[Graeme]

Why All Oil Is Foreign

When the political class focuses on the perils of fossil fuel dependence, they almost always use the word “foreign” before “oil”. This is redundant. Oil is inherently foreign. All of it.

Oil is foreign to democracy. In an election cycle flooded by unrestricted political money, oil money stands out as the biggest gusher. The Supreme Court struck down Montana’s law limiting corporate spending on campaigns yesterday, so the blowout of oil’s influence will remain uncapped for the foreseeable future. In America and around the world, oil and freedom do not mix. Because it concentrates wealth, facilitates abuse of power, breeds dependence, and crushes democracy, oil is fundamentally foreign to the American creed.

Oil is foreign to the atmosphere, air, and water. Burning oil releases about 85 billion pounds of CO2 to the atmosphere per day, all of which has been foreign to our climate for many millions of years. The planet that existed when that carbon was aloft was a very different place, as foreign as, oh, Jurassic Park. And some oil doesn’t get burned because it leaks out along the way, causing the waterways of home to turn toxic, hostile, and foreign (see Inside Climate’s blockbuster story on the underreported ”Dilbit Disaster” in Michigan.)

Oil is foreign to economic security. The U.S. has less than 5% of the world’s population, about 2% of proven conventional oil reserves, and consumes about 20% of the oil produced. Prices are set on world markets and heavily influenced by oilogopolistic producers, regardless of where the oil comes from. Those producers have us over a barrel as long as we need the stuff.

Oil is foreign to local economic vitality. The overwhelming majority of Americans live in communities that are hemorrhaging economic resources in order to pay for oil. Here in King County Washington, for example, our economy will lose north of $5 billion this year to fetch oil – roughly the size of the entire County budget. A tiny handful of Americans live in communities where oil brings in more money than it sucks out.

Oil is foreign to the intergenerational contract. Any economic value derived from expanded oil trafficking is confiscated from the many generations who will have to pay the exorbitant costs of living in an unstable climate. They will not be amused. Estimates of the economic value of unchecked climate change are enormous but fuzzy; there is no satisfying way to monetize the intergenerational abuse.

Regardless of where they poke the holes, oil is not yours. It’s not mine. It’s ExxonMobil’s and OPEC’s and the Koch’s. Wherever the next fix happens to come from, they will use it to extract record profits, destroy the climate, and maul our democracy.

Drill here, drill there, it doesn’t matter. The whole damned business is foreign to our national interests, to our values, to our future.

thinkprogress

[SeaGypsy]

Like a junky talking himself into going cold turkey for the zillionth time, in a drug haze thinking he is having an original thought.

[Plantagenet]

In an election cycle flooded by unrestricted political money, oil money stands out as the biggest gusher.

Not true.

Actually, gambling money stands out as the biggest single jackpot---by far the biggest donor so far this year owns gambling casinos in Las Vegas and China.

Here in King County Washington, for example, our economy will lose north of $5 billion this year to fetch oil – roughly the size of the entire County budget.

You don't "fetch" oil---you buy it. If you don't want to buy oil, then keep your money and stop buying it. Its your own decision.

Regardless of where they poke the holes, oil is not yours. It’s not mine. It’s ExxonMobil’s and OPEC’s and the Koch’s.

Not true.

Royalty Oil from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska belongs to the state of Alaska, and money from the sale of that royalty oil is invested in the state of Alaska's sovereign wealth fund, along with a portion of the taxes on oil companies. Every year some of that oil wealth is returned to the people of Alaska in the form of dividend checks. Similar arrangements exist in Norway, Alberta and many other oil-producing states. As the years go by every family in Alaska receives thousands and over time 10s of thousands of dollars from the sale of their oil.

Alaska "Royalty Oil"

So thank you, King County, LA, and SF for purchasing our Alaskan oil. I just don't see why you are still so uninformed about it---


Here comes the Alaskan oil (including some royalty oil owned by the people of Alaska)!



-

[Graeme]

Plant, You are living in lala land. Do you really think that burning oil is going to save us! Of course not, it's quite the opposite!! You are totally insane. Please view the following video so you can understand our predicament.

Climate Change Is Simple: We Are Completely Screwed If We Don’t Do Something Fast

David Roberts of Grist gave a good TEDx talk recently. Along with a video of this speech and much commentary in text to go along with it (all worth your time), he recently posted his slides for the speech — the slides are great, so I’m reposting them here very quickly, followed by the video:

cleantechnica

Can we do anything about our predicament? Maybe.

How to Avoid the Coming Environmental and Economic 'Perfect Storm'

Evolution equipped us to deal with threats from dependably loathsome enemies and fearsome creatures, but not with the opaque and cumulative long-term consequences of our own technological and demographic success. As cartoonist Walt Kelly once put it, “We’ve met the enemy, and he is us.”

