U.S. States Producing the Most Oil by commodity.com

Thinking about the environment right now and how oil production contributes to environmental devastation. Accordingly, check out this not-so-spoiler alert: Texas is the top oil producer and among the worst polluters, as well, as per this 2014 piece in the Texas Tribune: Texas Among Nation's Worst Water Polluters.

-Angela Valenzuela

U.S. States Producing the Most Oil 

Last Updated: October 28, 2021

Photo Credit: Richard Thornton / Shutterstock 

With gasoline prices reaching their highest levels since 2014 this fall, consumers, policymakers, and economic experts have lately turned their attention to the state of oil production in the U.S. and worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic has been an uneasy time for oil, as with many other products and sectors of the economy. The price of oil futures briefly turned negative in the first months of the pandemic and remained at relatively low levels through most of 2020 and the first part of 2021. This trend is partially a product of reduced demand for fuel and a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. While demand has recovered as the pandemic has gone on longer, oil production has been affected by the global supply chain struggles that many other industries are also experiencing. As a result, oil prices have rebounded to their highest levels in more than half a decade. The volatility of the oil markets during the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the challenges of having a critical product like oil be part of a complex globalized economy. Even before the pandemic, many political and economic leaders sought to lessen U.S. dependence on foreign sources of oil to make the country more self-reliant in its energy mix. The U.S. has had success on this front in recent years. The U.S. saw a steady decline in oil production from the late 1980s to the mid-2000s, a product of a range of factors including decreased demand, the growth of the environmental conservation movement, and increased involvement in the Middle East. Oil production in the U.S. bottomed out at 5 million barrels per day in 2008. Since then, policymakers have prioritized domestic production and the rise of techniques like fracking has reduced the cost of extracting petroleum, and U.S. production has boomed as a result. In 2018, the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s leading producer of crude oil. 

The result of this growth in domestic production has been a sharp decline in petroleum imports. Imports have fallen since their peak of 13.7 million barrels per day in 2005 to only 7.85 million in 2020. After taking exports of 8.5 million into account, the U.S. actually became a net exporter of oil for the first time last year.

RELATED With CFDs, a trader is making a wager about whether the price of crude oil (or another underlying asset) will increase or decrease over an agreed-upon period of time. Learn more about CFDs in our CFD brokers guide. 

In the U.S., as is the case globally, oil reserves are unevenly distributed. Some states produce significantly more than others. Texas is by far the leading oil producer in the U.S. at nearly 1.8 billion barrels annually — that’s more than four times the total of runner-up state, North Dakota. States in the Plains and Mountain West fare best, along with Alaska and Gulf Coast states like Louisiana and Mississippi. The data used in this analysis is from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. To determine the states producing the most oil, researchers at Commodity.com calculated the total annual crude oil production in 2020. In the event of a tie, the state with the higher 10-year change in annual crude oil production was ranked higher. Researchers also included the latest statistics on proven oil reserves, the number of operable petroleum refineries, and per capita oil consumption. Here are the states producing the most oil. 

U.S. States That Produce the Most Oil

Continue reading here to read the rank-order of oil producers: https://commodity.com/blog/states-producing-oil/

Are We Pushing the Planet Past Its Tipping Points? by Umair Haque

It's anguishing to view the daily apocalyptic scenes of the Dixie Fire in California and the massive fires near Athens, Greece, that are destroying their last remaining forests. According to a July 15, 2021 CNN news report, close to a million acres in 12 states from 107 fires have scorched the Earth! 

We are in a definite global crisis with our planet rapidly over-heating. I appreciate how Umair Haque captures the big picture in just a few words. Note: In another piece, Umair notes our country's disproportionate role in CO2 emissions.

To go deeper, consider reading David Wallace-Wells titled, "The Uninhabitable Earth"—also available on Audible.com.  Jess Goodell's piece titled, "Hothouse Earth Is Merely the Beginning of the End," featured in the Rolling Stone, is also informative. Taken together, we in the U.S. have a special responsibility to address climate change due to our excessive carbon footprint that's killing the planet.

To Umair's point, we absolutely are not meant to survive the planet we are creating. 

To that end, we must educate ourselves on such matters. What are out schools doing to promote environmental awareness? We should all take a close look at President Biden's campaign promises on climate change and whether they go far enough. Exploring and getting involved in local efforts should be an ongoing task for us all.

Here in Austin's hill country, experts say that it's not whether raging fires will at some point visit us, but rather when this will happen. In fact, they already have, costing lives.

I see all of this as profoundly spiritual. Rather than hand-wringing and attempting to distance ourselves from these calamities, we should engage in ceremony, mourning the loss of animal life, vegetation, and human lives while humbling ourselves as a species to the consequences of humanity's bottomless delusional conceit about our harmful impact on the only planet we call home. 

