A Quick Comment About Sunday Morning TV Ads

You can tell a lot about who advertisers think is watching TV shows by where they choose to advertise. Just think about what programs get the Viagara commercials... sports. And the Sunday morning talk shows are no exception.

While I caught one ad this morning in support of the Employee Free Choice Act (for more info on this bill, see ItsYourFreeChoice.org), it is the energy ads that always get my blood boiling. Leaving aside the Pickens Plan ads promoting wind, solar and natural gas, the ad that caught my attention this morning comes from the American Petroleum Institute (API) and its website EnergyTomorrow.org.

Its is painfully obvious that the API wants us to continue to burn oil. Its how their members make money.

But the underlying assumptions API makes are disturbing and their ads appeal to the most shallow of arguments. First, they continue to promote the idea that we should expand oil production because we need the energy. But that clearly ignores the fact that if we burn oil at the rates we do today, if we strive to use all of the oil until we run out, we will kill our planet and us along with it.

But this morning's ad really irked me. API is telling us that drilling for more oil offshore isn't so bad, because modern oil platforms can drill across a 40 mile radius, thus reducing the eyesore of too many platforms on the horizon.

Really, they think our concern is about how the platforms look?! Sure, we don't want to make the oceans off our shores ugly, but our concerns about offshore drilling are MUCH more substantial than shallow concerns about vanity and views.

Regardless of whether the infrastructure is above the water or under the water, we are still talking about drilling large chunks of the ocean floor. An oil leak in the infrastructure underwater is still bad. Burning more oil is still bad.

This is not about beauty, it is about environmental sustainability.

It is time that the API stop making shallow arguments. It is time that they stop insulting our intelligence. It is time to talk about transitioning away from oil and towards renewable energy that poses significantly less risk to our planet. It is time that the API enter the 21st century.

Comments

[Daniel Bennett]

Alan,
Wondering if we need the Fairness Doctrine. My father directed ads against the oil companies thanks to the Fairness Doctrine. Ads are run in Washington, DC not to elucidate policy makers, but to threaten them that these ads can be pushed out to the whole country.

Until there are better ways to educate the public of the arguments, facts and potential consequences , then we are doomed to poor public decisions. Perhaps the Internet could educate the public...h­mmm...I say while typing into a blog comment.

Commercial speech is a corrupting influence in democratic societies, but regulating it is tricky. Drug ads are required by law to include significant negative implications. Other ads that promote actions that threaten the life of the planet do not warrant the same truthfulness.

And since the media has not been responsible for verifying many claims, it is up to us create better education tools. I had been hoping that some day a site similar to Wikipedia could be started that helps bloggers, journalist and most importantly the public find the relevant history and facts behind most issues. Then we could all look up, oh say: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recentac_majorghg.html#fig1 and get a sense of carbon dioxide levels over a 100,000 years and get truthful information to make as good choices for the survival of the planet as we do taking any prescription drug.

Daniel

[kmfla]

Since you are on a energy rant, the one drawback of solar ect. is coal/oil/nuke still have to stay online to pick up the requirements on days that do not produce wind or enough sunlight. They can not just be turned off and on, some plants take almost a week to come up to full power. So there is still a huge gap between the two. I would LOVE to see anyone from Huff post or any other news agency research this and actually explain it to people.

[Alan Rosenblatt - Huffpost Blogger]

I agree that there will be a need to continue using coal/oil/nuke until the full transition is possible and complete. But the focus should be on trending those sources down, not up.

Also, new technologies for storing energy and a smart electric grid will help reduce concerns about slow energy production days for wind and solar. And it will allow for all people producing their own energy to feed surplus back into grid.

Estimates range from 20% to 70% for the amount of electricity produced now being lost in transmission.

So it seems that investing in the smart grid and reducing energy lost in transmission is better than investing in producing more oil, burning more coal, and expanding nuclear energy.

It is a matter of how we want to commit our resources.­.. do we want to make a long-term commitment to growing unsustainable energy sources (oil and coal), or do we want to commit to renewable, environmentally safer sources?

Expanding our infrastructure to produce more oil requires a huge capital investment that commits us to the wrong path, in my opinion.

When it comes to sustainability, the long view should trump the short view.