Paul Driessen

Keystone is anti-hydrocarbon zealotry in microcosm

UN agency to Congress: Drop dead

Sharing our blessings

This Thanksgiving weekend is a good time to express our gratitude for the jobs, living standards and life spans we enjoy today--largely because of abundant, reliable, affordable energy, 83% of it still because of fossil fuels.

Virginia goes Don Quixote

Democrat Ralph Northam had barely won the Virginia governor's race when his party announced it would impose a price on greenhouse gases emissions, require a 3% per year reduction in GHG emissions, and develop a cap-and-trade scheme requiring polluters to buy credits for emitting carbon dioxide.

Agitators, regulators and predators on the prowl

Legal and scientific ethics seem to have become irrelevant, as anti-chemical agitators, regulators and trial lawyers team up on numerous lawsuits against Monsanto. They're seeking tens of billions of dollars in jackpot justice, by claiming a chemical in the company's popular weed killer RoundUp causes cancer.

DC Swamp denizens strike back

Despite what I thought were persuasive articles over the years (here, here and here, for example), corn ethanol and other biofuel mandates remain embedded in US law. As we have learned, once a government program is created, it becomes virtually impossible to eliminate, revise or even trim fat from it.

The Obama EPA's crooked prosecutors

Suppose a crooked prosecutor framed someone and was determined to get a conviction. So he built an entire case on tainted, circumstantial evidence, and testimony from witnesses who had their reasons for wanting the guy in jail. Suppose the prosecutor ignored or hid exculpatory evidence and colluded with the judge to prevent the defendant from presenting a robust defense or cross-examining adverse witnesses.

Politicized sustainability threatens planet and people

Sustainability (sustainable development) is one of the hottest trends on college campuses, in the news media, in corporate boardrooms and with regulators. There are three different versions.

Funding the arts--or hurricane recovery

A couple of friends recently said it was terrible that some in Congress and the White House could even consider reducing National Endowment for the Arts funding. It's a critical program, they feel, essential for the very survival of many community and even big-time theaters, orchestras and other arts programs. The thought of trimming the NEA shows a low regard for this important component of civilized society.

Now it's a war on pipelines

The radical environmentalist war on fossil fuels has opened a new front: a war on pipelines. For years, activist zealots claimed the world was rapidly depleting its oil and natural gas supplies.

Irma illusions--and realities

Hurricanes Harvey and Irma brought out the best in us. Millions of Americans are giving money, toil and sweat to help victims rebuild. Unfortunately, the storms also highlighted some people's baser instincts.

Finally, some commonsense western fire policies

President Trump promised to bring fresh ideas and policies to Washington. Now Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue are doing exactly that in a critically important area: forest management and conflagration prevention. Their actions are informed, courageous and long overdue.

The Hurricane Harvey Hustle

"When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight," English essayist Samuel Johnson observed 240 years ago, "it concentrates his mind wonderfully." That's certainly true in the climate change arena. After ending US participation in the Paris climate treaty and abolishing many government restrictions on fossil fuel use, the Trump Administration began preparing red team-blue team examinations of the science behind claims of "dangerous manmade climate change."

Revisiting wind turbine impacts

It's amazing, though hardly surprising, how quickly some used Hurricane Harvey's devastation to claim that fossil fuel emissions are driving catastrophic climate change and weather. Their proffered solution, of course, is to replace those fuels with "clean, sustainable, renewable" energy.

Yet another renewable energy boondoggle

Wilkinson Solar has filed papers requesting permits for a 74-megawatt solar electricity facility about 35 miles east of Greenville, NC. If approved, 288,120 solar panels would blanket 600 acres (0.94 square miles) of now scenic, serene farmland next door to the Terra Ceia Christian School near Morehead City.

Callous CALAS activists against the poor

Not long ago, supposed "environmental justice" concerns at least involved risks to mine workers and their families. The risks may have been inflated, or ignored for decades, but they were a major focus.

Fair trade for thee, but not for me

"Nobody wants to buy something that was made by exploiting someone else," Ben & Jerry's and Fair Trade co-founder Jerry Greenfield likes to tell us. Let's hope he doesn't drive an electric vehicle, doesn't use a laptop or cell phone, and doesn't rely on wind or solar power.

Life in fossil-fuel-free utopia

Al Gore’s new movie, a New York Times article on the final Obama Era “manmade climate disaster” report, and a piece saying wrathful people twelve years from now will hang hundreds of “climate deniers” are a tiny sample of Climate Hysteria and Anti-Trump Resistance rising to a crescendo. If we don’t end our evil fossil-fuel-burning lifestyles and go 100% renewable Right Now, we are doomed, they rail.

Shameless fear-mongering--versus reality

Before I could enjoy a movie last week, I was forced to endure five minutes of climate and weather fear-mongering, when the theater previewed Al Gore's "Inconvenient Sequel." His attempt to pin every weather disaster of the past decade on humanity's fossil fuel use felt like fifty minutes of water boarding.

Biofuel justifications are illusory

The closest thing to earthly eternal life, President Ronald Reagan used to say, is a government program. Those who benefit from a program actively and vocally defend it, often giving millions in campaign cash to politicians who help perpetuate it, while those who oppose the program or are harmed by it are usually disorganized and distracted by daily life.