More than a year ago, the folks at Energy Bulletin ran a revealing test on Google Trends to see how many people were searching for “global warming” as opposed to “peak oil.” The results were disappointing. (Four days later came my way-too-premature prediction that Peak Oil was about to become a household word, but we won’t go there now…)

I ran the same test this morning and came up with similarly depressing results. And it’s not just people searching on the web. Confirmation comes from that ultimate arbiter of what America’s clueless nomenklatura are thinking — New York Times columnist Tom Friedman:

We’ve added so many greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, for our generation’s growth, that our kids are likely going to spend a good part of their adulthood, maybe all of it, just dealing with the climate implications of our profligacy. And now our leaders are telling them the way out is “offshore drilling” for more climate-changing fossil fuels.

Madness. Sheer madness.

Friedman has achieved such mythic status that the Times evidently feels he’s beyond any need for an editor. But if he had one, that editor would no doubt ask Friedman what he means by “the way out.” The way out of what? Presumably a shortage of fossil fuels. But Friedman makes no mention of a fossil fuel shortage in the sentence preceding. He’s talking about “the climate implications of our profligacy.”

Sloppy syntax, fuzzy thinking.

Friedman must believe, like Congressional Democrats, that a magical government program can bring about solar-powered cars and jets faster than it’ll take to bring new offshore oil fields online. Of course, if the Democrats are clueless, the Republicans are liars, with the repeated assertions that opening up offshore drilling will bring back cheap gasoline within weeks. It won’t. But it’ll buy us a little more time until something other than oil emerges in another 10-15 years as the transportation fuel of the future. And we’re gonna need all the time we can get to forestall catastrophic changes in the way we live.

Source: Peak Oil vs. Global Warming

• Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) is buying Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS) for $13.2 billion in a deal that will create the second largest technology services provider behind International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), the Associated Press reported. Under the terms announced yesterday (Tuesday), HP will pay $25 per share in cash for EDS.

• St. George Bank Ltd. yesterday (Tuesday) agreed to be taken over by larger rival Westpac Banking Corp. (WBK) for $17.5 billion, creating the largest Australian bank by market capitalization. Westpac, Australia’s third-biggest bank, is offering 1.31 of its own shares for St. George share, the Associated Press reported.

• United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) announced yesterday (Tuesday) that it has ordered 200 hybrid electric vehicles and 300 compressed natural gas vehicles in an effort to shield itself from rising gas prices. The 200 hybrid electric vehicles, which will be used starting in 2009, are expected to save 176,000 gallons of fuel annually, the Associated Press reported.

• Canada’s Cameco Corp. (CCJ), the world’s largest producer of uranium, posted a $132.8 million net income for the first quarter, more than doubling its total last year as sales increased by 45%. Cameco said it could face production shortages next year as it begins a new mine at its flagship McArthur River mine area, Bloomberg reported.

• Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, beat analysts’ estimates with its first-quarter earnings report. Profit rose 68%, good news consider the company is about tap several offshore oil fields. “This is a surprising and very good result,” Luiz Otavio Broad, an analyst at Agora CTVM, Brazil’s largest brokerage, told Bloomberg. “The result is largely operational, and the stock should open well.”

• Record prices and slower economic growth, particularly in the United States will decrease global demand for oil, the International Energy Agency said yesterday (Tuesday), Reuters reported. “This report sees further downward adjustments to demand, and they may not be the last,” the IEA said in its Monthly Oil Market Report.

• American International Group Inc. (AIG) announced yesterday (Tuesday) that it would raise $17 billion through a combination of stock and debt to prop up a bleeding balance sheet due to two consecutive quarterly losses, Bloomberg News reported. AIG stock gained 79 cents, a 2% increase, to close at $39.16 the day of the announcement.

• Shares of Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) jumped 5% yesterday (Tuesday) on reports that Carl Ichan could be preparing to mount a proxy battle to replace Yahoo’s board of directors after they passed on Microsoft Corp.’s (MSFT) $47.5 billion offer. The Wall Street Journal reported that Icahn could hold “as many as 50 million shares” of the Internet search engine firm. Yahoo shares gained $1.30 to close at $26.56.

Source: Global Investing Roundups: Wednesday, May 14th, 2008