Crimes with no witnesses

Ernest Moniz blocked US action on methane emissions from 2011-2021. The BBC documented his crime. PBS deleted the evidence.

Sally Benson, the White House lead on the transition to clean energy, spent most of 2021-2023 working from her White House on presentations and webinars that falsely represented carbon capture as an "essential" technology.

Jason Bordoff published in the New York Times an op-ed that was written for him by the Edelman PR giant and paid for by Big Oil, arguing that fossil fuels were now clean energy thanks to carbon capture.

The level of deceit in each of these stories is mind-boggling, the evidence irrefutable. Taken together, they document a detailed campaign being waged against renewables. Not a campaign to destroy renewables, simply a campaign being waged to level the playing field so that fossil fuels can survive into our future, forever.

But for the academic community, none of these three things happened. The evidence is never examined. Instead, academics want to celebrate booming investments in renewables. They want to debunk the ludicrous technologies that Big Oil is pushing on us. They think we are having a debate.

Technically debunking fraudulent research is a win for Big Oil. Big Oil is waging war on renewables -- not to destroy them, just to slow them down enough to level the playing field for fossil fuels to survive another decade. The fossil fuel industry has no expectation whatsoever that carbon capture will ever be a viable option. They simply plan to build out the infrastructure enough that in a decade it will be impossible to throw in the towel (see The Nuclear Playbook).

Academics have nothing at stake in this war. They celebrate booming investments in renewables as a victory. Another set of academics debunk Big Oil's proposed "solutions". Both responses are wins for Big Oil. By failing to see the war that Big Oil is waging on renewables, academics fail to see their own role in the continuation of that war and the survival of fossil fuels.

And I don't see any possibility that they will ever wake up.

Last Edition

This newsletter has had 3,446 subscribers in just five days, which I think is pretty good. But writing these articles has only clarified my understanding of what is going on: Big Oil is waging war on renewables. Not to destroy them, just to level the playing field for fossil fuels.

And three corrupt academics have played fundamental roles, managed and deployed by John Podesta, the White House lead on the transition to clean energy and the single person in charge of the entire I.R.A. budget. I want to start a new newsletter, this one entirely focused on The Transition to Clean Energy. I believe that Big Oil has sabotaged that transition — not destroyed it, simply sabotaged it — in order to level the playing field for the survival of fossil fuels.

But if the crimes perpetuating that system are happening in broad daylight, and no one cares, I don't see what good it will do for me to continue sounding an alarm, as it comes at an extraordinarily high price for me personally.