Mark Mills for the Manhattan Institute: The dramatic impact of the shale revolution in restructuring world oil supply has been widely reported and analyzed. Until recently, far less attention has been afforded to the implications of the contemporaneous — and, in some ways, more remarkable — rise of U.S. natural gas. U.S. shale technology was responsible for nearly one-third of the world’s increased production of natural gas over the past decade: the Middle East was slightly ahead, accounting for 40 percent of the new supply. And, over that period, American growth in shale gas production added 400 percent more to U.S. energy supply than did the combined growth of wind and solar, even though the latter had the advantage of policy preferences as well as at least $150 billion in subsidies over that period.
In light of physics (discussed below), it is far more likely that wind and solar power will fail to meet forecast expectations than to exceed them. Any shortfall means more demand for natural gas. Fortunately, the U.S. is now the fastest-growing producer and exporter of natural gas. The biggest energy wild card on the near horizon is in how much and how quickly U.S. export capability might yet grow. The U.S. position in world energy markets today is similar to its position circa 1918. At that time, the world demand for oil, thanks to automobiles and airplanes, began a steep ascent. The U.S. became the single largest source of new petroleum and then, for a half-century, the dominant supplier of crude oil to the world. The central energy story today is the fast-growing electrification of the world’s economies, thanks in large measure to the digitalization of everything. With abundant low-cost natural gas becoming the single largest source of new fuel to power grids, the U.S. has the opportunity to once again become a dominant supplier of fuel for global growth.
The ghettos of 1968 haven’t seen enough change
Marcus Casey and Bradley Hardy for the Brookings Institution: After intense mid to late 1960s urban rioting, President Lyndon B. Johnson commissioned The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders — generally known as the Kerner Commission — to study the causes of the riots and to propose solutions. Their report, issued in March 1968, argued that the riots were caused in large part by poor neighborhood conditions and limited labor market options facing black Americans as a consequence of racism and rampant discrimination in housing and labor markets (Kerner Report, 1968). These factors underlay the development and maintenance of the northern black “ghettos,” where residents endured extreme segregation, limited housing choices, concentrated poverty, and poor schools. …
Given the attention raised by the Kerner Report on black urban neighborhood conditions as both a cause of the riots and a potential metric of improvement, we thought it might be instructive to revisit how neighborhoods in riot-affected cities evolved in the subsequent decades. In a recent paper published in a special issue of the Russell Sage Journal of the Social Sciences devoted the legacy of the Kerner Report, we examine how black neighborhoods — both riot-affected and not — have evolved on a number of key social indicators over the decades spanning 1970 – 2010. Focusing on four cities that experienced especially severe and highly-publicized rioting — Detroit, Los Angeles, Newark, and Washington DC — we match tract-level riot location information … to census tract socioeconomic data. …
We show that in 1970, the first census year we have available, black neighborhoods that directly experienced riots were populated with residents that had lower incomes, lower educational levels, experienced higher unemployment, and had a higher incidence of welfare usage than other black neighborhoods that were not directly affected by riots. … This might not be that surprising; these are essentially markers for the factors that the Kerner Report attributed to causing the riots. More interesting, however, is that these level differences across riot and non-riot affected black neighborhoods persist over time with little convergence across neighborhoods.
Climate disasters exacerbate what’s already wrong
Adrien Salazar for Demos’ Policyshop: Climate catastrophe unfolds onto layers of historic disenfranchisement, displacement, and social exclusion that leaves poor people and communities of color bearing the brunt of disasters. …
In North Carolina, the poorest communities and communities of color will bear the brunt of the ongoing damage. Historically, Eastern North Carolina is the site of colonies built by former freed slaves. Black communities in the region, many in poor rural areas will have the most difficult time recovering from the storm’s impacts because of historic inequality.
Communities will also face worsened environmental hazards in the wake of Hurricane Florence. Wilmington and other impacted towns hold Superfund sites, and the storm has resulted in the collapse of a coal ash landfill, spilling the toxic ash into flood waters. It is well documented that people of color and low-income people are disproportionately impacted by hazardous sites and pollution.
Not only do the most vulnerable communities face a kind of environmental apartheid absorbing the disproportionate burden of these disasters’ impacts; in recovery, they continue to face discrimination and disenfranchisement. Displaced communities are at risk of losing homes, land, and resources to speculators and developers. They even risk their fundamental rights due to historic discrimination.
Compiled by Joseph Lawler from reports published by the various think tanks.
