• Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
Climate Change Dispatch
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Who We Are
  • Facts Vs. Fearmongering
    • Real science vs Junk Science
      • 1100-plus Peer-Reviewed Studies
      • 97% – Myth of the Climate Change Consensus
      • Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
      • Climate change and its causes
      • Climate Science Primer
      • CO2 is not pollution
      • Deceptive Surface Temperature Records
      • Editorial: Great Global Warming Hoax
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 1
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 2
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 3
      • Why CO2 Is A Minor Player In Global Climate
      • Why Politicized Science Is So Dangerous
    • Facts Not Fear
      • A Simple Question For Climate Alarmists
      • Climate Change – The Facts
      • Climate Change Fears Are Empirically Baseless
      • Global Warming 101
      • Global Warming Q&A
      • Understanding The Medieval Warm Period
      • Ocean Cycles and Climate
      • Overview of Plate Climatology Theory
      • Precautionary Principle
      • Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
      • The Skeptics Handbook
      • Weather Versus Climate
      • Why I’m a GW skeptic
      • Winning the climate debate with facts
      • Why Aliens Cause Global Warming
    • Greenhouse FAQs
      • CO2, Plants, & Industry
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • Is global warming real?
      • Measuring temperature
      • Swimming in CO2?
      • Scientists urge caution?
      • Today’s warming trend
      • Variations in temperature
    • Gore’s Greatest Goofs
      • Deconstructing the Truth
      • Fact-Checking Al Gore’s Latest Predictions
      • How Gore Created The Global Warming Hoax
    • Inside Real Climate
      • Closer look at the 97% Consensus
      • GW’s Amazing Story
      • IPCC gets failing grade
      • Real Climate Exposed!
      • Truth about Real Climate
      • We’ve Been Conned
      • What is there a 97% consensus about?
    • Behind the IPCC
      • 1,000 Scientists Dissent
      • Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!
      • Climategate Inquiries
      • Climategate Inquiries 2
      • NIPCC Report Now Available
      • Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
  • Submissions
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Who We Are
  • Facts Vs. Fearmongering
    • Real science vs Junk Science
      • 1100-plus Peer-Reviewed Studies
      • 97% – Myth of the Climate Change Consensus
      • Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
      • Climate change and its causes
      • Climate Science Primer
      • CO2 is not pollution
      • Deceptive Surface Temperature Records
      • Editorial: Great Global Warming Hoax
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 1
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 2
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 3
      • Why CO2 Is A Minor Player In Global Climate
      • Why Politicized Science Is So Dangerous
    • Facts Not Fear
      • A Simple Question For Climate Alarmists
      • Climate Change – The Facts
      • Climate Change Fears Are Empirically Baseless
      • Global Warming 101
      • Global Warming Q&A
      • Understanding The Medieval Warm Period
      • Ocean Cycles and Climate
      • Overview of Plate Climatology Theory
      • Precautionary Principle
      • Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
      • The Skeptics Handbook
      • Weather Versus Climate
      • Why I’m a GW skeptic
      • Winning the climate debate with facts
      • Why Aliens Cause Global Warming
    • Greenhouse FAQs
      • CO2, Plants, & Industry
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • Is global warming real?
      • Measuring temperature
      • Swimming in CO2?
      • Scientists urge caution?
      • Today’s warming trend
      • Variations in temperature
    • Gore’s Greatest Goofs
      • Deconstructing the Truth
      • Fact-Checking Al Gore’s Latest Predictions
      • How Gore Created The Global Warming Hoax
    • Inside Real Climate
      • Closer look at the 97% Consensus
      • GW’s Amazing Story
      • IPCC gets failing grade
      • Real Climate Exposed!
      • Truth about Real Climate
      • We’ve Been Conned
      • What is there a 97% consensus about?
    • Behind the IPCC
      • 1,000 Scientists Dissent
      • Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!
      • Climategate Inquiries
      • Climategate Inquiries 2
      • NIPCC Report Now Available
      • Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
  • Submissions
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Climate Change Dispatch
No Result
View All Result

Keep It In The Ground … By Blocking Pipelines

by Paul Driessen, guest post
July 02, 2018, 8:56 AM
in News and Opinion
Reading Time: 6 mins read
A A
3

You can understand their frustration as the steady stream of radical environmentalist successes during the Obama years has been replaced with endless setbacks. Oil, gas and coal leasing, permits and production have risen significantly.

