FOR THOSE WHO HAVE FELT THAT I spend far too much time on the issue that is the focus of this piece, please read this analysis carefully. If you continue your critique, either you are right and the following words have no meaning or substance — or, just possibly, you are wrong and this is a huge crisis demanding all of our attention.
There is something truly painful about the ease with which the negative environmental consequences of congressional actions can be disregarded and even blatantly ignored, if not ridiculed, in this Republican-controlled chamber, our House of Representatives. As, indeed, seems sure to also be the case in the new Republican Senate.
It is as if modern science and the conclusions from application of its analyses either don’t exist or, if acknowledged, are assumed to represent some strange, unspecified set of “interests” at odds with the common good, riding roughshod over the welfare of the nation. “Evidence” provided by environmental science is obviously suspect when its clear goal is to interfere with the “wisdom” of the marketplace as measured by profits and dividends. Perhaps we could modify that with the term “enormous” preceding profits and dividends that accrue from application of that marketplace intelligence. If future history is replete with examples of when and how that intelligence prevailed, we can be assured it will also be replete with examples of the dire consequences for the environment of the period and the future — of the enormous costs to the lives of those saddled with this environmental disaster. Of this there is absolutely no doubt.
In the new Congress, now seated, we can count upon a full-throated drive to ascendancy of that economic “wisdom” over environmental considerations. President Obama appears to be resistant to this capitulation to greed, but his options may be increasingly circumscribed. He will require all the support that can possibly be mustered by those who understand the magnitude of the potential disaster.
And should that incredible facilitator of calamity, the pipeline from tar sands to southern coastal shipping, be developed, it will represent a “close to game over” in the fight against future environmental disaster because it will serve to guarantee the fullest development of the tar sands, incredibly rich in environmental pollutants and all the consequences therefrom.
Great fortunes will be made. The legislators who facilitate such a transition will be richly rewarded; count on that. There will be many itchy, hot sweating hands outstretched, palms up, but also enormous sums to disperse, salving the itch and cooling those eager fingers.
When, seventy, ninety, a hundred and ten years from now the environmental consequences of this monumental set of decisions begin to mount, speeches will be made, books written, studies proliferate as the societies of that time confront the incredibly harsh results of this monstrous folly. There will be condemnation of those responsible; demands for redress, for justice, for melioration of the disastrous results. But it will, of course, be too late; we are dealing here with enormous consequences, long in development and far longer in impact. And clearly beyond the capacity of any to readily remedy.
One interesting result of that folly will be that those best shielded from those consequences will, of course, be those from families that profited most from the calamity; not for them the most polluted, the most vulnerable, the most dangerous of environments! Profits from the disaster will serve well to corner the most protected, the most glorious of unpolluted sites and to provide both the science and the resources for maximum shield from the dangerous impacts to be experienced by legions of the human race.
It is useful and illuminating in this connection to note that the pathway to this nirvana involved a slight shift in comparative remuneration over the years, with the average CEO in the 1960s making 44 times the income of the average worker; a difference that grew to 250 to 300 times at current rates!
Whoever suggested that this wasn’t a great country! With that kind of payday how can anyone question the wisdom of the enlightened decisions of management in the great industries of our time?
Lest you think me incapable of nought but gloom and doom, I append a closing bulletin that testifies to the possibility of the positive in our midst.
A movement that is springing up in a number of locations throughout the nation promises to enlist that positive impulse that rejects submission to the forces detailed above and demands action. I refer to the Citizens Climate Lobby which, enlisting the efforts of volunteers, has begun to have an impact across the nation.
I quote from a publication of the group: “We are a truly national organization with volunteers in 46 states. Additionally we have international chapters in Bangladesh, India, Canada and Sweden. We are also truly grassroots, with only eight full-time and four part-time staff and an ever-growing network of volunteers.” And it is only two years old!
We are fortunate to have in our area, in Vallejo, a representative of that group, Mark Altgelt, who can be reached at the following email address:
MARKALTGELT@SBCGLOBAL.NET
May the numbers and influence of this fine volunteer organization grow and flourish! It is clearly an effort desperately needed. And something of a balm to the soul of the embattled environmentalist!
Jerome Page is a Benicia resident.
Sharing is caring!
Thank you, Jerome, I will e-mail the grassroots environmental activist you mentioned and offer my services. Stay tuned.