Deforestation, agriculture, and the combustion of fossil fuels have committed the world to a substantial and possibly rapid warming that will last for hundreds or thousands of years. Rising temperatures, whether gradual or sudden, will progressively destabilize the global climate system, causing massive droughts, more frequent storms, rising sea level, loss of many species, and shifting ecologies, but in ways that are difficult to predict with precision in a nonlinear system. These changes will likely result in scarcities of food, energy, and resources, undermining political, social, and economic stability and amplifying the effects of terrorism and conflicts between and within nations, failed states, and regions.

Action to head off the worst of what could occur is difficult because of the complexity of nonlinear systems, with large delays between cause and effect, and because of the political and economic power of fossil fuel industries to prevent corrective action that would jeopardize their profitability. Political leadership has been absent in large part because no government is presently organized to deal with the permanent emergency of climate destabilization. The effects of procrastination will fall with increasing weight on coming generations, making our role as the primary cause of worsening climate destabilization the largest moral lapse in history.



The “perfect storm” ahead, in short, is caused by the convergence of steadily worsening climate change; spreading ecological disorder (e.g., deforestation, soil loss, water shortages, species loss, ocean acidification); population growth; unfair distribution of costs, risks, and benefits of economic growth; national and ethnic tensions; and political incapacity.

Nonetheless, we might still head off the worst of a future that Cambridge University scientist Martin Rees describes as possibly “our final hour.” We have good reason to believe that this will be the closest of close calls, but we must hope that humankind will emerge someday from what biologist E. O. Wilson calls “the bottleneck” chastened but improved.

From the other side of that bottleneck, the components of a transition strategy, presently hotly disputed, will appear as merely obvious and necessary. The journey to a more resilient and durable future for humanity will require, first, a strategy to overcome the political gridlock that variously afflicts all developed countries and to build an informed, energetic constituency to launch the essential steps during the transition. Early warnings about climate change began in the 1960s, but neither the international community nor any developed country has yet adopted policies adequate to the situation. In the years of lassitude and drift, we exhausted whatever margin of safety we might otherwise have had. In the United States, in particular, the federal decision-making capacity on energy and climate policy is presently broken, impairing its capacity to lead on these issues.

As a result, in the United States and elsewhere, grassroots organizations are mobilizing communities around transition strategies that address energy, food, and economic issues without assistance from central governments. Similarly, mayors, cities, regional organizations, and states are engaging with the public, colleges and universities, corporations, and faith communities in a broad effort to lower carbon emissions and build economic and social resilience. The National Sustainable Communities Coalition, for example, proposes a strategy of “full-spectrum sustainability” that coordinates issues of food, energy, finance, education, economic development, building, and resource flows so that each part reinforces the others and hence the prosperity and resilience of the entire community. These efforts coincide with a growing recognition that security, in the full sense of the word, must be broadened to include access to food, clean water, energy, employment, health, shelter, safety, ecological health, and climate stability.

Grassroots organizing as well as urban and regional coalitions are necessary to mobilize the public and build the infrastructure for local resilience, but they will be insufficient without a larger strategy that eventually generates a constituency for policy changes and shared sacrifice at a scale appropriate to the global emergency. Efforts at local and regional levels must be linked with a larger strategic vision that harnesses the big economic drivers in the economy. Policy analyst Patrick Doherty proposes, for example, to join local action with the emerging demand for housing in smart-growth regions that have good transit and easy access to urban amenities. The combination of bottom-up organizing with a larger grand strategy suggests the possibility for new political coalitions that cross worn-out national, political, ethnic, and class divisions, and for new opportunities to create an engaged and ecologically competent citizenry networked across the planet.

oilprice

[Graeme]

The CEO of Exxon, Rex Tillerson, finally admits that climate change is real. Little wonder we are still in trouble though when this corporate lunatic advocates that millions "love to burn fossil fuels because their quality of life would rise immeasurably", and we should "focus on engineering methods to adapt to shifting weather patterns and rising sea levels rather than trying to eliminate use of fossil fuels". What is surprising is that he supports a tax for carbon emissions! Well Rex, why don't you look for a new business model! Investing in renewable energy comes to mind. Doesn't that sound like a smarter strategy for your own bottom line?

[Pops]

Wow plant, Graeme called you insane! There is hope yet!

And as usual you are wrong about the gambling money being the biggest source, because you don't know what the biggest source is. In the good old USofA anyone can buy an election if they have the bucks, 7 of 10 of the top spending groups so far aren't required to disclose names, nationalities, nothing.

Oops that didn't work, the list is here:
http://mediaproject.wesleyan.edu/2012/0 ... egativity/

[Plantagenet]

Plant, You are living in lala land. Do you really think that burning oil is going to save us!

I never said anything of the sort. I simply pointed out factual errors in your post.

You are totally insane.

Steady on Graeme. Everyone makes mistakes---even you.

[Plantagenet]

And as usual you are wrong about the gambling money being the biggest source.

Really?

My post says: "by far the biggest donor so far this year owns gambling casinos in Las Vegas and China"===that would be Sheldon Anderson, casino owner, who is the largest single donor so far in the 2012 campaign. He has given 35 million dollars so far to Newtie and Mittie.

