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7 Feb 2023 jamesGifts from the Sea
The Oil Machine in Cromarty The Stagecoach bus judders and swerves as it takes the bend past Braehead and Davidston, past the fields of stubble and grazing sheep. The driver knows these empty roads on The Black Isle intimately and is eager to reach the journey’s end. Suddenly, over the crest of the hill, Cromarty…
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16 Nov 2022 jamesThe Lie of the Land
The Oil Machine in Inverness The words of Sir David King, head of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, haunt me. Speaking at the launch of The Oil Machine film, he explained his view on what has been taking place since 2019. “What we have experienced in the last three years is a series of extreme…
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24 Oct 2022 jamesEnough is Enough!
Medway’s resistance to an unjust transition. Down the canyon of Chatham High Street comes the march. Banner of Medway Trades Council proudly to the fore. Chants and shouts echoing off the shopfronts and the buildings above. “Enough is Enough! Enough is Enough!” Past the pound shops and the charity shops. Past the boarded up windows…
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3 Oct 2022 jamesWho Owns the Wind?
The promise of a publicly owned renewable energy system The North Westerly gale billows and shakes the heavy white pvc of the marquee on the Portsoy harbourside, Aberdeenshire. Festival goers drift from stall to stall, under the pallid light of sun through plastic, dithering over the t-towels and pots of honey. At one end of…
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4 Apr 2022 jamesTectonic shifts – the energy crisis and the leap beyond – The Economic War, part 4
Shell declares it may go back into Cambo and the oilfield’s exploration license is extended by two years. The British government pushes for renewed drilling in the UK North Sea. There is public outcry at the Chancellor’s failure to defend households from the attack on living standards driven by price inflation. The Russian government announces…
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23 Mar 2022 jamesTime to kick Oil out of Football? – The Economic War, part 3
Roman Abramovich under sanctions! Chelsea up for sale! Scandal engulfs Everton FC as a key donor Alisher Usmanov is added to the UK government’s list of ‘named Oligarchs’. The Economic War has opened a new front on the pitch. Football is pulled into the Russian invasion of Ukraine just as Western corporations and the oil…
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10 Mar 2022 jamesHail to the dockworkers! A Tale of Three Tankers – The Economic War, part 2
You can track them still on MarineTraffic.com … the MV Seacod, the MV Boris Vilkitsky and the MV Pearl. Three ghost ships of the energy system, the spirits of the Economic War. All three of these vessels broke out of the fog that normally swathes the constant trade in oil and gas. All three neared…
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10 Feb 2022 jamesFuel poverty and Shell profits – who possesses the gas system?
Standing in the front benches of the Opposition in the House of Commons, Rachel Reeves, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, declared “Citizens Advice have said they have seen a record number of people in January … Only today Shell announced that their profits had quadrupled to 20 billion dollars. They described the results as momentous,…
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Ukraine & the grip of gas – caught in the machine of Crude Britannia
The newsfeeds hiss and rumble with stories of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. We are all of us left waiting. Is this truly going to happen, a military conflict between Russia and NATO? Or is this a fevered concoction that aids the Kremlin, the US Administration, and the UK’s flailing Prime Minister? Will the…
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18 Jan 2022 jamesCambo & Viking Energy – the common wealth of wind in Shetland
In July 1881 a fleet of Sixareen boats were working the haaf fishing grounds 30 or more miles West of Shetland in the vast North Atlantic. Each craft twenty foot long, hand built from wood, with a crew of seven men fishing for Cod and Ling. This valuable catch was taken on lines of hooks,…