Mediocre-minded, non-science but moneyed forces in our species are the oil crust and scum of disaster…always have been…pb
Beyond the Citizens’ Climate Lobby—-
“Obama’s methane rule provides much-needed focus on leakage”
“This week, the Obama administration announced its plan to cut methane pollution from oil and gas production by up to 45% by 2025. This is the latest in a series of attempts by the Obama administration to regulate the oil and gas industry with the EPA under the Clean Air Act.”
InsideClimate New reports:
The methane plan calls for the Environmental Protection Agency to propose methane reductions at new oil and gas sites by summer 2015 and issue a final rule next year. The goal is to cut the industry’s emissions 40 to 45 percent below the 2012 level by the year 2025.
“Despite being an important expansion of greenhouse gas regulations under the Clean Air Act, the proposed rule would not address methane leaking from existing oil and gas wells and delivery networks. Rather, the administration said it would work with industry on voluntary efforts to cut methane from existing oil and gas sites, which studies have found to be riddled with leaks.”
“Citizens’ Climate Lobby Executive Director Mark Reynolds expressed CCL’s support for the President’s proposal:”
With all due respect, to Mr. Page — voluntary restraints i.e. self regulation (sic) on mega multi- billion dollar transnational corporations,– are you kidding me.?And waiting another ten years to cut methane emissions, this certainly doesn’t sound promising, to say the least. Do we have that much time?
The article below provides more in depth information and news for Mr. Page, citizen voters and our appointed and elected officials to seriously contemplate…
“The gun is currently going off,” says Stuart Scott, who intimates methane ‘shooting’ into the atmosphere. His metaphor is perfectly descriptive because, like a gun, methane is a killer if too much is released into Earth’s atmosphere; thus, the methane veil is chillingly foreboding. It challenges human survival.”
“Alarmingly, the methane complexity is happening now, not in the distant future. According to Peter Wadhams, professor of Ocean Physics, University of Cambridge: “The last 2-3 years there’s been a joint Russian-Alaskan expedition going out into the Siberian Sea and observing this, and they are seeing great plumes of methane bubbling up all over the East Siberian Sea. The whole zone of millions of square miles is now releasing all of its methane cover.”
One of the observers, Dr. Natalia Shakhova, who leads the Russia-U.S. Methane Study at the International Arctic Research Center, at the University Alaska Fairbanks and the Pacific Oceanological Institute, Far Eastern Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, claims that only a tiny percentage of the vast amounts of methane buried in Arctic ice is necessary to double current atmospheric CH4. Worse yet, she suspects an outburst of 50 gigatons could happen at any time. In an interview, Shakova says, “We do not like what we see… absolutely do not like it.”
Hence, the question: Could civilization withstand a 50-gigaton release? Professor Wadhams’ response is discomforting: “No, I don’t think it can.”
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/01/the-dreaded-methane-veil/#more-57034
Beyond the anti-science and climate change denier crowd—
The 30 minute program below, by Stuart Scott—Rethinking Economics in the Age of Climate Change—is a presentation ( most of the information in this talk is not being mentioned by our government or mainstream media)
by some of the leading climate change scientists in the world, that, should be of interest to Mr. Page, community members and our appointed and elected representatives to seriously consider…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCkCVFI3934
Science news the community can use…
From the above article: “It is as if modern science and the conclusions from application of its analyses either don’t exist or, if acknowledged, are assumed to represent some strange, unspecified set of “interests” at odds with the common good, riding roughshod over the welfare of the nation. “Evidence” provided by environmental science is obviously suspect when its clear goal is to interfere with the “wisdom” of the marketplace as measured as measured by profits and dividends. ”
Well stated, Mr. Page.
From the article below: more information and news for Mr. Page,citizen -voters and our appointed and elected leaders to seriously ponder….
‘Doomsday Clock’ Ticks Forward: Climate Change, Nuclear Weapons Push Humanity Closer Towards Global Catastrophe:”
”Doomsday Clock’ now at three minutes to midnight’
Runaway climate change and the ongoing threat of nuclear weapons have pushed the world closer towards irreversible catastrophe, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced Thursday, as the group pushed the symbolic Doomsday Clock forward to three minutes before midnight.
The Clock, a symbol which “conveys how close we are to destroying our civilization with dangerous technologies of our own making,” last stood at three minutes to midnight, an image for apocalypse, in 1984 in the midst of the Cold War.'”
