Today’s @guardian article about the go ahead for Jackdaw is packed with angry reactions from environment campaigners of one flavour or another. On the whole I find them illogical. @tessakhan of Uplift says Jackdaw won’t stop the overall decline in North Sea jobs - obvious. Ellie Mae O’Hagan of E3G says the government should invest in heat pumps instead - madness. @ZackPolanski says it’s climate vandalism and a betrayal of all our futures - counterfactual hyperbole. Ami McCarthy @Ami_McC of Greenpeace says this project won’t boost energy security - but the gas will be used here….. The arguments against Jackdaw are mainly arguments against something the government hasn't claimed today….but there’s also the 'Shrodingers Jackdaw’ - it’s described as both too small to make any difference yet so big Shell will “generate record profits” - can it be both things? Nah. It’s actually too small to make much of a difference to anything, good or bad..... Jackdaw is tiny, it holds six months or less of total UK annual consumption - that’s it. The gas will be used here, I don't think that boosts energy security by any measurable amount, but it will be made and used here - unlike the oil from Rosebank - important distinction.. But here’s the big thing that's missing - the gas from Jackdaw will have a much lower carbon footprint than the LNG we use now. Up to 75% less. Overall our carbon emissions will surely go down not up. Not by much - this is a tiny project. Climate activists (some of them) need to be real - tiny gas field, already licensed, producing lower carbon gas than we already use, therefore lowering our emissions as a country (but not by much) - doesn’t move the dial much on anything actually. Calm down and carry on I say…:). The North Sea is in terminal decline, our need for fossil fuels is going down with it - this graph in the G illustrates. Jackdaw makes no difference. #JACKDAW #northsea