Oil & Gas Needs a Civic Case for Abundant Energy
Being essential just isn’t enough.
I have been scratching my head since CERAWeek over a troubling quality running through conversations among industry and our supporters: certainty.
Iran, affordability, AI-driven power demand, climate politics, public hostility to energy development, and global energy abundance—all these current flash points are connected.
But many outside the industry—and too many inside it—seem to think that these are separate pressures to be managed one by one. This whack-a-mole approach misses the core opportunity at hand.
The first thing you as an oil and gas leader need to see: These pressures (separately and together) prove—once again—that energy is foundational. And each in its way makes the case for the ongoing criticality of oil and gas in the energy mix.
The second thing you need to see: You can’t rely on that centrality to give your work legitimacy with your stakeholders. Too many oil and gas leaders still speak as if necessity itself provides legitimacy—but it does not. (That’s because the Myth of an Easy Energy Transition remains alive and well.)
The very centrality of oil and gas to our world’s energy needs drives so many crises and conflicts today—and your stakeholders are caught in those conflicts. As an oil and gas leader, you need to be able to clearly make the case for (a) energy abundance and (b) the role of oil and gas in that abundance. You can’t just stop at explaining (again) that oil and gas is essential in an energy-centric world. You need to lead with broad persuasion about the role of energy in modern life—convincing even skeptics that energy is good, energy abundance is better, and five key truths hold in all cases.
I call this making the civic case for energy abundance. And as you’ll see, making that case will yield huge benefits for your business.
And if not you, who?
Both of these things are true:
Oil and natural gas remain essential.
You will fail as a leader if that is your whole argument.
Oil and gas are essential
All the energy-centric crises facing political and business leaders today make it clear: Oil and gas are, were, and will remain essential to modern life. Not because hydrocarbons are morally special. And certainly not because the industry was “right all along” about their necessity (although you were). But because energy systems are foundational, and oil and gas still perform indispensable functions inside those systems.
The war in Iran makes this fact starkly obvious. Societies depend on oil and gas for dense, scalable, reliable energy. Countries depend on oil, natural gas, and their byproducts for security and resilience in the face of conflict. States and regions depend on them for affordability, feedstock, thermal heat, industrial competitiveness, and fiscal stability. Communities experience their importance concretely through reliable power, readily available fuels, and all the knock-on benefits of abundant and affordable energy: mobility, materials, dependable services, and local prosperity.
And other pressures point to the same conclusion: Energy is inseparable from politics, security, and financial opportunity.
Affordability: The political salience of energy affordability reminds us that energy is not an abstract moral concern. It is a lived economic and political one.
AI-driven load growth: This rising domestic priority reminds us that the next era of economic and technological competition will be built on power systems that must modernize and grow—quickly.
Climate politics: Never far from energy, climate politics remains the political water in which we swim. It continues to shape elite institutions, advocacy networks, philanthropy, regulation, and the moral expectations placed on the industry, even as we may (or may not) have left “peak climate” behind. While pragmatic Democrats and their allies prioritize climate, they, too, are increasingly acknowledging the need for more oil and gas.
So yes: Oil and gas remain essential. And the pressures upending your business plans are tightly bound to that truth.
Essential is not enough
Being necessary is not the same as being trusted. Having centrality is not the same as being justified. Being important to the system is not the same as having a rationale that a broad swath of your stakeholders will recognize as legitimate.
This is where industry champions often sound smaller than our societal role justifies. An aggressive defense of the importance of oil and gas sounds like what it is: reactionary. Your opportunity now isn’t to say, “See? We were right all along.” Your job–really, your opportunity—lies in explaining the role of energy and within it, the role of oil and gas in terms that can compel people with different values, fears, and interests.
If you want to lead well in The Moment, you need to make a civic case for abundant energy that can hold multiple truths at once: that energy development can be both necessary and disruptive; that oil and gas can be essential and still owe the public a better account of its essential role; that stakeholders can be skeptical and still open to that more serious case; that climate matters but cannot be the only language through which energy is understood.
A compelling civic case for energy abundance
A compelling civic case for energy abundance is deceptively simple—and easy to get wrong. It has five key truths:
Energy is a public good. Energy is not a series of products; it is one of the enabling systems of modern life. Energy underpins agriculture, emboldens governments, enables scientific discovery, and powers economies. That does not mean every energy project is good, every energy company is virtuous, or every community concern is misplaced. It means that the systems that provide energy are central to a functioning society. And as a result, energy companies bear civic responsibilities and the associated accountability.