“Addressing the how climate change has factored into the new status, Sivan Kartha, a member of the Science and Security Board at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and senior scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute, stated: “Emission rates have risen since 2000 by more than in the previous three decades combined. Investments have continued to pour into fossil fuel infrastructure at a rate that exceeds $1 trillion per year, with additional hundreds of billions of dollars in continued fossil fuel subsidies. We can and must turn this around.”
“Richard Somerville, also a member of the Science and Security Board, said that people worldwide must demand their leaders take immediate climate action.”This threat looms over all of humanity. We all need to respond now, while there is still time,” he stated.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/01/22/doomsday-clock-ticks-forward-climate-change-nuclear-weapons-push-humanity-closer
Beyond Obama and hope and change—
From the above article:
“In the new Congress, now seated, we can count upon a full-throated drive to ascendancy of that economic “wisdom” over environmental considerations. President Obama appears to be resistant to this capitulation to greed, but his options may be increasingly circumscribed. He will require
all the support that can possibly be mustered by those who understand the magnitude of the potential disaster.
From the article below: more environmental information on Mr. Obama for Mr. Page,citizen voters and our appointed and elected leaders to seriously ponder…
“Obama Proposal to Open Atlantic Waters to Oil and Gas Drilling Slammed As ‘Horrible'”
“‘Despite the continued rhetoric by the president, his administration continues to push us in the wrong direction of climate change.'”
Critics say that expanded drilling not only poses a threat to people and ecosystems in the direct path of oil spills, but also to global climate. A peer-reviewed study published last month in the journal Nature found that, in order to avoid a catastrophic global temperature increase, the majority of fossil fuel deposits around the world—including 92 percent of U.S. coal, all Arctic oil and gas, and a majority of Canadian tar sands—must remain untapped.
“Despite the continued rhetoric by the president,” said Snape, “his administration continues to push us in the wrong direction of climate change. This is exactly the wrong way to go. We should not be expanding drilling, we should be reducing it.”
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/01/27/obama-proposal-open-atlantic-waters-oil-and-gas-drilling-slammed-horrible
Let’s see … Government bureaucrats or markets. Who should I choose? Who have proven to be smarter? Hmmm …
I choose markets.
Me, too, especially if we could get Ken Lay and Bernie Maddoff back and let Jamie Dimon run things. What a wonderful world that would be…
J I like the Kcch Bros., Walmart gang, Romney, Jeb Bush, all very accomplished business folks.
Mr. Page I do not live in the country you describe. I live in the United States Of America. I believe you are describing something that you think might happen elsewhere. It will not happen in America as long as the Republicans are in charge. I respect your opinion but do not agree with your outcome beliefs.
And just imagine, folks, the gentlemen who have been the most anti-science, anti-research, anti-NASA, etc. are now heads of the federal committees which will decide how our country goes in the next two years. Given their “I am not a scientist” (but feel entitled to tell everyone how off-base, wasteful, dead wrong thousands of scientists are) statements, we can only look forward to falling farther and farther behind the rest of the advanced world than we are already falling. Whoopee for us!
The most important thing is that they are very good administrators, directors and leaders. They will surround themselves with the right folks.
Well, for starters maybe we will get Committee’s that do not bring in proven liars in support of their legislative agenda:
Franken soon earned his first legislative victory …
It appears that all of us need to reconsider our positions on this subject as NASA recently stated that 2014 was the hottest year recorded since 1880.
This is indeed a situation we need to look at more closely as the science may not be as settled as we once were told.
Nice comment Dennis. It is very importanty that folks do pay attention. It is not the Headlines but what the whole articles say and related info. For some reason the pro group only goes as ,far ,as what meets their needs.
Jerome –
So the world will end in 110 years if the Keystone pipeline is approved? By all means prohibit that pipeline!
Then what?
1) The oil remains in the tar sands forever?
2) The oil is refined in Canada and exported to other countries as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel?
3) The crude is sent to China for refinement and use?
Let’s be more practical and less idealistic! Canada has invested for decades in extracting that oil. It’s coming out of the ground. Canada actually has a modern refining industry spread across the entire country. Sinopec, the state run Chinese oil industry is heavily invested in the Canadian tar sands.
I say bring the oil to the US. Let US corporations prosper through profits and bring as many jobs as possible to the US. Deny countries that despise America our profits. Or let the Chinese win, and the Saudis, Iranians, Venezuelans…