Ewan Gibbs

Warm ocean water, not air temperature, drove massive Antarctic ice retreat after the last ice age  - British Antarctic Survey A new study concludes that warm ocean water was the primary driver of major West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat since the end of the last ice age 18,000 years ago.

🌊 Warm ocean water, not air temperature, drove massive Antarctic ice retreat after the last ice age

www.bas.ac.uk/news/warm-oc...

Lloyds have been making the news!

Scottish nationalists who have shifted to the right on this are currently saying look to Denmark!

If this thread on North Sea oil was good enough to upset Aaron Banks it's good enough for you. Read it whilst you still can.

I think you’re also right to highlight that the North Sea is foundational to the larger story of British capitalism since the late twentieth century.

Absolutely. There was a political battle over direction of the North Sea, partly Labour vs Tory but partly within the 74-9 Labour government too. Benn and the left who favoured policies much closer to Norway were ultimately isolated and defeated, especially once Thatcher and Lawson were in charge.

This way leveraged private corporate knowledge and capability but retained control of supply chains, experience development of Norwegians, and sale of the product. This resulted in them having a sovereign wealth fund rivalling some Middle East countries. Political decision-making is consequential.

Are you suggesting this ends in a US east of Suez withdrawal?

Drilling for more oil will not make Britain secure The government says that new drilling licences are in the interests of self-sufficiency and national security. In reality they are anything but

I wrote this article for @prospectmagazine.co.uk in 2023 when Rishi Sunak tried to make the case for drilling in the North Sea as a response to international relations cries. It was a poor case for security then and it's a worse one now.

Drilling for more oil will not make Britain secure The government says that new drilling licences are in the interests of self-sufficiency and national security. In reality they are anything but

I wrote this article for @prospectmagazine.co.uk in 2023 when Rishi Sunak tried to make the case for drilling in the North Sea as a response to international relations cries. It was a poor case for security then and it's a worse one now.

The right-wingers who are today banging on about government causing the decline of the North Sea don't want to see decisive action through government intervention, owning and planning which would be necessary to deliver cheaper and more secure energy and prosperity.

British government should aim for a much more rapid electrification of our energy system, to control energy prices, for domestic users but especially industrial consumers and potentially to use North Sea capacity we do have to serve interests of industrial hydrocarbons users.

The key players in North Sea oil and gas production decline and job losses haven't been government ministers or regulators. It's private companies who closed down fields and refineries as majors like BP and Shell exited and passed them on to smaller firms.

We've now been through a quarter of century of declining production and workforce lay offs, which have accelerated since the oil price crash of 2014. Even price spike in 2022 didn't result in a demonstrable recovery in the sector though.

It's true that in the 1970s achieving some form of energy self-sufficiency was a major policy goal, pursued much more vigorously by the left/Labour than the right or the Tories. This came to fruition in a form c.1980s-2000s.

North Sea production peaked around the turn of the millennium and Britain began importing more oil and gas than it sold on the international markets in the mid-2000s. This had nothing to do with ambitions for net zero, it's connected to economics and geology.

The North Sea sector is entirely dictated around serving global markets. Almost all of our oil production, around 80%, is exported. We also now only have four refineries left in Britain so it's not clear how increasing domestic production will solve supply problems.

Following the price surge, the British right are pedalling a fantasy of self-sufficiency through North Sea oil. This has no serious basis in reality. Britain has been a net energy importer for 20 years. It has nothing to do with net zero and everything to do with decades of declining production🧵

Tuesday sun run 🏃‍♂️ 🌞

Brothers and sisters across the ocean

I might support the social media ban for myself to be honest.

It would be great if Britain didn't operate an electricity price mechanism which leaves our energy bills dependent on the price of gas. Even as gas is being replaced by renewables, it still dominates the price we pay for electricity.

Cheers!

Suspect this is right!

Looking for best reading, listening and viewing on the new Gulf War. Any recommendations welcome.

Good Sunday on the Shale Trail in West Lothian. I was shown around some of the remains of Scotland’s first oil boom by my friend Brendan Moohan, a former striking miner who is a local poet and writer.

I think that’s definitely happened - there’s a generational memory gap on public ownership and physical planning.

Reform also led by creatures of the financial casino world

Reform coming out strongly in favour of the American and Israeli attack on Iran feels like a very revealing moment. It confirms their increasingly Tory nationalist rather than more populist isolationist type leanings. I can’t imagine Reform voters are nearly so hawkish.

We live in a world where what matters most are material flows of goods, especially energy supplies, along with industrial capacity and military power. Britain is governed by people stuck in the immaterial economy of the 1990s. We have all suffered for it and will suffer more.