Big Green just lost its first Big Cities v. the Big Oil climate-change shakedown lawsuit. President Trump pulled the USA out of the economy-wrecking, all-pain-no-gain Paris Climate Treaty and will soon nominate another Supreme Court justice.

The fracking revolution (horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing) not only slipped in under their radar. The technology they absolutely detest has utterly destroyed their mantra that the world is rapidly running out of petroleum – and now is helping create millions of jobs, generate billions in government revenues, launch a petrochemical resurgence, and turn the United States into an oil and gas exporter!

Anticipated and activated regulatory and tax reforms and rollbacks, combined with far lower energy prices, have brought record stock market gains, record lows for black and Hispanic unemployment, far fewer people on welfare, thousands of extra dollars in family bank accounts, and renewed consumer confidence. Q2 economic growth could reach 4.5% (which pessimists had said was impossible).

Just as awful, extreme greens despise oil and natural gas, but are “forced” to use these resources every day for transportation, electricity, heating, air conditioning, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, clothing, plastics in cell phones and solar panels, and countless other blessings that they never acknowledge.

In other examples, the Cardiac 3-D Print Lab at Phoenix Children’s Hospital makes precisely crafted replica hearts, blood vessels, ears, bones and other organs out of colored plastics to prepare for surgeries and save kids’ lives; and natural gas is slowly replacing high-sulfur bunker fuel in ocean transport.

But anti-fossil-fuel fanatics are clever, resilient and well-funded by liberal foundations and Russians. (See here, here, here, and here.) If they can’t block leasing, drilling, and fracking directly, they find ways to “keep oil and gas in the ground” indirectly – by claiming methane from gas production could cause climate cataclysms, filing lawsuits, and taking “direct action” to delay or block pipeline construction.

A recent EDF report claims industry leaks 60% more methane than previously recognized. The industry says the claim is wrong, methane leakage is minimal and going down every year as technologies and practices improve – and natural gas production and transportation make a trifling contribution to a trivial amount of atmospheric methane.

In fact, methane is just 0.00017% of the atmosphere (1/235th the amount of CO2), and neither gas has replaced the sun and other powerful natural forces that actually control the climate.

Moreover, nearly one-third of all global methane comes from natural sources, and in the USA 60% of human methane comes from livestock and agriculture, municipal landfills and sewage treatment plants.

New pipelines are needed to move record amounts of US oil and gas to refineries, petrochemical plants, export terminals– and gas-fired generators that replace coal-fired units, provide emergency electricity for hospitals, or back up sporadic wind and solar power.

Many lines serve new oil and gas fields; others will replace aging, deteriorating pipelines that pose increasing risks of leaks and spills or replace railroad tanker cars that present much higher environmental and human safety risks than pipelines.

Enormous Permian Basin shale formations beneath Eastern New Mexico and West Texas feed an oil-producing region that is already North America’s biggest, and in a few more years could be producing more oil than every other nation in the world except Russia and Saudi Arabia.

The oil reduces Russian, Iranian and OPEC ability to employ their oil as political weapons, and keeps oil and gasoline prices low.

Oil and gas production in the Permian, Bakken, Haynesworth, Marcellus and other shale plays creates thousands of construction, manufacturing and STEM jobs, plus vital city, state and federal revenues.

And yet plans to build or complete pipelines are often met with anger, resistance, litigation, and violence. The nearly completed Dakota Access Pipeline spawned illegal protest camps that left behind tons of trash and excrement, and housed hardcore radicals who destroyed construction equipment, shot at guards, tried to destroy a bridge, killed cattle and bison, and threatened to murder local residents.

