I was rather horrified earlier today to see the photograph that the BBC used to illustrate their [clears throat] “narrative-free” coverage of the news that the government has allowed Equinor to drill for oil at the Rosebank Field. This showed some protesters on the beach, apparently at Aberdeen (how times have changed). The horrifying thing was of course the level of ignorance on display.

I decided to annotate the photograph a little, giving the results you see before you.

The point being of course that if the outraged young folk in the photo were deprived of everything directly derived from crude oil, they would be standing naked, and clutching not their banners, but the bits of themselves they preferred the photographer not to capture for posterity. What’s that? They are wearing swimsuits under their wetsuits? Well, those are made of polyester so they vanished too.

The only labelled substance not directly derived from crude oil is of course glass fibre.

ASTERISK: Surfboards have been known to be made from ocean trash, balsawood, algae or mushrooms. However, I very much doubt that the ones shown are made of anything pretending to be sustainable.

==

“We will eventually run out of oil, but we will never run out of stupid.”

Jit, 27.ix.2023

[You may quote me on that.]

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13 Comments

  1. Thanks for that. Seeing the picture this morning, my wife and I spluttered over breakfast as we simultaneously commented on the oil-based paraphernalia filling the screen.

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  3. They are obviously shills for Big Oil with all that blatant product promotion!

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  4. Reminiscent of Greenpeace’s anti-oil, anti-plastics, kayaktivists suffering the same irony bypass…

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Well, the idiots are ruling the roost at the moment. BBC link.

    New oil and gas field consent was unlawful – judge

    Tessa Khan, executive director of Uplift, welcomed the ruling as “common sense” and said the government should now refuse approval for both projects.”

    “The climate science is crystal clear that we can’t create new oil and gas fields if we’re going to stay within safe climate thresholds,” she said.

    Yes, but without oil and gas, we’ll all die horribly.

    Liked by 2 people

  8. It’s the law, now, since the Horse Hill case. What will be interesting is to see how the government manages to persuade a Judge, in the event of the inevitable legal challenge, that a third runway at Heathrow is lawful.

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  9. What utter madness. There was no reason to consider the consequences of burning the oil from these fields. However much oil we consume, the origin of that oil makes no difference to the emissions – except for being marginally lower for local production.

    Sorry for stating the obvious!

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  10. Mike, it would be a trivial exercise to calculate the effect on climate of burning every drop of oil they intend to extract – with suitable error bars. It is an exercise I might undertake at some point, but I can already say with absolutely certainty that it will be too small to measure in terms of temperature.

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  11. The BBC opened up its article on the Court decision to a Have Your Say, and the highest-rated comments are all critical. I rather liked this one:

    If scope 3 emissions are to be included in all oil and gas projects, then they should be included in all energy projects which will make them all unviable. Why are we not including all the emissions for the production of turbines, the shipping of these to the UK and the energy used in China for the steel used? Another farcical decision that will destroy security and jobs.

    Liked by 2 people

  12. The BBC article also has this predictable statement –

    “BBC News visited the yard earlier this month and witnessed engineers making final adjustments to a vast and complex array of shining pipes, valves and dials. On a misty and mild winter’s day, the platform loomed up beneath a giant red and white crane, boasting a gleaming aluminium helipad and a bright orange lifeboat. The structure to support the platform, known as a jacket, is already on the seabed 150 miles east of Aberdeen.

    Several Norwegians we spoke to on our brief visit to Verdal, some 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle, said the weather was remarkably warm for January.

    This would be no surprise to climate scientists who have pointed out that Norway is home to some of the fastest-warming places on earth.”

    PS – 2186 comments so far. top rated at the moment with up 1718 down 375 –

    “Meat Pie 12:03

    Bad news for energy security

    Bad news for the economy

    Bad news for the planet. . . as we import more from worse sources further away

    Good news for short-sighted eco-warriors who can’t see the future further than the end of their nose.”

    Like

  13. Jit: that’s a good point but it’s not the significance (or not) of the emissions that matters….it’s the fact that they will be the same whatever the source of the oil/gas. Therefore they are immaterial to consideration of the licences. Blocking local supply will not reduce our oil & gas consumption; it will just increase the amounts that are imported, with all of the consequent negative impacts on jobs, profits, the balance of payments, energy security, etc.

    The campaigners must know this so it is the height of hypocrisy for them to use this argument. Their actions will have no effect on the level of emissions. They are using the same warped logic that trumpets the reduction in UK emissions while turning a blind eye to the fact that it is largely due to the off-shoring of so much manufacturing and production.

    Excuse the rant. I’m sure you know all this; it’s just that it really grinds my gears.

    Liked by 1 person

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