This hubris is born out of our extractive relationship to nature to the point of being closed to the idea of our interconnectedness to it as our Indigenous elders and ancestors have always known.

This should concern us all. Not only are future generations at risk, but the present one, too. At the rate that the Earth is heating, could it already be too late to transition away from a carbon-based economy? That's the question at hand.

For those losing their homes, businesses, towns, and livelihoods, it already is too late for them, unfortunately. When will we learn?

-Angela Valenzuela

Are We Pushing the Planet Past Its Tipping Points?

It Feels a Lot Like We’re Taking the Planet Past the Point of No Return

by Umair Haque |  August 6, 2021

See that apocalyptic pic above? That’s the town of Greenville, California. It doesn’t exist anymore. The Dixie Fire incinerated it as it raged through the Sierra Nevada. And there’s plenty more where that came from. Floods in Europe. Germany underwater. Asia flooded, too. Twin heat domes scorching Siberia and North America. Small Canadian towns — Canadian — some of the hottest places on earth.

Something feels very, very wrong. To you, probably, as it does to me. But also to climate scientists. The frequency and magnitude of these “extreme events” is literally off the charts of their worst predictions. Even the experts are being left staggered by how rapidly and severely the planet is warming — or, more accurately, overheating.

The question that needs to be asked is a grim and difficult one. It goes like this.

Are we pushing the planet past its tipping points?

Let me explain. If you’re not versed in these basics of climate science, you should be. It’s not just warming alone that’s bad. It’s that warming triggers “feedbacks” — changes in the planet’s great systems that then accelerate warming. How much? From anywhere from apocalyptic to cataclysmic. Feedbacks can turn a slow, centuries long trend of warming into a quick few decades of sudden, incredibly fast, cataclysmic overheating.

“Tipping points occur when global heating pushes temperatures beyond a critical threshold, leading to accelerated and irreversible impacts.”

How fast are we talking? We’re talking about abrupt warming that happens within one human lifetime. Unfortunately, one that happens to be ours.

What kinds of feedbacks could produce the rapid warming we’re beginning to see — the sudden, abrupt overheating that’s leaving even climate scientists shocked?

To understand that, you need to know about the planet’s great ecologies. The ocean currents recirculate warm water and cool it, keeping the temperature of the ocean relatively low. There are the polar ice caps, which reflect sunlight, and cool the planet. The great rainforests, like the Amazon, absorb carbon from the skies, and breathe out fresh air.

Those you probably have some awareness of — here are a few you might not know about.

The boreal forests — the northern ones — are the largest ecosystem on the planet. They absorb vast amounts of carbon, too. Then there’s the northern permafrost, which keeps massive deposits of methane trapped — and the rocks in those areas do, too. The monsoons keep Africa and Asia cool, and their soils fertile. The coral reefs keep coastal areas of oceans healthy and vibrant with life.

These great ecologies are are also the planet’s great tipping points. There are, depending on how you count, and who you ask, from between eight to ten of them — I’ve barely touched on them, but this isn’t a book. The point is: these are systems we really don’t want to mess with.

Why not? Because collapsing these ecosystems will almost certainly lead to runaway global warming. Each one of these great ecologies plays an equilibrating or balancing role. Push them too far, and they break apart — but breaking them leads to feedbacks. For example, if the ocean currents slow down, and no longer circulate warm water, because the planet’s gotten too hot, then it heats even faster. If the poles don’t reflect light, because there’s little ice left, then the planet heats that much faster.

See what climate scientists mean by “feedbacks” now? You can think of them as simply a vicious circle. The point is to understand that global warming isn’t just a matter of first-order effects — but second and third order ones, too. Heating the planet so much breaks ecosystems, which protected the planet from heating up, and without them, a kind of chain reaction begins.

Now that you’re acquainted with the basics of climate science — and my apologies if I’ve explained it clumsily — let’s go through how many of tipping points we actually appear to be reaching. This is where things start to get pretty frightening, by the way.

Ocean currents? The most important one is the Gulf Stream. But in the last few months, “climate scientists have detected warning signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, one of the planet’s main potential tipping points. The research found ‘an almost complete loss of stability over the last century’ of the currents that researchers call the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC).”

Did you get that?

“The signs of destabilisation being visible already is something that I wouldn’t have expected and that I find scary,” said Niklas Boers, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who did the research. “It’s something you just can’t [allow to] happen.”

Ocean currents slowing and stopping are probably the biggest, most dangerous tipping point of all. Hit that point, and you get into the stuff of sci-fi movies. Just imagine what happens if oceans can’t cool the planet’s waters anymore. Bang. We all cook.

But we’re only just beginning.