The $3.5 billion Mountain Valley Gas Pipeline has brought seemingly endless litigation – and protesters who occupy trees, chain themselves to construction equipment and bizarrely claim they are acting in the finest traditions of the civil rights movement.

A 16-mile-long and 100-foot-wide segment of the Atlantic Coast Gas Pipeline right-of-way would affect a mere 195 acres out of 1.1 million acres in Virginia’s George Washington National Forest; but agitators say it would create a vast “industrial zone” and “severely degrade some of the best remaining natural landscapes” in the entire Eastern United States.

More rabid activists have closed pipeline valves, creating risks of ruptures, explosions, fires, and deaths.

Compared to these actions, litigation seems mild, and most projects are eventually approved by FERC, the Army Corps of Engineers and the courts. However, prolonged delays, multiple environmental studies, and forced route changes amid construction add tens or even hundreds of millions to costs, for few benefits.

Many legal battles dragged on for years: Keystone XL in Nebraska (oil), Sandpiper in Minnesota (oil), Mariner East 2 in Pennsylvania (gas), Bayou Bridge in Louisiana (oil), for example.

The double standards are glaring and unacceptable when all this is compared to minimal environmental studies and environmentalist concern typically associated with wind or solar installations, despite the enormous habitat and wildlife losses that those “renewable” technologies unavoidably cause.

Ironically, the anti-petroleum, anti-pipeline campaigns have been significantly aided by an unlikely and unexpected source: a “people’s politician” whose job and economic growth promises, policies, and expectations are intrinsically linked to fossil fuels.

It is becoming increasingly clear that President Trump’s tariffs on imported steel and aluminum are adding significantly to pipeline and oil patch woes.

Even Energy Secretary Rick Perry has voiced concern that “a bullet” intended for the trade and tariff parity target might hit the oil production and transportation sector behind the target. Domestic metals producers benefit from the tariffs, but domestic users of steel and aluminum are getting hammered.

In fact, the tariffs and environmentalist actions are having a profoundly negative impact on pipeline projects and oil and gas production in many regions.

In the Permian Basin, for example, oilfield service workers are being idled, and the number of drilled-but-uncompleted wells soared to 3,200 in May, a 90% increase from a year ago, as the lack of pipeline capacity forced fracking companies to reduce production.

Permian operators will likely have to close older wells within four months because there aren’t enough pipelines to get the oil to customers, one industry CEO has said. The worsening bottleneck there could benefit Russia, Iran, and OPEC, as they step in to fill global oil demand. Greenies must be chortling.

But maybe not all that much. The US fossil fuels boom may be slowing, but only temporarily and only a little. China, India, Africa, South America and Europe are all burning far more oil, gas, and coal.

China and Eastern Europe are anxious to buy more US liquefied natural gas (LNG) to reduce coal use, and in the former Soviet Bloc to avoid being too reliant on Putin gas that could be used in strategic extortion.

Meanwhile, China has launched its first fracking operations, in a mountainous area south of Chongqing in southwestern China. It wants to help meet natural gas demands that are expected to increase by more than 700% over the next two decades. Britain too is gearing up for major fracking-based gas production.

So all these rabidly anti-fossil-fuel actions in Oakland and New York and across the USA will have no effect on global emissions or even theoretically on Earth’s climate.

It’s all a petulant part of the radical Left’s determination to employ lawsuits, Saul Alinsky tactics and violence to seize control of our economy, livelihoods, living standards and lives – regardless of the human or environmental costs.

Responsible people across the globe need to push back – or help the anti-fossil-fuel folks live according to their ideology, by cutting off their access to anything derived from the fuels they despise.


Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of articles and books on energy, climate change, carbon dioxide and economic development.

