I, like most geoscientists I have met in resource industries, consider myself an environmentalist. We take a pragmatic view that our standard of living requires the use of natural resources, and it is our responsibility to discover and produce those resources with minimal negative impact – on the environment or society. Oil and gas have enabled the greatest advancements in human history – in reducing poverty, improving life expectancies and all the social benefits that followed – health, literacy, income, transportation etc etc. As outlined in my review, the human race has unwittingly been conducting a huge geo-engineering project for the last 150 years by recycling carbon into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, because climate scientists have clung to an old paradigm, we are depriving future generations of cheap, clean energy and instead wasting trillions of dollars in an unnecessary and futile pursuit to rid the atmosphere of carbon dioxide
Every energy option has benefits and risks/costs and natural gas remains the most attractive fuel – plentiful, energy-rich, clean, least harmful and smallest footprint option – once you get past the misrepresentation of carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Natural gas is also a renewable resource – the thick coal measures that source oil and gas in Taranaki are currently within the generation window and gas is being actively generated.
This is not an anti-renewables statement; each energy source must be compared fairly against competitors. What puzzles me is the absence of scrutiny for other renewables – alarmists support massive wind farms offshore, where there is a risk they will be more damaging than offshore mining, interfere with whale communication and navigation, and kill birds, particularly large, slow seabirds such as the northern Albatross.