Thread by @shellenberger

The Biden admin. talks tough on budget, climate, and OPEC, but it is being publicly humiliated daily

“Saudi Arabia & OPEC not only refused to boost output but declined to make even a token gesture to placate Washington. It was nothing but a flat-out no”

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

“Now, Biden has to match words with action or risk looking impotent… the biggest problem is that his administration’s public diplomacy failed to move OPEC, underlining the limits of its influence with a group that once used to pay close attention to what Washington had to say.”

There are short term fixes but the only real solution is to increase US oil and gas production. The problem with both short and long term fixes is that they further expose the fraudulence of the administration’s supposed commitment to climate action, particularly electric cars

The official position of Democrats, Biden admin, NYT/WaPo/media is that electric vehicles are ready to replace petroleum-powered ones, they just need some charging stations. But that’s absurd. Our transportation infrastructure will remain dependent on petroleum for decades.

OPEC’s public rebuffing of Biden comes on the heels of China and Russia rebuffing Biden at G-20 & UN climate talks

“Not only Russia, but China, basically didn't show up in terms of any commitments to deal with climate change,” Biden complained

cbsnews.com/live-updates/b…

Biden’s failure to get infrastructure legislation done before G-20 & the election proved catastrophic. He let Pelosi hold it hostage as part of her strategy to muscle Manchin and Sinema, but it backfired, contributing to Biden’s weakness at G-20/UN, & to Tuesday’s election losses

You could blame Pelosi & the progressive caucus but Biden could have demanded that she not hold infrastructure hostage to their radical demands and made a big show of its bipartisanship. His approval rating would have increased rather than decreased & Dems would‘ve be done better

Biden should also have expanded oil & gas production in the US rather than throttling it, and explained to American people why natural gas was the biggest reason the US reduced CO2 emissions 22% below 2005 levels, and why oil consumption is relatively inelastic

Of course, all of that would have required that Biden have a realistic vision of energy independence, decarbonization, and the long-term transition to a H2 economy, and not have relied on @NRDC @BlackRock and other entities produced by the the Malthusian/investment banker class

As such, we should see Biden’s weak leadership as a consequence of the collapse of the progressive/green/neoliberal agenda, which rested on the bad physics/economics/politics of energy dilute renewables/batteries/EVs. Physics bats last.

There are troubling national security implications for Biden’s weak leadership and America’s decline. Biden is being rebuffed by China & Saudi Arabia simultaneously. The two nations have grown closer after US refused to build nuclear plants for Saudis:

nypost.com/2020/08/17/don…

Because Malthusian & anti-nuclear greens put forward children as their main spokespersons, many people underestimate the serious consequences of their demands to divest from oil & gas, and shut down nuclear plants. The energy crisis & China-Saudi nuclear alliance = wake-up calls

Democrats are so ideological right now, so in the grip of woke religion, and Biden is so old, and never had the mental software to triangulate, they are likely going to have to lose more elections before they move away from self-defeating energy policies

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/why-progress…

The Biden Admin. is sticking with its claim that POTUS is helpless to do anything about oil prices other than plea to OPEC, but the strain of maintaining that fiction is showing. Witness the stress laugh from Energy Sec @JenGranholm this morning

Below I debunk the false claim that the USA, the world’s #1 oil producer, is helpless to do anything about oil prices other than beg the Saudis and Russians to increase production

Post-covid recovery & supply chain bottlenecks are contributing to higher oil prices, but "environmentally-minded shareholders & government regulation are stopping investment, say market analysts....even as demand roars back to life"

ft.com/content/37947e…