out, this seems especially inappropriate at a time when oil prices are about double what they were when these subsidies were adopted. The congressman explained how he felt there was no need for such encouragement now, especially at taxpayer expense and when there is such concern to reduce the federal deficit. (I thank my old friend and union organizer/analyst here in Boston for inviting me.)
My next post, in a day or two, will be on what I see as: “The Pragmatic Turn in Venezuelan Foreign Policy.” This is a complex (and controversial) topic and it will occupy many future posts. However, first one has to establish whether this turn is or is not actually taking place … and only then can we analyze what the implications and effects, for better or worse, might be.
(Brooklyn, New York City) This is my first blog here. It will be short and rather disturbing.
The topic is the decline of institutions, especially state institutions, and of the rule of law in Venezuela. I study especially the oil sector and the national oil company, PDVSA, and its relation to the rest of society. It is not easy to see inside PDVSA, but here we have a rare window into the state of affairs in another Venezuelan state institution: a prison.
A Venezuelan friend sent me this video link to the NY Times story filed by Simon Romero about the prison on Margareta Island.
In passing this on to me, she drew two larger societal lessons from this report:
For example, take the insecurity and violence that citizens face. Venezuela appears to have the highest national homicide rate inthe Western Hemisphere, about 75 per 100,000 persons are now murdered annually according to Roberto Briceño-Leon, director of the Venezuelan Observatory on Crime, and professor at Oxford U. and UCV in Caracas. This rate has shot up since 2002. I have been reading a collection of essays by Venezuelan experts edited by Professor Briceño-Leon et al, 
Inseguridad y Violencia en Venezuela, Informe 2008, and I will soon post notes and commentaries on this serious sociological work. I must say, in a society where there is such extreme stress on individual lives, it is understandable for people to despair and of course this increases tension and polarization between and within all social classes. To break out of these cycles it is necessary not only for the experts, but for civil society at all levels to reach a consensus on what can be done, and to support politicians who have the will and stamina to implement these policies over the long run. Anyone who does not believe that Venezuela’s demoralizing decline of the rule of law and institutions, and the growth in anarchy this reinforces for everyone can be reversed, needs only look at neighboring Colombia, where a similar crisis in the 1980s and 90s has now been decisively reversed. Briceño-Leon draws important lessons from Colombia´s experience for Venezuela, and I promise to discuss these here soon.
Posted in Anarchy in life, Institutions and rule of law
The Global Barrel 