March 7, 2023 by James Hufnagel

Climate Change no longer Debatable. So let’s Debate.

In his “Letter from a Birminghan Jail,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King wrote, “Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all of the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would be engaged in little else in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work.”

In a similar vein, you’d think wasting time writing a newspaper article refuting the ridiculous claims of a climate change denier is something we’d be well past by the year 2023, with its unprecedented high average annual temperatures, droughts, floods, wildfires, glacial and polar ice melts, rising sea levels, and incipient mass extinctions as have happened during other warming climate epochs over Earth’s history.

Then again too, there’s the old adage about never arguing with an idiot, because people may not be able to tell the difference. The mere act of engaging a climate change denier in anything resembling a debate confers a certain undeserved status on their foolheaded arguments and assertions, much as one might experience from a prolonged back-and-forth with a child over the importance of not playing in the roadway, or their stated desire to consume Tide Pods at snack time.

Now that we’re past the disclaimers, let’s drill down on the various and numerous untruths, half-truths, mistruths and felt truths (when one’s personal beliefs trump facts and reality) contained in J. Gary DiLaura’s recent piece “Is Climate Change a Fraud or Can We Control Nature?” which appears elsewhere on this website.

“I BELIEVE WE NEED A REMINDER OF THE FACTS…THE FAIRY TALES ARE OUT OF CONTROL!”* shouts DiLaura in his subheadline, followed by a lengthy quote from a bureaucrat speaking on behalf of the federal government to a congressional subcommittee, a Washington ritual which we all know to be totally devoid of fairy tales. We reprint the quote here:

“The Green River Formation… contains the world’s largest deposits of oil shale. USGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions. The Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, estimates that 30 to 60 percent of the oil shale in the Green River Formation can be recovered. At the midpoint of this estimate, almost half of the 3 trillion barrels of oil would be recoverable. This is an amount about equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.”

So what’s the bottom line? The Green River Formation contains more oil than exists elsewhere on the planet, or maybe the entire galaxy, or who knows, probably the known universe!

What DiLaura, and of course, so many “Guest Views” and “Letters to the Editor” one reads here and there, in finely-honed, fossil fuel industry-generated and PR department-crafted dispatches, conveniently omit is an accurate assessment of how much of this oil really is recoverable, and of that, is economical to pump out of the ground.

According to one noted geophysicist,

“There are certainly huge amounts of oil locked up in shale formations worldwide. In the United States alone… the Green River shale under Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah has a whopping 2 trillion barrels. However, only a tiny fraction of this total is recoverable.”

Hold the phone! Didn’t the government spokesperson quoted above previously put the figure at 3 trillion barrels? When in doubt, believe the government. Now that’s something Mr. DiLaura must wholeheartedly agree with.

Does the 1 trillion barrel discrepancy mean that my cherry-picked expert lacks credibility?

In the advertising profession, there’s something called “weasel words.” Weasel words function to either negate or render meaningless an assertion. For example, a dishwashing soap leaves your glasses “virtually spotless.” Does that mean crystal clear? No, of course not. Because including the word “virtually” means that even if you have spots on your glasses as they come out of the dishwasher, the statement still technically holds true while, on the other hand, tricking you into anticipating perfectly pristine glassware.

Similarly, a dietary supplement “supports” your immune system… just how does it “support” the immune system? Like a push-up bra?

Therefore, let’s revisit the government quote that Mr. DiLaura saw fit to lead off his article with, this time with weasel words underlined, which might put the available oil at 2 trillion barrels, 3 trillion barrels or even 0 trillion barrels.

To summarize, “estimates (x 3),” “depending on,” “may be,” “almost,’ and “about (x 3).”

Let’s return to our cherry-picked expert, an Oxford professor with his PhD from MIT.