  • Truth
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Gettr
  • Threads
  • gab-logo Gab
  • Mastodon
  • Buffer
  • Telegram
  • Email
  • Copy Link
  • Share Using More Networks…

Popular Posts

Electric Vehicles (EVs)

The ‘Green’ Scam Of The Century: How ‘Renewables’ Increase Fossil Fuel Demands

Oct 23, 2024
News and Opinion

Antarctica Is Colder, Icier Today Than At Any Time In 5,000 Years

Apr 15, 2024
Energy

30-Plus Signs That The Climate Scam Is Collapsing

Apr 09, 2025

Comments 3

  1. JayPee says:
    7 years ago

    What’s being kept in ground
    Most effectively and
    Voluntarily
    ARE

    The protesters’ heads.

  2. Hans Schreuder says:
    7 years ago

    They’re too dumb to realise that! Stupidity reigns supreme in the useful idiots camp.
    http://tech-know-group.com/essays/Stupidity.pdf and http://ilovemycarbondioxide.com/pdf/Clever_or_Dumb.pdf explain it all.

  3. Spurwing Plover says:
    7 years ago

    As i have always said these useful idiots who oppose Fracking and Drilling the Keep it in the Ground worshipers of Gaia need to suffer the consqences of the false religion like quit using anything that comes from Fossil Fuels fora year and lets see how long they would last

Stay Connected On Social Media

gab-logo

Donate Today

Beating back the alarmist narrative takes time and money. Please donate today to help!

Recent Posts

  • COP30 Amazon17 Republican AGs Urge Trump Admin To Skip COP30 Over Green Energy Policies
    Oct 24, 2025
    The attorneys general say attending COP30 would back costly, unreliable wind and solar and risk U.S. energy security. […]
  • severe storm over cityClimate Expert Reveals Latest Scandal Tied To Billion-Dollar Disasters
    Oct 24, 2025
    Climate Central takes over the Billion-Dollar Disasters tabulation, sparking fresh controversy over its methods and motives. […]
  • ocean sun cloudsNew Study Finds 75% Of Rising Ocean Heat Likely Natural, CO2 Not A Factor
    Oct 24, 2025
    Study shows ocean warming driven mostly by natural cycles, not greenhouse gas emissions, challenging mainstream global warming narratives. […]
  • LNG terminal in germanyU.S. And Qatar Push Back On EU’s Climate Mandates That Threaten LNG Exports
    Oct 24, 2025
    U.S. and Qatari officials warn that the EU’s latest climate regulations under CSDDD could endanger Europe’s access to affordable natural gas. […]
  • marines trainingCrazy Hill Op-Ed Demands Generals Respond To Climate Change ‘National Security’ Threat
    Oct 23, 2025
    The Hill warns of climate Armageddon unless U.S. generals join the fight against ‘Mother Nature,’ now deemed a national security threat. […]
  • Shipping port near power plantEurope’s Energy Crisis Shows Net Zero Dogma Comes At A Cost
    Oct 23, 2025
    While China’s rare earth threat exposes U.S. supply chain risks, Europe’s energy crisis shows how net zero policies backfired spectacularly. […]
  • wind farm climate outDemocrats Ditch Climate Messaging As Rising Utility Costs Hit Voters
    Oct 23, 2025
    As Democrats struggle with climate messaging, voters feel the pinch from rising utility bills and the party's costly green energy policies. […]
  • Protest system change not climate changeLead Attorney Admits Real Goal Of Climate Lawsuits: Backdoor Carbon Tax
    Oct 23, 2025
    A top lawyer spearheading climate lawsuits says the quiet part out loud: litigation is a backdoor carbon tax on oil companies and consumers. […]
  • WMO reportHow The World Meteorological Organization Lies To You—Using Your Taxes
    Oct 22, 2025
    The WMO’s 2025 greenhouse gas report hides key data that undercuts the so-called climate 'crisis' narrative—funded by your tax dollars. […]
  • Hurricane generating ocean waves2025 Hurricane Season Is Flopping As Alarmist Predictions Fail
    Oct 22, 2025
    The 2025 hurricane season so far has seen no major U.S. landfalls, exposing alarmists’ failed predictions of catastrophic storms. […]

Get Instant Email Notifications

Subscribe to receive a digest of daily stories, or get emailed once they're published. Check your Junk/Spam folder for a verification email.

