As the year 2023 comes to a close, scientists repeatedly draw attention to the numerous climate change records that were broken over the previous 12 months. There were new records set in global surface temperature, ocean heat content and ice melt — and humans everywhere felt the consequences. Our species just survived the hottest summer on record, complete with deadly heatwaves, intensified wildfires and worsened floods and flood-related events. Yet amidst the ecological havoc, the United States was busy smashing a different record: Oil production.
Last month, the United States' weekly oil production surpassed a record set shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic injected chaos into the world economy — and with it, at least temporarily, the demand for petroleum. In fact, the U.S. is now producing more oil than any other nation in history. According to the US Energy Information Administration, weekly US oil production in November 2023 averaged to 13.2 million barrels per day. This record-breaking was anticipated by Forbes' senior contributor Robert Rapier, who wrote earlier this month that the United States had set a new annual oil production record on December 15. (The chart currently only goes to December 8.) He also speculated that — as a conservative estimate — the United States might end 2023 having produced as many as "4.70 billion barrels. That would be nearly 5% above the previous record, or 210 million barrels above that 2019 level."
There are stark potential ecological consequences to all of this oil production. According to Dr. Michael Mann, a professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Pennsylvania, all of the extreme weather is a "new abnormal" that humans must aim to stave off. "The impacts of climate change are upon us in the form of unprecedented, dangerous extreme weather events. It will only get worse and worse as long as we continue to burn fossil fuels and generate carbon pollution," Mann told Salon in July.
