Oil: A Slippery (Upward) Slope
I was wrong.
Chatting with some friends back in the summer of '05, when oil prices were flirting with $60 per barrel, I ventured a guess that oil would surpass $70 before it fell below $50. That is, I thought that oil prices would continue to rise in the short term.
I got that part right. Oil prices on the futures market briefly touched the $70s that fall, and reached the mid-$70s by the following spring.
But I also predicted that oil would fall to $40 per barrel before it reached $80 -- on the theory that, over the course of several years, rising oil prices would put a crimp in demand, while goosing production a bit.
That part I got dead wrong.
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The Worm Returns
Seeing as how I'm Sightline's expert on all things giant earthworm-related (no, it's not on my business card yet) I'd be remiss not to mention this story. Apparently, a conservation group is suing the feds for not responding to a petition to list the giant Palouse earthworm as an endangered species.
What's interesting about this story is not only that it's about a giant worm (though that does help). It's also interesting because the not-so-lowly worm may be the last best hope for protecting the remnants of the nearly-destroyed Palouse grasslands -- an inland Northwest ecosystem that was once astonishingly fertile and that now supports mostly wheat. For reasons both good and bad, conservation often piggybacks on charismatic ambassadors like polar bears or bison. But it remains to be seen whether the giant earthworm has the star power to do the trick in the Palouse.
In the worm's favor, it's won at least one convert in the person of Sightline's very own Leigh Sims. In an email yesterday, she upbraided me for my worm skepticism. I quote:
How can you say they aren't charismatic wildlife? You never told us that the giant Palouse earthworms smell like flowers and can spit! You can't get much more charismatic than that. [Emphasis hers.]
Fair enough. I stand corrected. So much so, in fact, that I'll let Leigh have the last word:
They're so rad.
The Economy is...People!!!
From a P-I story comes this gem of a quote about declining housing affordability:
"It's going to affect people more so than the economy."
Uh, what's that again? The economic outlook is still rosy -- it's just, y'know, people who are in trouble.
