Oil demand is slowing, worldwide

Though too slowly. A lot more intervention - like bringing down the pathological greedheads at Big Oil - is needed. "Needed" and "will happen" are different things.

In the coming years, the world’s (increasing) demand for oil is predicted to decline and almost come to a halt by 2028. A new report from the International Energy Agency confirmed that high prices and security of supply concerns caused by the global energy crisis is shifting the world towards renewable energy faster.

The report titled, Oil 2023, forecasts “global oil demand will rise by 6 percent between 2022 and 2028 to reach 105.7 million barrels per day (mb/d),” but despite this cumulative increase, “annual demand growth is expected to shrivel from 2.4 mb/d this year to just 0.4 mb/d in 2028, putting a peak in demand in sight,” a press release from International Energy Agency (IEA) said. - Nation of Change

Renewables installation is speeding up, but needs to speed up faster

A lot faster. Plenty of remaining impediments need to be removed, by any means available.

But whether Earthlings have the political and sociological capability to alter that lethal global warming trajectory remains an unanswered question. The historical record is inauspicious in this regard. Time will tell. And since time is short, the answer will be apparent before long. What we do have is the economic and technological capability to stop well short of that disastrous 4.9° F.

One of the quickest ways to get greenhouse gas emissions reduced is to greatly reduce demand for products that generate them. The progress on renewables is on the cusp of doing just that. Creating and spreading environmentally sound technology is, of course, far from the only thing that must be done to stop the wrecking of our planet. In that regard, there is plenty to talk about. But it’s encouraging to see some elements of the antidote accelerating along with the acceleration of climate impacts. The International Energy Agency’s latest outlook on renewables including energy storage is upbeat in the matter. - Daily Kos

The FTC is trying to deal with some of Big Tech's crap

As best they can, with Congress doing nothing.

The Federal Trade Commission Act only gives the agency the authority to regulate “unfair or deceptive” business practices. For years, privacy experts assumed that meant consumers were out of luck: as long as companies weren’t telling outright lies, they were free to do as they pleased with your data. The FTC reached a $5 billion privacy sentiment with Facebook in 2018, but the case hinged on ways the company misled users — rather than allegations that the unpleasant ways Facebook used data were inherently unlawful.

But under the leadership of Lina Khan, the Biden-appointed FTC chairperson, the commission has taken up data misconduct with unprecedented vigor.

The FTC does have some rule making authority, but it’s a slow, arduous process. In the meantime, it is changing tech policy by stretching existing regulations to places no one believed they could go. - Gizmodo

Corporate bosses basically admit to massive price-fixing

Legally, price "gouging" refers to taking advantage of disasters like hurricanes, epidemics, etc., to run prices way up on items people have no choice but to buy. Which is the only reason that I'm not using "gouging," here.

An analysis released Tuesday shows that executives at some of the top publicly traded companies in the United States aren't exactly being coy about using their pricing power to hike costs for consumers and boost revenues and profits—which are then dished out to wealthy shareholders.

The progressive watchdog group Accountable.US noted in its new report that "some of the largest general consumer S&P 500 companies have admitted to benefiting from increased prices as their net profits increased year-over-year and they rewarded shareholders with billions in handouts."

The report quotes directly from the executives of Kimberly-Clark, PepsiCo, General Mills, Tyson Foods, and other major U.S. companies. - Common Dreams

How many people has SCOTUS marked for death?

Like those behind these decisions, or more to the point their right-wing billionaire string-pullers, care.

Three landmark Supreme Court decisions in 2022 have each been widely criticized by health experts as threats to public health, but a study released Thursday in JAMA Network Open modeled their collective toll. The study found that, by conservative estimates, the decisions will lead to thousands of deaths in the coming years, with tens of thousands more being harmed.

The three decisions included: one from January 13, 2022, that invalidated some COVID-19 workplace protections (National Federation of Independent Business v Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)); one on June 23, 2022, that voided some state laws restricting handgun carry (New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc v Superintendent of New York State Police (Bruen)); and one on June 24, 2022, that revoked the constitutional right to abortion (Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization).

A group of health researchers, led by Adam Gaffney at Harvard University, modeled how these decisions would impact Americans' morbidity and mortality in the near future. - ArsTechnica

Exported hay is helping to dry up the Colorado River

I get that cows, people, and everything else living on the other side of Earth have to eat, too. But there are far better options, all around.

Farmers working in unforgiving desert climates have their own reasons for cultivating alfalfa. For one, with enough irrigation, it can handle the ferocious summers in the West better than many fruit and vegetable varieties. It’s also a serious cash crop: Between 2012 and 2021 in California, alfalfa fetched more dollars per ton than any other hay variety for nine years straight. It dominates agriculture in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah, the four driest states in the country, all of which depend on the Colorado River.

In fact, much of the Colorado River is exported as hay. Rising demand for dairy products in the Middle East and skyrocketing beef consumption across the globe are driving up the demand; 40% of the alfalfa grown in California in 2020 was shrink-wrapped, containerized, and shipped to cows on the other side of Earth. - High Country News

The genesis of gun industry radicalism

I found this interview, with a former gun company exec, to be quite informative.

As I write in my book, there was a time not that long ago, maybe about 15 to 20 years ago, when the industry understood a sort of fragile social contract needed to be maintained on something as immensely powerful as the freedom to own guns. And so the industry didn’t do certain things. It didn’t advertise in egregiously irresponsible ways. It didn’t put, you know, growth, company growth, above all other things. There were just these unspoken codes of conduct the industry knew not to violate. And those seem to have broken down. And now it’s kind of a victory at all costs. And sadly, I think there’s a lot of cost...

There were people who agreed with everything I said before the sort of radical shifts started to happen in about 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. But, you know, as with most things, when you earn a paycheck from something, you’re likely to be greatly influenced by it. And so, over time, most of the people in the industry have either converted to a true belief in the sort of radicalized Second Amendment absolutism that now I think is very dangerous, or they have just left the industry. There is only a place for complete, 100% devotion. - ProPublica

Fertilizer companies gouge to the max

Among the most flagrant examples of what our corporate overlords have been up to. You of course have to click to see the graphs.

Last year's financial results from the world's largest fertiliser companies are now in — and it's a shocker. Given the sky high fertilizer prices of 2022, it was anticipated that their revenues would break records, but no one could have predicted this scale of profiteering. As the world grappled with a severe food crisis and farmers saw costs rise, the world’s largest fertiliser firms ramped up their margins and more than tripled their profits from two years ago.

Graph 1 shows the total profits of the big nine fertiliser companies over the past five years. They exponentially grew from an average of around US$14 billion before the COVID-19 pandemic to US$28 billion in 2021 and then to an astounding US$49 billion last year. International agencies like the World Bank blamed the spike in fertiliser prices on the Russian war in Ukraine, resulting in high natural gas prices (used to produce nitrogen fertiliser) from shortages and trade disruptions. But as can be seen in Graph 2, a major part of the story is the monopoly power of the fertiliser companies. These companies increased prices far beyond the increases in production costs and boosted their profit margins to a massive 36% in 2022. - IATP