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Hospicing the Pipeline – The Oil Machine in Hawick
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Mar 7, 2023
Julie and I talked long. And we talked of death. We talked of the passing of fathers, and husbands, and friends. An idea grew between us through that conversation in her flat. Later we shared it with those sitting in The Cornucopia Room, gathered to watch a screening of The Oil Machine. In the exchange...
Cromarty – Gifts from the Sea
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Feb 7, 2023
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 Firth appears in the sharp...
The Lie of the Land – Hunting The Oil Machine in Inverness
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Nov 16, 2022
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 weather events around the world,...
Enough is Enough! – Medway’s resistance to an unjust transition.
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Oct 24, 2022
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 and the off licenses. Through...
Who Owns the Wind? – the promise of a publicly owned renewable energy system
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Oct 3, 2022
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 the tent, a wall is taken up by a...
Tectonic shifts – the energy crisis and the leap beyond – The Economic War, part 4
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Apr 4, 2022
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...
Time to kick Oil out of Football? – The Economic War, part 3
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Mar 23, 2022
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...
Hail to the dockworkers! A Tale of Three Tankers – The Economic War, part 2
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Mar 10, 2022
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...
Fuel poverty and Shell profits – who possesses the gas system?
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Feb 10, 2022
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,...
Ukraine & the grip of gas – caught in the machine of Crude Britannia
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Feb 1, 2022
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...
Cambo & Viking Energy – the common wealth of wind in Shetland
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Jan 18, 2022
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,...
Cambo, a turning point for the North Sea? – Shell departs and leaves many questions
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Dec 8, 2021
Seven twenty in the evening of Thursday 2nd December the news breaks[1]: Shell announces that they are withdrawing from their joint venture with the company Siccar Point that intends to exploit oil in the Cambo field West of Shetland. The announcement is as dramatic as it is unexpected. That same evening it is long...