Pragmatism is the operating discipline. All energy systems come with trade-offs, and managing those trade-offs is part of making the civic case. Even when communities see that energy development is necessary, they can resent the disruption it causes. Building and growth require leaders willing to manage the trade-offs openly and seriously.
Energy abundance is non-negotiable. The solution to every crisis and conflict addressed here is more energy, more infrastructure, more innovation, and more building. This is especially true in a climate-centric world where (a) displacing fossils means building more cleantech and (b) more energy is essential to climate resilience (particularly for the most vulnerable to climate impacts). Energy abundance matters. All the kinds.
Oil and gas are essential to energy abundance—and will be for decades to come. Each global crisis is always at least in part resolved by a reckoning around the price of oil or natural gas that makes plain their centrality (again). The price has a role in feedstock availability, thermal heat, power generation, and the absence of competitive fuels. Even in a climate-centric frame, solving for emissions and the carbon intensity of oil and natural gas are moving into the forefront of sensible solutions, displacing the “leave it in the ground” ethos.
Citizens and other stakeholders must have a say in the energy future. The days where businesses proposed and built projects in a vacuum without resistance are long gone. It is precisely because energy infrastructure is so vital to societal functioning that citizens, community members, and other stakeholders must be bought into the development plan. If not included, citizens will make their opposition plain. Stakeholders deserve to hear why this infrastructure must be built. Actively managing trade-offs is both a society-wide task and a community-centric challenge.
Again: Iran, AI load growth, affordability, climate politics, public hostility, and global development are not independent pressures. They are all evidence that energy is the enabling system of modern life. And the civic theory of energy recognizes the weight and responsibility of its centrality.
What a civic case for energy abundance does for you
Making a civic case for energy abundance and the enduring role of oil and gas does at least three things for you and your business:
It defines the public good of energy. And your company helps make that public good possible.
It explains your role in creating the public good in terms skeptical stakeholders can respect. That means not just speaking from the industry’s point of view but also addressing what others fear, need, and value in their lives generally and their community specifically.
It gives your work a compelling case that works across crises, audiences, and settings. Instead of improvising a new rationale for your work under duress (on the regular), you can now speak from a stable public philosophy about what energy is for, what leadership requires, and how your company fits into the larger civic picture.
The centrality of energy to daily life allows you to offer your stakeholders a case for energy, oil and gas, and your company’s leadership that’s worthy of that centrality.
Seize the day
What I urge you to do with this civic case in your day to day:
Define your company’s role in the public good of energy. Don’t hide behind generic language about “meeting demand.” Name the civic goods your work supports: affordability, reliability, security, resilience, mobility, materials, and competitiveness.
Build a case that skeptical stakeholders can recognize as legitimate. Do not assume necessity and centrality will do the work for you. Explain your role in terms that elevate shared values and a vision for a better future.
Use one civic case for energy abundance across all contexts. Apply it consistently across geopolitical shocks, community conflict, affordability debates, AI-driven power demand, climate scrutiny, and global development conversations. If your theory is not applicable to all contexts, improve it.
Own your civic leadership burden. Being essential comes with accountability—in our case, to society at large. Have you contemplated that burden and what it asks of you and your company?
As an oil and gas leader, you can rise to the challenge of explaining your role in a way that serves the public, steadies institutions, and earns legitimacy.
Making the most of The Moment
For now, start here:
Forward this piece to the colleague on your team who still thinks necessity is enough.
Reply with the strongest objection you hear from skeptical stakeholders.
Read The Myth and The Moment for insights into building the next-era case.
Hit that heart button if you are ready for a more serious case for abundant energy.
To the leaders ready to make a better case,
Tisha
This gave language to something I’ve been noticing too—the assumption that “essential = accepted.” Clearly not the case, and the implications for how we engage are huge. Great post.
Against the backdrop of Chevron writing a very large check to buy a ranch where the subsurface water table has apparently been destroyed by inadequate plugging of old wells and overpressuring due to injection of massive amounts of saltwater, the need to accept "civic responsibility" is pretty important. And still seems to be missing from the dialog.