Above, I keep reposting this interview with Harold Hamm, a fracking billionaire and one of Trump’s biggest donors.
What I’ve been telling anyone who will listen for weeks. Oil executives are as confused and whipsawed by tariff policy as everyone else. But let’s invade Greenland. Keep asking yourself, “Who benefits?”
The Dallas Fed’s latest energy survey revealed deep skepticism among executives toward President Donald Trump’s tariffs and oil-production agenda. In anonymous comments, respondents decried the uncertainty and higher costs of tariffs while predicting that trying to lower crude prices to $50 a barrel would reduce production instead of expand it.
In anonymous comments collected by the Dallas Fed, some US oil and gas executives didn’t pull their punches as they criticized key policies of President Donald Trump.
Most respondents decried the uncertainty and higher costs from his tariffs, while others said plans to sharply lower crude prices are incompatible with a major expansion in energy production.
“The administration’s chaos is a disaster for the commodity markets. ‘Drill, baby, drill’ is nothing short of a myth and populist rallying cry. Tariff policy is impossible for us to predict and doesn’t have a clear goal. We want more stability,” one executive said.
The vibes just got a little bit frostier, ahead of second lady Usha Vance’s upcoming trip to Greenland. (And that’s saying something for a country whose warmest region averages temperatures of around -4°C in March.) A Greenlandic tourism business announced on Wednesday it has canceled a planned meet-and-greet on her schedule over her—and the broader Trump administration’s—“underlying agenda” and declared, “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders.”
Usha became the face of President Donald Trump’s latest attempts to win favor with Greenlanders when the White House announced Sunday that she would lead a March 27 delegation to “visit historical sites, learn about Greenlandic heritage, and attend the Avannaata Qimussersu, Greenland’s national dogsled race.”
Her trip quickly devolved into a political hot potato, however, as Trump continued his controversial push to takeover the autonomous island territory. (“We need Greenland for international safety and security,” Trump said in a Wednesday interview with podcaster Vince Coglianese, reported Politico.)
In a Facebook post in Greenlandic, Tupilak Travel wrote that it was contacted by the U.S. Consulate about Vance coming to their souvenir store in Nuuk on Friday. But after initially agreeing to her dropping in, and maybe picking up some postcards or yarn, the company said it had “after careful consideration” decided not to proceed with the visit.
They added that they “do not want to be part of the press show that will certainly follow.”
US representatives canvassed door-to-door in Greenland as part of a “charm offensive” to sound out whether residents would welcome a visit from Usha Vance, it has been claimed.
The second lady and one of her sons had been set to visit the Danish territory this week after Donald Trump continued to inflame tensions by announcing it should come under US control.
Ahead of her visit, staffers reportedly spent a week traipsing around Nuuk, the capital city, to gauge the feeling among residents.
Second lady Usha Vance has scrapped a plan to attend Greenland’s national dog sled race this week. But American tax dollars will help support the race anyway.
NPR has learned that the State Department has provided a grant to transport the dogs, sleds and racers by air from around Greenland for the race. The State Department did not provide a cost estimate, but a U.S. official not authorized to speak publicly said it’s in the range of tens of thousands of dollars.
“The United States, through our Consulate in Nuuk, sponsored the transport of all dogs, sleds, and racers to and from 10 cities and towns around Greenland for the race,” a State Department spokesman told NPR in a statement. “We are still coordinating with race organizers to determine needs and fix a final amount of our sponsorship.”
This all comes as Secretary of State Marco Rubio has cancelled more than 80% of foreign aid grants. Grants are now screened to determine whether they make the U.S. stronger, safer and more prosperous. At the same time, the Trump administration has made cuts to grants for USAID programs around the world and also frozen funding for Fulbright scholars.
Mikkel Jeremiasson, who chairs Greenland’s national dog sled race, told local reporters that the exact amount from the State Department for transporting the dogs, racers and equipment was substantial but the exact amount is confidential due to the terms of the agreement. Danish newspaper Berlingskereports that Air Greenland has been told to send invoices for the flights to the U.S. Consulate in the capital city, Nuuk.
WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s willingness to eliminate FEMA may be a backfire move for her.
South Dakota received at least $36 million in FEMA money for the historic flooding last June. Noem also applied for FEMA money five times in 2019.
Local emergency officials say they are watching closely, hoping whatever comes next at least addresses some key needs for state disaster funding.
FEMA is authorized through statute, so it’s unclear how much authority the Trump administration has to reform or cut the agency without congressional approval.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem and other Trump administration officials expressed support in meetings this week for dramatically diminishing the role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with the aim of all but eliminating the embattled agency’s role in disaster recovery by Oct. 1, according to four peoplefamiliar with the talks.
Takes more than an Executive Order to lower the price of oil – and even if you could, that would not get you the additional production you want – in fact, the opposite. And don’t get me started on Natural gas.
ICYMI – below, fracking Billionaire Harold Hamm explains the same thing.
Emerging dry and drought conditions are one of the classic precursors to an increase in wildfire risk, as we are seeing in parts of the southeast and southern plains now.
Another set of more complex factors is also highlighted in the latest wildfire prediction report: the multi-season, long-term effects of previous storms, droughts and bark beetle infestations.
For example, Hurricane Helene’s devastating impacts across Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee damaged and killed trees that are now more prone to serve as fuel for wildfires and burn under dry conditions. The record-breaking rainfall that accompanied that storm also contributed to the growth of new vegetation that is now drying out, again adding to the load of flammable material. A historic drought in 2023 and subsequent pine beetle infestation are also now contributing to higher fire risks in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
All of these underlaying factors are affected by climate change, and they show how some of the markers for wildfire seasons are set well before summer, which is considered to be the time of peak fire risk.
Senator Angus King presses Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on some points related to this week’s spectacular intelligence snafu, that you’ve probably read about, but then moves on to ask about changes in the Intelligence Community’s assessment of Climate Change. King also asks, if cyber security is a priority, why is the administration cutting staff in agencies tasked with cyber defense.
Relations between Greenland and the United States sank further on Sunday as the Greenlandic prime minister erupted over what he called a “highly aggressive” delegation of senior officials the Trump administration said it would send to the island this week.
Usha Vance, the second lady, and Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, are among the officials headed to the island, which is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, though President Trump has vowed to make it part of the United States “one way or the other.”
Ms. Vance is scheduled to make a series of cultural stops after her arrival on Thursday, separate from Mr. Waltz. The national security adviser is supposed to be traveling earlier in the week with the U.S. energy secretary, Chris Wright.
For most people those before/after pictures of melting glaciers might evoke some kind of “oh, that’s sad, glaciers are pretty” reaction. But for the glacier experts I’ve spoken to over the years, there is a much more urgent message. Glaciers perform a critical function of storing and slowly releasing water in strategically significant areas of the world.
In Asia, billions of people, whose governments have been historically at odds, and are now nuclear armed, rely on Himalayan glaciers as primary water sources for drinking, agriculture and industry. The rapid decay of these reservoirs should give us all pause. Lonnie Thompson and the late Konrad Steffen have been among the most deeply informed scientists on these issues.
Glaciers around the globe are disappearing faster than ever, with the last three-year period seeing the largest glacial mass loss on record, according to a UNESCO report, opens new tab released on Friday.
The 9,000 gigatons of ice lost from glaciers since 1975 are roughly equivalent to “an ice block the size of Germany with the thickness of 25 meters,” Michael Zemp, director of the Switzerland-based World Glacier Monitoring Service, said during a press conference announcing the report at the UN headquarters in Geneva.
The dramatic ice loss, from the Arctic to the Alps, from South America to the Tibetan Plateau, opens new tab, is expected to accelerate as climate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, pushes global temperatures higher. This would likely exacerbate economic, environmental and social problems across the world as sea levels rise and these key water sources dwindle.
The report coincides with a UNESCO summit in Paris marking the first World Day for Glaciers, urging global action to protect glaciers around the world.