Submit a tip

Please enter your email, so we know you're human.

Books You May Like

exposing great lie

Have a suggestion? Let us know! We swap out books based on your input. We participate in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. See here.

  • About
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us

© Portions copyright Climate Change Dispatch

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Who We Are
  • Facts Vs. Fearmongering
    • Real science vs Junk Science
      • 1100-plus Peer-Reviewed Studies
      • 97% – Myth of the Climate Change Consensus
      • Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
      • Climate change and its causes
      • Climate Science Primer
      • CO2 is not pollution
      • Deceptive Surface Temperature Records
      • Editorial: Great Global Warming Hoax
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 1
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 2
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 3
      • Why CO2 Is A Minor Player In Global Climate
      • Why Politicized Science Is So Dangerous
    • Facts Not Fear
      • A Simple Question For Climate Alarmists
      • Climate Change – The Facts
      • Climate Change Fears Are Empirically Baseless
      • Global Warming 101
      • Global Warming Q&A
      • Understanding The Medieval Warm Period
      • Ocean Cycles and Climate
      • Overview of Plate Climatology Theory
      • Precautionary Principle
      • Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
      • The Skeptics Handbook
      • Weather Versus Climate
      • Why I’m a GW skeptic
      • Winning the climate debate with facts
      • Why Aliens Cause Global Warming
    • Greenhouse FAQs
      • CO2, Plants, & Industry
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • Is global warming real?
      • Measuring temperature
      • Swimming in CO2?
      • Scientists urge caution?
      • Today’s warming trend
      • Variations in temperature
    • Gore’s Greatest Goofs
      • Deconstructing the Truth
      • Fact-Checking Al Gore’s Latest Predictions
      • How Gore Created The Global Warming Hoax
    • Inside Real Climate
      • Closer look at the 97% Consensus
      • GW’s Amazing Story
      • IPCC gets failing grade
      • Real Climate Exposed!
      • Truth about Real Climate
      • We’ve Been Conned
      • What is there a 97% consensus about?
    • Behind the IPCC
      • 1,000 Scientists Dissent
      • Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!
      • Climategate Inquiries
      • Climategate Inquiries 2
      • NIPCC Report Now Available
      • Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
  • Submissions
  • Contact Us

© 2025 Climate Change Dispatch

 
Share via
  • Facebook
  • Like
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • VKontakte
  • Print
  • Email
  • Reddit
  • Buffer
  • Love This
  • Weibo
  • Pocket
  • Xing
  • Odnoklassniki
  • WhatsApp
  • Meneame
  • Blogger
  • Amazon
  • Yahoo Mail
  • Gmail
  • AOL
  • Newsvine
  • HackerNews
  • Evernote
  • MySpace
  • Mail.ru
  • Viadeo
  • Line
  • Flipboard
  • Comments
  • SMS
  • Viber
  • Telegram
  • Subscribe
  • Facebook Messenger
  • Kakao
  • LiveJournal
  • Yammer
  • Edgar
  • Fintel
  • Mix
  • Instapaper
  • Copy Link
  • Truth
  • gab-logo Gab
  • Gettr
  • Baidu
  • Mastodon
  • Threads
  • Bluesky
Share via
  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • VKontakte
  • Print
  • Email
  • Reddit
  • Buffer
  • Love This
  • Weibo
  • Pocket
  • Xing
  • Odnoklassniki
  • WhatsApp
  • Meneame
  • Blogger
  • Amazon
  • Yahoo Mail
  • Gmail
  • AOL
  • Newsvine
  • HackerNews
  • Evernote
  • MySpace
  • Mail.ru
  • Viadeo
  • Line
  • Flipboard
  • Comments
  • SMS
  • Viber
  • Telegram
  • Subscribe
  • Facebook Messenger
  • Kakao
  • LiveJournal
  • Yammer
  • Edgar
  • Fintel
  • Mix
  • Instapaper
  • Copy Link
  • Truth
  • gab-logo Gab
  • Gettr
  • Baidu
  • Mastodon
  • Threads
  • Bluesky