I think it is safe to say that the 99% is fed up with false promises. In the last election, many Americans -- including a rather surprising number of young people -- opted to vote for Barack Obama because they believed in his words about bringing change to the country and the world. Sadly, so far at least, too often and in too many ways, this has not been the case.
Perhaps one of the biggest disappointments is Obama's unwillingness to make good on his promise to end the "tyranny of oil". A case in point was his recent thumbs-up to BP to do more drilling in the Gulf. It is stunning to me that the response to the 2010 Gulf oil disaster is to say 'sure go ahead'. Do more of the same. Make more profits at the expense of the average American, and destroy the planet while you are at it.
We know that taking on the oil industry will not be easy. But for those of us deeply concerned about the future of the planet, this seems like a no-brainer. We must break our dependency on fossil fuels. It's that simple. If we don't, life as we know it will come to an end -- and future generations of Americans will be living with the very ugly consequences.
The latest test case of Obama's commitment to "heal the planet" is the Keystone XL pipeline. Before the end of this year, he is expected to accept or reject TransCanada's request for a permit to move forward with this massive pipeline that will bring tar sands oil from Alberta through America's heartland down to the Gulf of Mexico.
As the battle over this permit reaches a feverish pitch, the rhetoric becomes more absurd. Oil lobbyists are sensing that public support for the pipeline is getting weak, and they are getting desperate. So their latest stroke of marketing genius is to call the oil dredged up from the tar sands of Alberta the 'ethical' choice. You could buy oil from those 'dirty' countries in the Middle East that engage in conflict, the argument goes, or you can do the right thing and buy it from 'clean' Canada.
And now they've got American politicians parroting some of their best lines.
Here is what Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina had to say a few weeks ago. "We have a supply [of oil] to our north that, to me, is just like finding it in America. Dirty oil is buying oil from someone who takes the money and sponsors terrorism and tries to make the world a dark and sinister place to live."
The authors of this ethical oil argument are none other than Conservative party insiders in Canada. These clever strategists realize that most Americans understand that fossil fuels are a major environmental and health hazard. Thus they are changing tack and putting forth the "ethical oil" pitch.
But there is nothing ethical about tar sands oil. The oil coming from Alberta's tar sands is the single largest source of emissions in Canada, and is contributing rather dramatically to catastrophic climate change. For the millions of women, men and children around the world suffering the immediate impacts of climate change--including drought, flooding and dislocation -- it is a cruel joke that oil lobbyists would try to call any oil "ethical."
The false dichotomy between 'ethical' oil and 'conflict' oil is not only offensive and of course insulting -- it will, in my view, ultimately only make more Americans cynical about big business and the politicians who blindly support them. Americans know that if America is to really demonstrate leadership on stopping climate change, it will have to lead by moving away from fossil fuels. We know that the right thing to do is to start investing in alternative energy sources. And we know that it is time for Obama to finally make good on his promises.
That's why this Sunday, November 6, I am going to be joining thousands of other Americans at the White House. We are going to respectfully ask our highest elected politician, Barack Obama, to unlink his arms with Big Oil and join hands with us, the American people. We are going to call upon President Obama to fulfill the pledges he made about the environment as candidate Obama. We are going to call upon him -- again -- to say NO TO THE KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE.
Please join us and send a strong message to our politicians that 'we the people' know what we need, and yes we can make our politicians listen. A clean energy future is the one that will give future generations of Americans real security.
Matt Price: On the Trail of Ethical Oil's Secrets
Kathryn Marshall: Hey Celebs, Obama Hasn't Flip-Flopped on Oil
Kathryn Marshall: Memo to Jody Williams: Ethical Oil HELPS Women's Rights
I guess you can have an electric car on the lot, but you can't make people buy them. More improvements must be made before enough people will want to buy one to make the practical. I never see cars at those plug in stations for electric cars around town. We still have a long way to go on alternative power sources.
There's nothing wrong with the oil industry - it's people making use of a natural resource that is there and useful. In fact, the oil sands, once they are cleaned and purged of the crude, is environmentally better off after being reforested and populated in much higher numbers with wild life. Those new trees will be good carbon reducers which didn't exist before.
Does the world need to move away from oil? Yes - absolutely, but it won't happen anytime soon so freedom loving nations must work towards investing in other democracies that can provide oil and get the money out of the nations that seek to hurt others because they don't believe in their extreme anti-democratic ideologies. As technology advances, the world can then move past relying on oil as a primary resource for consumption.
Say we say No to building the Keystone pipeline and the Canadians build one to British Columbia to ship there oil to Asia - is the CO2 and pollution rendered less harmful by magical properties of per capita or historic usage?
Everyone is talking about treating the symptoms! Tackle the problem head on; add an environmental tariff or tax on all products sold based on the environmental impact of manufacturing, transportation, and because it's the right thing to do based on the sustainability of the products!
Big Energy is always gonna be the problem, even if it gets frantically greenwashed by sellouts - there is no possible way that Chevron Solar and BP Wind are gonna be any less destructive or mercenary than their primary businesses, so why does DOI and DOE insist on handing TENS OF BILLIONS of our dollars to them and MILLIONS of acres of our healthy open spaces to them instead of following the much more successful, clean, affordable and FAST solution that Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, France, the UK, Japan and others are using - the FEED IN TARIFF so that real people like us can be paid fairly for producing solar power on our rooftops?
Truth hurts - you have to look past slogans and fight hard for what's right - the defaults will always be Big Banks and Big Energy dominating us, poisoning us, ripping us off and killing our wilderness. The type of energy doesn't change that at all.
The small State of Wisconsin, produces more CO2 , than the oilsands, and the US produces 40 times the CO2 , than does the oilsands.
Yes, the oilsands oil is "ethical" oil, and there is no way that the US economy can survive without an oil based economy, at least, not for at least a generation, or more. You can buy secure oil from a friend and ally, or you can take your chances with a highly explosive middle east, or whacky Venezuaela. Your choice. !!
Massively increase subsidies and loan backing for the installation of rooftop solar, offshore wind and waste bio char bio fuels.
Rooftop solar pv, offshore wind and waste bio char and bio fuels is the ONLY energy mix that will provide all the world's energy needs, carbon and land negatives, 24/7, forever, already cheaper than nukes and getting cheaper. So you can debate the when not the if.
There is enough rooftop to supply all the electricity we need with today's panels. Including roads, parking lot and there is many times the area needed to power our modern civilization forever. No giant desert arrays needed, nor wanted.
There is enough near offshore wind to power the world a couple times over. Forever.
There is enough waste bio mass to backup wind and solar for 24/7 power, long haul fuels, and chemical feed stocks. Land negative, an end to dumping. Carbon negative. Massively. More than any other tech we have.
These three sources are the future of our energy, forever.
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/03/18/offshore-wind-energy-cheaper-than-nuclear-energy-eu-climate-chief-says/
http://www.plancanada.com/biochar_basics.pdf
2$ per watt waste bio char energy plant. 100 GW electricity
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/06/10/solar-power-graphs-to-make-you-smile/
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/08/23/solar-power-intro-3-key-solar-power-points-top-solar-power-news/
It is a false dichotomy. The real dichotomy is cheap, reliable, job creating energy versus expensive, unreliable energy that doesn't creating jobs. It is that simple.
Is that not the way it should be?