The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change... calls for industrial economies such as the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan...to reduce their collective emissions of six greenhouse gases by an average of 5.2% from 1990 levels by 2008-12.
One theory current among paleontologists is that the age of the dinosaurs was ended comparatively abruptly by dramatic climate change brought about by the impact of a huge meteor in the Gulf of Mexico area.
Daniel Yergin, in his great book The Prize, described the 20th century as "the century of oil," arguing that petroleum has been a fundamental driver in the industrial, commercial, and political evolution of our society, especially during the 50 years or so following World War II.
In the 21st century, rapid advances in computer, robotic, and telecommunication technologies may remove drilling personnel from the wellsite, allowing remotely controlled or automated systems to perform the work traditionally supported by humans.
As the first century of the new millennium gathers steam, the 40-year old offshore drilling industry is set to change forever, a product of redefined core competencies, alterations in the service-supply chain, and consolidation.
In the past decade, oil and gas producers have implemented a variety of new technologies for accelerating production, lowering costs, and extracting hydrocarbons from accumulations that previously were technologically or economically inaccessible.
Significant oil remains in the ground that can be recovered with technically proven enhanced oil recovery techniques, but economics still inhibit these methods from being widely implemented.
Technologies in gas processing that have evolved since 1980 point towards major trends in natural gas processing in the early years of the 21st Century.
Gas-to-liquids processing has long held the promise of providing a method of monetizing stranded gas reserves by converting them to petrochemicals or clean, liquid transportation fuels.
The forward-looking sector of the energy industry is no longer asking whether renewable energy will prove viable but when it will make money without government concessions.
In the scramble for alternative fuels, the fuel-cell car will likely be the vehicle of future. Advanced internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and hybrid vehicles will serve as transitional vehicles until the fuel-cell car is accepted widely.
Any reader of this article is likely to be someone who makes his or her living from the petroleum industry and have a positive image of it, feeling proud of its achievements and innovations in providing the world with cheap energy.
One of the areas in which oil and gas companies will undergo the most change during the coming decade will not be in meeting environmental requirements, or in developing more efficient fuels, or in opening new exploration frontiers.
So a 98-year-old institution dedicated to a mature industry arrives at the turn of a millennium, when the mood favors change and popular preference defaults to anything new.