The Australian wildfires have wiped out at least a billion animals.  This is apocalyptic, at a level that is hard to grasp even as it is deeply saddening and distressing.  Humanity and the planet are in an epic drama for survival, no less.  And where is the leadership?  Wanting to engage in never-ending wars?!  Focusing on separating families and putting children in cages?!

Give me a break.  We should end all wars, period—beginning with our war against children and families in our very own hemisphere.  Not only is destroying people's lives wrong, but the planet cannot afford this given that our biggest, existential threat is the clear climate emergency that we're in.  How is this not obvious?

We need to collectively get on task with addressing this emergency in all its dimensions and implications.  Our children, grandchildren, and the as yet unborn generations need us.  Our species survival is literally at stake.  

What are our schools doing?  What are they teaching our children?  We should have public oversight on science curriculum to make sure that the truth of global warming and climate change are getting taught.  Let's do what the late Brazilian educator Paolo Freire suggested and put learning at the service of social justice.  The teaching opportunities at the local level are enormous.  We can all do something about this, particularly our children who can research such things and hold us as adults to account.  Children like Greta Thunberg and organizations Youth Strike 4 Climate are leading.  They can join the movement!

The kids are picking up on all of this regardless, but not in a way that helps them channel their grief into action.  If anything, these news are likely creating anxieties, "eco-anxiety," and aggravating forms and levels of mental illness. My own students have shared with me their own anxieties about what is happening to the planet and how it's depressing them.  What are our universities doing?  Who are our environmental policy experts in higher education?  And are they involved in actual policy at local, state, and national levels?  To what extent are they partnering with K-12 schools to create careers and pathways to certificates and degrees in Environmental Education?

What is the media doing?  Are these news not on the front page of every newspaper possible, in both print and online versions?  What are our cities and states doing?  We should be having community meetings, town halls, workshops, task forces, standing committees, and so on, everywhere.  How are we leading at the national level?  What's happening internationally, in this regard?

I don't see a whole lot going on right now and I'm fairly well informed.  It doesn't help to have leaders that don't "believe" in climate change as if there's anything there to really believe or not believe.  For most deniers or unbelievers, I sense that it's less that they're ignorant or unintelligent, and more that their personal and corporate interests are incompatible with a progressive, Earth-conscious vision for change—even though their own survival is at stake.

I shudder to think of the consequences that accrue based on the conversations that we're not having as a polity—particularly here in the First World when we are the planet's biggest polluters.  All of this is widely documented.

So as communities, we have to take—or take back—the agenda and discourse and have thoughtful, meaningful conversations and deliberative discourse coupled with action items and multi-faceted agendas for change.  We should hold our school boards and city officials accountable.  Neither should these entities work in silos, but work together for the common good.

This also means advancing comprehensive immigration reform and thusly eliminating the genocidal weapon of mass distraction that our politics and policies along the U.S.-Mexico border represent.  It all connects.

Doing nothing is a luxury that neither we, nor the planet, can afford.

-Angela Valenzuela

#GreenNewDeal #ExctinctionRebellion #FreeTheChildren #NoBorderWall

Scientist warns of ‘extinction crisis’ as Australia wildfires wipe out a billion animals

Andy Wells

Freelance Writer

,

Yahoo News UK•January 9, 2020

The devastation from the Australia wildfires has reportedly wiped out a billion animals, leading to what one scientist describes as an “extinction crisis”.

Professor Chris Dickman told Metro that the fires mean the total dead could rise in the coming weeks and months, as temperatures in the country start to rise again.

Worse still, Prof Dickman, a leading ecologist from the University of Sydney, believes some species may be wiped out for good due to a lack of wet refuges.

He told the paper: “Some of the species which are of greatest concern already have small populations and restricted geographical distributions…

Continue reading here.

Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050, New Research Shows

Seriously, instead of wars and rumors of war, the impending catastrophe that global warming and the present climate emergency represents, should be THE STORY of our times.  Check out these predictions for Viet Nam, Thailand, Iraq, Kuwait, the cities of Mumbai, Shanghai, and Alexandria. This an incomplete, but helpful rendering. 

The U.S. needs to stop isolating itself as a country, stop terrorizing our children and families in crisis along the U.S.-Mexico border, get about ending all wars, and address this impending climate crisis as a global community. All countries need to do this.  One can only imagine how much war itself has contributed to the heating, let alone destruction, of the Earth.  There is no "Planet B," my friends.

Consider reading David Wallace-Wells' book, “The Uninhabitable Earth” (here's the New York Magazine version; it's the most downloaded piece for the Magazine) to get informed and educated about the climate emergency that we're currently in.  

With the rising temperature of the Earth, many bad things are still yet to come even if we ended all carbon emissions today.  This doesn't mean that we still don't seek to end all carbon emissions, but rather that we try at this point as humanity to avert the worst of the foreseeable worst.

