Brexit: a subversive in Brussels

The man from Gazprom: Ugo Bardi's speech at the hearing "EU Energy Security Strategy under the conditions of the Internal Energy Market" at the European Parliament, in Brussels, on Nov 5, 2014. 

I already described this experience of mine at the EU parliament in Brussels, in 2014 but, f you have 12 minutes, you may like watch this clip with my full speech. You can notice how I had noted the start of the collapse of the oil price. I couldn't imagine, at that time, that prices would tumble to less than $40 per barrel, but I had correctly identified the troubles that would befall on the shale oil and the shale gas industry. Nor I could exactly predict when shale oil production would peak in the US (it did in mid 2015). But I warned the parliament not to put too much trust in these overhyped new sources of energy.

Not shown in the clip is the reaction of the audience. After I had stopped speaking, someone from the public took up the microphone, saying, "I completely disagree with what you said." Then, he rose up and he left the hall. Later on, they told me that he was a member of the UKIP. During the debate, someone raised the old canard that the US had attained "energy independence" by means of shale oil and that they were becoming a net energy exporter, but I had no possibility to answer back. The whole hearing had been carefully engineered to give the impression that Europe would soon receive plentiful supplies of oil and gas from the booming shale industry in the USA. No need to bow down to the evil threats of Putin and his minions. Some days after that the meeting was over, I was told that in the halls of the European parliament people were saying that I was paid by Gazprom. 

So, you see? It is not just the Britons. There has to be reason for this:

 (image from the Guardian)

Centennial of the death of Ishi, the last of the Yahi indians

A hundred years ago, on March 25, 1916, Ishi died in San Francisco. He was the last of the Yahis of California, exterminated over a period of a few decades, starting with the great "gold rush" of mid 19th century.

The story of the Yahis, as well as of many other Indians of California, is still actual: it is the story of how the search for mineral resources leaves behind a trail of death and destruction. In Ishi's times, it was because of gold; in our times, it is because of crude oil and other minerals that we consider even more important than gold. Human attitudes don't seem to change so much in these things and will probably remain unchanged as long as there remains something to be extracted on this planet.

A few years ago, I wrote a brief story of Ishi for my daughter Donata (in Italian, here)