(Most)“(S)hale oil” (may be) more precisely called “tight oil,” because it is actual, fluid oil that is trapped in the pores of shale, and it can be liberated by fracturing the rock to allow the oil to flow. In contrast, the hydrocarbon in the Green River shale is not really oil at all but a waxy substance that must be cooked at around 500 degrees Celsius to turn it into flowing oil. The technology for extracting oil from deposits like the Green River shale is far more challenging than what is required to tap into tight oil, and it has never been profitably implemented at any significant scale. There is thus no credible estimate of how much oil can be recovered from the Green River formation.”

DiLaura then goes on to state that “In May 2020, the North Dakota Oil & Gas Division estimated that over 7,500 oil and gas wells in North Dakota were shut down by Biden, preventing close to 510,000 barrels a day of production. The reason the Biden administration gave was COVID-19 and not economically feasible!”

Truth be told, it wasn’t President Biden ordering 7,500 wells closed – he doesn’t even have the legal authority to do so. In response to market conditions, namely, a collapse in oil prices due to the COVID pandemic, oil companies voluntarily closed the wells. They even halted new drilling. Biden didn’t order that either.

Will DiLaura publish a retraction of this outright misrepresentation of the facts? Don’t hold your breath.

The diatribe continues with a few words about the Keystone pipeline. He berates Sen. Kirsten Gillbrand because she supposedly said that “the Keystone Pipeline ‘has not moved 10 cents worth of oil’ since it started! She said that!”

DiLaura must have been in the physical presence of the senator when she made that statement or heard it in a wiretap (look up “COINTELPRO”) because a Google search of “has not moved 10 cents worth of oil” yields nothing, nada, except a link to DiLaura’s article.

In addition, the Keystone is, and has been, a system of pipelines, some sections of which have been in operation for years. Gillibrand was referring to the proposed new section which, obviously, hadn’t pumped any oil.

“THAT’S THE REASON FOR ALL YOUR FINANCIAL TROUBLES, FOOD SHORTAGES, GAS PRICES, AND ALL THE SHORTAGES NOW AND SOON TO COME!!!”

Not the Ukraine war or increased consumer demand due to the economic rebound after COVID, and years of low interest rates and expansive monetary policy by the Fed, but cancellation of a minor extension of an oil pipeline, which ultimately would have led to the exportation of more oil to foreign countries (not the domestic market) and subsequent fattening of the oil companies’ bottom lines.

DiLaura: “Obama drained the oil emergency reserves from full to near zero. Trump brought the reserves back up from the Obama zero to 110%. Biden is bringing them back to Biden zero!”

False, false and false. Obama drew 30 million barrels from a reserve that contained hundreds of millions of barrels. Trump did no such thing, except in DiLaura fantasyland. Nor did Biden, as verified by the following graph put out by the Energy Information Administration of the federal government, which runs the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Incidentally, the Biden administration plans to begin the replenishment of the reserve starting this year, since oil prices have come down.

The rest of the DiLaura piece is a rambling, disconnected tirade against Al Gore, the left, the United Nations, scientists, AOC, Greenpeace and just about anyone who doesn’t share his crackpot view of the climate change crisis.

DiLaura states, “The Arctic lost 1 million square miles of ice from 2002 to 2012! That was major news for years. When that same Arctic area regained that 1 million sq miles of ice from 2012 to 2013, in ONE year, we never heard that!”

Source: Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF)

DiLaura states, “John Coleman, The Weather Channel, went to all States and Countries that had polar bears, and examined all their records on polar bear population back as far as they went, and guess what. In all cases, polar bear populations INCREASED over those 18 years!”

Although it’s unclear what 18 year time span DiLaura is referencing, the BBC reported that “The International Union for Conservation of Nature, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, United States Geological Survey and many leading polar bear biologists have expressed grave concerns about the impact of climate change, with some predicting extinction by 2100.”

In addition, “As the climate change melts sea ice, the U.S. Geological Survey projects that two-thirds of polar bears will disappear by 2050.”

We leave you with the following pearl of wisdom on global climate change, as evinced on these pages by one J. Gary DiLaura:

“There is no evidence whatsoever that methane, CO2, so-called greenhouse gases have any effect, or if they do, what is it on anything global? There’s as much evidence about gases as there is about what effect Bigfoot has on climate change!”