Now, it's a question of adaptation and preparing in ways suggested herein.  This is dire, but there is always hope and we must push our political leadership at local, state, and national levels to prioritize ours and others' survival as a global and international community.  After all, we ourselves may someday become "climate refugees."

-Angela Valenzuela

#ExtinctionRebellion #ClimateEmergency

Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050, New Research Shows

By Denise Lu and Christopher Flavelle Oct. 29, 2019

阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版

Rising seas could affect three times more people by 2050 than previously thought, according to new research, threatening to all but erase some of the world’s great coastal cities.

The authors of a paper published Tuesday developed a more accurate way of calculating land elevation based on satellite readings, a standard way of estimating the effects of sea level rise over large areas, and found that the previous numbers were far too optimistic. The new research shows that some 150 million people are now living on land that will be below the high-tide line by midcentury.

Southern Vietnam could all but disappear.

The first map shows earlier expectations of submerged land by 2050. But the new outlook, the second map, indicates that the bottom part of the country will be underwater at high tide.

More than 20 million people in Vietnam, almost one-quarter of the population, live on land that will be inundated.

Much of Ho Chi Minh City, the nation’s economic center, would disappear with it, according to the research, which was produced by Climate Central, a science organization based in New Jersey, and published in the journal Nature Communications. The projections don’t account for future population growth or land lost to coastal erosion.

Standard elevation measurements using satellites struggle to differentiate the true ground level from the tops of trees or buildings, said Scott A. Kulp, a researcher at Climate Central and one of the paper’s authors. So he and Benjamin Strauss, Climate Central’s chief executive, used artificial intelligence to determine the error rate and correct for it.

In Thailand, more than 10 percent of citizens now live on land that is likely to be inundated by 2050, compared with just 1 percent according to the earlier technique. The political and commercial capital, Bangkok, is particularly imperiled.

Climate change will put pressure on cities in multiple ways, said Loretta Hieber Girardet, a Bangkok resident and United Nations disaster risk-reduction official. Even as global warming floods more places, it will also push poor farmers off the land to seek work in cities.

“It is a dire formula,” she said.

Land underwater at high tide

Populated area

Old projection for 2050

New projection for 2050

CHINA

Shanghai

East China

Sea

In Shanghai, one of Asia’s most important economic engines, water threatens to consume the heart of the city and many other cities around it.

The findings don’t have to spell the end of those areas. The new data shows that 110 million people already live in places that are below the high tide line, which Mr. Strauss attributes to protective measures like seawalls and other barriers. Cities must invest vastly greater sums in such defenses, Mr. Strauss said, and they must do it quickly.

But even if that investment happens, defensive measures can go only so far. Mr. Strauss offered the example of New Orleans, a city below sea level that was devastated in 2005 when its extensive levees and other protections failed during Hurricane Katrina. “How deep a bowl do we want to live in”? he asked.

Buildings

Land underwater at high tide

Old projection for 2050

New projection for 2050

INDIA

Mumbai

Arabian

Sea

The new projections suggest that much of Mumbai, India’s financial capital and one of the largest cities in the world, is at risk of being wiped out. Built on what was once a series of islands, the city’s historic downtown core is particularly vulnerable.

Over all, the research shows that countries should start preparing now for more citizens to relocate internally, according to Dina Ionesco of the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental group that coordinates action on migrants and development.

“We’ve been trying to ring the alarm bells,” Ms. Ionesco said. “We know that it’s coming.” There is little modern precedent for this scale of population movement, she added.

Land underwater at high tide

Populated area

Old projection for 2050

New projection for 2050

Mediterranean

Sea

Alexandria

EGYPT

The disappearance of cultural heritage could bring its own kind of devastation. Alexandria, Egypt, founded by Alexander the Great around 330 B.C., could be lost to rising waters.

In other places, the migration caused by rising seas could trigger or exacerbate regional conflicts.

Basra, the second-largest city in Iraq, could be mostly underwater by 2050. If that happens, the effects could be felt well beyond Iraq’s borders, according to John Castellaw, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general who was chief of staff for United States Central Command during the Iraq War.

Land underwater at high tide

Populated area

Old projection for 2050

New projection for 2050

IRAQ

Basra

Persian

Gulf

KUWAIT

Further loss of land to rising waters there “threatens to drive further social and political instability in the region, which could reignite armed conflict and increase the likelihood of terrorism,” said General Castellaw, who is now on the advisory board of the Center for Climate and Security, a research and advocacy group in Washington.

“So this is far more than an environmental problem,” he said. “It’s a humanitarian, security and possibly military problem too.”

Population data from WorldPop and building footprints from OpenStreetMap.