Extreme Temperature Diary- Thursday September 28th, 2023/Main Topic: A “Morally Obscene” Approval of UK’s Rosebank Oil Field

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The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉

Main Topic: A “Morally Obscene” Approval of UK’s Rosebank Oil Field

Dear Diary. Today let’s talk about temptation. During our lives we often are tempted to do something that might be beneficial for us as individuals but does harm to others. Good morality should rule our lives, but more often than not we are tempted to make shortcuts to get ahead in life, especially when it comes to finances. What’s worse, if we are in positions of power, we can be tempted to make an easy buck even if our company produces products that might harm humanity. Just ask the CEOs of Dupont, which was responsible for producing Teflon, for example:

‘The Devil We Know:’ How DuPont Poisoned the World with Teflon – Organic Consumers

Now let’s get into the heads of oil, coal and gas company CEO’s from the last few decades. Surely, they have known that producing their products would eventually harm humanity unless they went totally down the psychological road of climate denial. Their temptation has been to get easy bucks by continuing their drilling practices instead of transitioning their companies into green giants, which would entail less profits. Their harm is very much on display for the world to see during 2023.

One moral case in point comes this week from, the UK. Temptation for short term profits might have turned into corruption in association with the Sunak Tory government, in which fossil fuel interests are influencing regulators to green light exploratory drilling.

Indeed:

Here is more from Common Dreams:

‘Morally Obscene’: UK Approves Massive Undeveloped Oil and Gas Field in North Sea (commondreams.org)

Campaigners take part in a Stop Rosebank emergency protest outside the U.K. Government building in Edinburgh, after the controversial Equinor Rosebank North Sea oil field was given the go-ahead Wednesday, September 27, 2023. (Photo: Jane Barlow/PA Images via Getty Images)

‘Morally Obscene’: UK Approves Massive Undeveloped Oil and Gas Field in North Sea

“The disgraceful decision to give Rosebank the green light shows the extent of the U.K. government’s climate denial,” one activist said.

OLIVIA ROSANE

Sep 27, 2023

Regulators in the United Kingdom on Wednesday greenlit the Rosebank oilfield in the North Sea, which campaigners warn contains enough oil and gas to match the yearly emissions of 28 low-income countries.

The U.K. government said it welcomed the approval, in a statement that comes one week after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced he was delaying some elements of the country’s net-zero plan.

“By approving Rosebank, Rishi Sunak has confirmed he couldn’t care less about climate change,” climate lawyer and executive director of the advocacy group Uplift Tessa Khan said in a statement. “As we’ve heard repeatedly, our world can no longer sustain new oil and gas drilling. And when we’re witnessing scorching temperatures, wildfires, devastating flooding, and heatwaves in our seas, it could not be clearer that this is a decision by the prime minister to add more fuel to the fire.”

Rosebank, which is located off the northwest coast of the Shetland Islands, is the largest currently undeveloped oil field in the U.K., CNBC reported. Equinor, Norway’s state-owned oil company, has an 80% share in the project, with British company Ithaca Energy holding the remaining 20%.

Equinor said it expected development to begin in 2026-2027 and for the field to produce more than 300 million barrels of oil overall, while Friends of the Earth Scotland said it contained 500 million barrels.

The approval comes despite the fact that the International Energy Agency concluded in 2021 that no new fossil fuel projects should be launched if world leaders wanted to limit global heating to 1.5°C. It also comes on the heels of a government report finding that a record number of people in England died of heat-related causes in 2022.

“This decision is nothing but carte blanche to fossil fuel companies to ruin the climate, punish bill payers, and siphon off obscene profits.”

Green Member of Parliament Caroline Lucas called the approval “the greatest act of environmental vandalism in my lifetime” in a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“This is morally obscene,” she added in a second post. “It won’t improve energy security or lower bills—but it will shatter our climate commitments and demolish global leadership. Govt is complicit in this climate crime—as is Labour unless they pledge to do all possible to revoke it.”

Sunak, a conservative, promised to approve hundreds of oil and gas drilling licenses in the North Sea in July, arguing it was necessary for energy security. The opposition Labour Party says it will prioritize renewable energy if it takes power, but will respect any licenses or approvals already in place, according to Reuters.

“The disgraceful decision to give Rosebank the green light shows the extent of the U.K. government’s climate denial,” Friends of the Earth Scotland’s oil and gas campaigner Freya Aitchison said in a statement. “Fossil fuels are driving both climate breakdown and the cost of living crisis yet the U.K. Government is slamming its foot down on the accelerator.”

Aitchison also called on the Scottish government specifically to oppose the project.

“Delivering a fair and fast transition away from fossil fuels is one of the defining challenges of Humza Yousaf’s term as First Minister,” Aitchison said. “This must start with unequivocally condemning Rosebank and opposing the U.K. government’s decision to go ahead with a project that deliberately prioritizes the interests of Equinor while bringing little or no benefit to Scottish people.”

Campaigners also questioned who would benefit from the project. While the government argued that it would inject cash into the economy and create almost 1,600 jobs, activists pointed out that Equinor made £62 billion in pre-tax profits last year and would get more than £3.75 billion in tax breaks for its work on Rosebank, meaning the U.K. would ultimately lose £750 million in tax money from the field’s development.

“The ugly truth is that Sunak is pandering to vested interests, demonstrating the stranglehold the fossil fuel lobby has on government decision-making. And it’s bill payers and the climate that will suffer because of it,” Greenpeace U.K. climate campaigner Philip Evans said in a statement. “Why else would he make such a reckless decision?

“This decision is nothing but carte blanche to fossil fuel companies to ruin the climate, punish bill payers, and siphon off obscene profits,” Evans added.

Opponents of the project have promised to take legal action to stop it.

“There are strong grounds to believe that the way this government has come to this decision is unlawful,” Khan said in a statement. “We shouldn’t have to fight this government for cheap, clean energy, and a liveable climate, but we will.”

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

OLIVIA ROSANE

Olivia Rosane is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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Here are some other “ET’s” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:

Here is more climate and weather news from Thursday:

(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)

Today’s News on Sustainable, Traditional Polluting Energy from Fossil Fuel, and the Green Revolution:

More from the Weather Department:

More on the Environment:

More on Other Science and the Beauty of Earth and this Universe:

If you like these posts and my work on record temperature ratios, please contribute via my PayPal widget on this site. Thanks in advance for any support. 

Guy Walton… “The Climate Guy”

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