Sheldon Anderson, Casino mogul, is by far the largest single donor to 2012 campaign

Do you actually know of a bigger donor or not?

[Graeme]

Plant, Yes you are right; everybody makes a mistake. But this is a matter of degree and semantics. Do you really think that global ecocide can be regarded as a mistake? It was tongue in cheek when I questioned your sanity but now I'm beginning to wonder. . .

[Plantagenet]

Plant, Yes you are right

Thank you. You can be quite rational when you are being rational.

Do you really think that global ecocide can be regarded as a mistake?

Are you insane? Of course global ecocide is a mistake.

[AgentR11]

Can we do anything about our predicament? Maybe.

Always the wrong question. The question of "can" works for scientists publishing papers of course, as its subject to relatively simple "if x then y" logic; which allows you to go from "can we do anything about our predicament" to "can we reduce CO2 outputs". Of course we *CAN*; but we also can have humans living on Mars, or worldwide democracy, permaculture, and peace. "Can" allows one to completely disregard the will of sentient creatures who have acquired power. Unfortunately, that will is the single most powerful variable in the entire puzzle.

So, I give you a different question. And a less assuring answer.

Are we going to DO anything about our predicament? Absolutely not.

We will burn all the oil we can extract, by any and all possible means.
We will burn all the coal that we can dig up.
And we will burn all the NG that bubbles here and there.
We will burn it all.

[Pops]

Do you actually know of a bigger donor or not?

How am I supposed to know?

LOL, That's my point, the biggest money is anonymous.

Read my link.

[Graeme]

Do you really think that global ecocide can be regarded as a mistake?

Are you insane? Of course global ecocide is a mistake.

Well, If global ecocide is a mistake then I now know you'll be supporting Obama, electric cars, solar, wind. . .

And you'll won't be supporting oil companies.

‘Stand back, I’m going to try science’: Inside the brain of ExxonMobil’s CEO

That talk by ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson at the Council on Foreign Relations that Gristmill linked to earlier today is a stunning demonstration of how to sow confusion and delay. It’s worth deeper analysis. So let’s dig in!

It’s very long, so we’ll summarize some sections and zero in on a couple of key passages. You can read the whole thing here.

Paragraphs 1-6, in short: Energy prices sure go up and down a lot! But we keep finding more fossil fuels when we need to.

Next 3 paragraphs: Boy, there was a lot more natural gas in the shale here in North America than we expected.

Next 6 paragraphs: Let’s all say “energy security” rather than “energy independence,” OK? Exxon is a multinational, and I want everyone to be friends and not worry about where their oil comes from as long as it keeps coming.

Here’s where Tillerson starts to gets interesting. Let’s quote his original and then translate:

Ours is an industry that is built on technology, it’s built on science, it’s built on engineering, and because we have a society that by and large is illiterate in these areas, science, math and engineering, what we do is a mystery to them and they find it scary. And because of that, it creates easy opportunities for opponents of development, activist organizations, to manufacture fear.

Translation: You thought those people out there sounding an alarm about climate change were scientists? Forget it. We here at Exxon, we’re the scientists. And all those people with fancy degrees and titles who have been desperately trying to teach the U.S. public about global warming? They’re illiterates! We’re the clean guys in white coats; they’re the dirty “manufacturers” of fear.

There's more here.

[Plantagenet]

Well, If global ecocide is a mistake

Of course global ecocide is a mistake. Why don't you know that? What possible good do you imagine will come from global ecocide?

I now know you'll be supporting Obama, electric cars, solar, wind. . . And you'll won't be supporting oil companies.

You are thinking of the 2008 Obama. Things have changed---The 2012 Obama has decided he loves oil and frakking and natural gas in addition to Solyndra and the Chevy Volt. Obama now describes his energy policy as including "all of the above".

[Graeme]

Plant, Are you going to vote for Obama?

[Plantagenet]

Plant, Are you going to vote for Obama?

It depends on what additional laws Obama decides to waive.

Its one thing for him to waive the immigration laws to benefit illegal aliens. How about him waiving some laws to help US citizens out.

If Obama panders hard enough, I'm willing to listen.

[Graeme]

Wow. And electric cars too?

[Plantagenet]

Sure.

Electric cars are great if you're in a situation where their extra cost and limited range aren't a problem.


whhhhiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

[vision-master]

Plant, Are you going to vote for Obama?

It depends on what additional laws Obama decides to waive.

Its one thing for him to waive the immigration laws to benefit illegal aliens. How about him waiving some laws to help US citizens out.

If Obama panders hard enough, I'm willing to listen.

You listen, but you don't hear........ Walls divide ppl planted.

[SeaGypsy]

Plant, Are you going to vote for Obama?

It depends on what additional laws Obama decides to waive.

Its one thing for him to waive the immigration laws to benefit illegal aliens. How about him waiving some laws to help US citizens out.

If Obama panders hard enough, I'm willing to listen.

You listen, but you don't hear........ Walls divide ppl planted.

BS Vision, you mind is far more closed than plant's. Just my humble opine as a fellow but lightly more objective stoner than you.