CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA – DECEMBER 21: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) … [+]
The Pander Bear Award: Elizabeth Warren, for her support of a fracking ban, something that appeals to progessives she needs in the primaries but is a case of science denialism.
The Andy Warhol 15 Minutes of Fame Award: Greta Thunberg
Good Intentions Gone Awry Award: Everyone who raised domestic energy prices and was met by rioters
Erick Brenn Spinning Plates Award: Elon Musk for managing to develop several new auto models, work on the Hyperloop, plan a mission to Mars, and undertake the Neuralink
The “if you can’t live without me, why aren’t you dead yet?” Award to fracking opponents who insist that the practice is destroying the planet
The Walking Dead Award: The shale industry, which keeps adding production while the news is almost uniformly bad
The Push-me Pull-you Award to all those who blame consumers for the drug problem, but producers for carbon emissions. (Used to be the Janus award, but was renamed due to the decline in classical education.)
The Erich von Daniken “I don’t understand it, but I’ll explain it anyway” Award: Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who described pollution from a fracking site that wasn’t a fracking site
George Michael “You’ve got to have faith” Award to peak oil advocates, a few of whom are still insistent that the end is near, or past, or something
Mark Twain “Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated” Award to the Ghawar oil field (I still have my “Ghawar is dying” bumper sticker from the early 2000s)
The Inadvertent Fellow Traveler: Anti-fracking activists, who are unknowingly supported by Russia
The Meatloaf “I’ll do anything for love, but not that” Award to anti-nuclear environmentalists.
The Beatles’ “I get buy with a little help from my friends” Award to OPEC
The “I’m all right Jack” Award to Berkeley, California for its ban on natural gas in new buildings, shoving up housing prices in an already inflated market.
