Visiting Colorado's Biggest Oil & Gas Conference, Plowing Through Substance-Free Green Bullshit
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The first ninety-minute panel discussion of the morning offered approximately zero clues to understanding how the fossil fuel industry is coming to grips with climate change, despite broadly covering the areas of political, social and economic changes since the last energy summit occurred in 2019, before the pandemic. “Obviously, climate change is a big topic of the day,” said Colorado Politics columnist Eric Sondermann at one point, but then he and his fellow panelists said nothing else about it. Instead, they focused on how the pandemic is bad for the economy, and how a weak Republican Party in Colorado spells trouble for oil and gas. Noticeably absent? Actual politicians.
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“So what did you make of his comment that there is no climate crisis?” I asked the table. “Because that would seem to butt up against the U.N. Secretary-General’s recent remarks that the IPCC’s findings amount to a ‘code red for humanity.’” A geologist named Rick Palm spoke up. “I think what [Wright] said, to back it up, was all about death rates,” he said. “It wasn’t about whether there is an increase in climate change or not.”
So climate change, I was learning, is real. But a climate crisis? Perhaps a bridge too far for this crowd. Just then, waiters wearing masks appeared with breaded chicken and rice dishes. Afterward, conversation turned to the terrible wildfires in California that were pouring so much smoke across the American West. “I just wish we could do something about it,” said Haggart.
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Dan Haley, president and CEO of COGA, who had played event host all day, jumped in. “When we have conversations about climate change,” he said, “it’s important to start with the work this industry has already done to reduce our emissions, and we should be proud of that.” The worst thing Colorado could do? Become California, said Haley, “a state that says fossil fuels are the bad guys, and they import fossil fuels from foreign countries because they can’t keep their grid going in the summertime.” “That increases climate change,” he claimed, since fossil fuels from other nations might not be produced with the sort of clean techniques utilized in Colorado. The main problem, he told the crowd, has been messaging.
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https://www.westword.com/news/climate-change-colorado-oil-gas-energy-summit-12235757