The energy industry, among everyone else interested in gathering, has joined at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference, known as CERAWeek, at the Galleria in Houston, TX this week.  It began Sunday an concluded today.  Attendees and speakers included chief executives and leading thinkers of the energy world, heads of national oil industries, oil ministers, instrumental government officials, policymakers, and top financial executives.  In recent years the conference’s tone has been excitement because prices in crude oil were on the rise.  As these prices rose, doors opened to oil and gas operations to invest in renewable and alternatives.  Great!  However, this week: a much more solemn view of how to simply manage during the economic downturn will dominate discussions.  For reference, oil prices plummeted from triple digits to $40-a-barrel last year.  With this recession, demand is down.  Now, with economists influencing the agenda and environmentalists as a backdrop at the conference, they focused on this fall.  Is it entirely tied to the recession? Or does the fall reflect a more permanent shift to conservation and energy efficiency? How does awareness of environmental and economic footprint of coal in the US play a role on our daily actions to demand oil?  

Outside of the conference, I read a very amusing and interesting retaliation to promoting this awareness.  Environmental Minister of Northern Ireland, Sammy Wilson, banned local broadcast ads on climate change.  He discredited the message as “insidious propaganda.” He argues that global patterns are naturally cooling, not warming.  He says too many people are under the impression that if they drive less, or turn off the standby light on their TV for instance, they are saving the world from melting glaciers. He pinpoints the climate change as “God-driven” and says “humanity should invest in coping with it,” as opposed to trying to slow down the problem

What if Wilson were to speak at CERAWeek. I would have to disagree with him.  He is writing off excuses for humanity; that we do not need to take responsibility for the condition of our planet. God-created, I believe so.  Intended for stripping our earth of nonrenewable resources so we can live more comfortably, quickly, glamorously?  For what ever purpose you burn fossil fuels, to that extent, I believe was not a part of the design.