After Drake & Co., the earliest winners in the rise of the oilindustry were, of course, the whales, who had always selfishlypreferred to use their illuminating oil as a buoyancy-controlmechanism. But after them, hundreds of millions of people, billions,would win with oil. The small decisions of individuals, families, andbusinesses lifted many from subsistence agriculture to lives betterthan much of history’s royalty. In the process, it created what may beour thorniest “tragedy of the commons,” as Swarthmore professor BarrySchwartz writes in his recent essay, “Tyranny for the Commons Man.”

Many solutions to the “tragedy” are well known and often discussed,such as the transition from oil addiction to “energy independence.”That medicine goes down only with heavy swallowing in the originalSaudi Arabia of energy: Saudi Arabia. Former U.S. and U.K. ambassadorPrince Turki al-Faisal pens a defenseof his nation during the price escalations of recent years, insteadblaming, “civil strife, failed investments, or in the case of Iraq, aU.S. invasion,” and hedge fund managers. Production trends in 1998suggested that by 2008, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, and Venezuela wouldtogether produce 18.4 million barrels per day. Last year, they managed10.2 million barrels. Parts of his essay resonate with U.S. energypundits, who point out that what’s attainable is “energy security,” not“energy independence,” which is much harder.

Hello, Goodbye: The article appears amid a star-studded lineup in Foreign Policy’s Special Report, “Oil: The Long Goodbye.” Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and author of The Prize, writes the magazine’s lead piece,and looks at new trends in the oil industry since the early 90s. Twodevelopments dominate: the rise of oil not only as a commodity, but asa financial instrument; and the challenge of climate change.

The U.S. energy industry continues to gird for a fight in theSenate. The American Petroleum Institute funded a study [slide show pdf] that concluded climate legislation would shrinkjobs and U.S. investment in the sector, which famously hasn’t built anew refinery in 30 years. These effects would cause the U.S. to demandmore, not less, oil from foreign producers. In Brazil, modernwildcatters celebrated the approach of the Drake anniversary by makingthe biggest Western Hemisphere oil discovery in 30 years.

Look Who’s Talking: “Oil is not even the most important energy issue between China and the United States. It is coal,” Yergin says in his FPstory. In a carbon-constrained global economy, the two largestpolluters must find a way out of their own prisoner’s dilemma. They areworking hard at it.

China and the U.S. may be tip-toeing toward some kind of deal,though it likely wouldn’t be as monumental as environmentalists hope.Developing nations are extremely unlikely to cap their greenhouse gasemissions, but might take on stronger efficiency and renewable powerstandards. Domestically, some Chinese firms are taking their own baby steps.This month saw the first time a Chinese company bought carbon credits,a laudable, but not earth-shattering development. (More than half ofthe offsets that feed into the Kyoto carbon trading system originate inChina.)

China is investing in renewables at an accelerating rate, even as itbuilds coal-burning power plants and cars. Keith Bradsher of the New York Times continues to document these trends, this week with a lookat how China is running ahead in solar power. Many news gatheringoperations can no longer afford to staff overseas offices, and manylack the interest in foreign news if they could. This means that thereare fewer “eyes on the ground” competing with each other to explainwhat’s going on. In their absence, blogging observers can fill in gaps.

In international talks, as in physics, a three-body problem isalways much harder than a two-body problem. India’s environmentminister, Jairam Ramesh, announced in Beijing–after the two nations’first ministerial climate talks–that he and his counterparts agreed to coordinatetheir positions before major climate negotiations. They also admonishedagainst trade protectionism of the sort included in the American CleanEnergy and Security Act, which passed the House in June. The Hindu notesthat the only conciliatory flicker toward the West was a reference to“looking at peaking [of emissions] some time in the future.”

The international conversation is heard in Washington. Two U.S.Cabinet secretaries, Gary Locke at Commerce and Tom Vilsack atAgriculture, toldvisiting groups that the U.S. needs a climate bill to take to theCopenhagen negotiations in December. The administration sent aconfusing signalthis week to legislators. The president’s revised budget proposalmaintained a line for $627 billion in income from 2012 to 2019 from theauctioning of greenhouse gas emission permits. During his presidentialcampaign, then-Senator Barack Obama pledged to sell all carbon creditsat auction. That proved too difficult a goal for Democratic legislatorsin the House to meet, and the Waxman-Markey climate bill freelyallocates about 85 percent of the credits.

Mmmmm… Biodiesel: During thesehot summer weeks, nothing could be more refreshing than plunging ourchoppers into a juicy slice of thick, pink watermelon. And now, carscan enjoy the same simple pleasures of summer. Sort of. Perhaps watermelon diesel can be more successful than salmon diesel. Perhaps not. Either way, let’s hope fuel crops don’t take over every inch of earth, as the farmers would have to cut down their apparently still-sizable tree cover.

Inherit the Trade Wind: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to hold a public hearingabout its proposed finding that greenhouse gas accumulation presents amortal danger to Americans. If the agency fails to do so, the Chamberis threatening “the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century,” accordingto William Kovacs, senior vice president for environment, technologyand regulatory affairs. The case would put climate science on trial ina fashion as spectacular as the proceedings that inspired the play andmovie, Inherit the Wind. In 1925, school instructor JohnScopes was put on trial for violating a prohibition on teachingevolution. Clarence Darrow unsuccessfully defended Scopes againstWilliam Jennings Bryan, who demonstrated to the court that evolution isBiblically false.

Credit where credit is due. With this lawsuit threat, the Chamberhas opened a door not only to greater public understanding of globalwarming, but to a greater understanding of humanity as evolution’scurrent greatest showon Earth. Scientists are only beginning to understand how changingliving conditions, on land, in the sea and air, could affect many ofthe world’s 1.8 million or so known species, for better and for worse.Arthur Weis of the University of California, Irvine, has shown that mustard seedsgathered in 1997 and preserved grow more robustly than seeds from 2004grown under the same conditions. His conclusion: Some organisms mightbe able to evolve more quickly than others to changing conditions.

Let’s hope our economy is one of them.

Eric Roston is Senior Associate at the Nicholas Institute and author of The Carbon Age: How Life’s Core Element Has Become Civilization’s Greatest Threat. Prologue available at Grist.