A few weeks ago, I flew over the Deepwater Horizon site and saw what looked like the opposite of all the news reports: it looked more like somebody had spilled water into a Gulf filled with oil.
You don't have to make a personal trip to the Gulf of Mexico to realize the BP disaster has blown the cover off a subject some would prefer to keep quiet: the ongoing damage inflicted by our addiction to oil.
When you see images of blackened beaches, grounded fishermen, and toxic dispersants in the water, you can't pretend that it only costs $35 to fill your gas tank.
There are hidden costs in every drop of oil, and that's why I made this PSA for NRDC about the true cost of a gallon of gasoline.
People in the Gulf are paying a steep price right now. Eleven people lost their lives, but the human cost goes far beyond that. The commercial fishing and tourism economies in the Gulf have been gutted, and local families trying to put food on the table don't know where to turn. They've lost their jobs, wages, cultural traditions, beloved beaches, and security. This is the collateral damage of the disaster.
I didn't grow up in Louisiana, and I can imagine those who did are even more passionate about cleaning up this mess than the rest of us. I grew up in Canada, where we have a similar tragedy being carried out right now: the ancient boreal forest in Northern Alberta is being destroyed to collect dirty tar sands oil. Oil that generates three times the global warming pollution as regular crude. As a result, entire ecosystems and indigenous communities are being devastated.
When you see what's happening in the Gulf and the boreal, you realize we're willing to stop at absolutely nothing in order to get our fix. And it seems to me like it's time we recognize we have a problem. A major, major problem.
What we're doing is literally the same thing cave men did: we set things on fire to produce energy. There are so many viable alternatives. Wind farms and solar plants, for instance, don't explode, destroying thousands of miles of marshlands and oceans. That's something worth focusing on.
I started out feeling angry about the spill, and I think a lot of other people did too. Slowly but surely, I've been trying to redirect that anger into something positive. And you start to think, "How can we change this? How can we turn this into an opportunity?"
I see this whole thing as a wakeup call: a chance to shift to cleaner energy and build a greener economy.
It's easy to vilify Big Oil after a tragedy like this, but there are still hard working people in that industry who need to put a roof over their heads. I firmly believe we can pass clean energy and climate legislation and by doing so, put millions of Americans to work.
But we have to ask for it. We have to petition the government to move this kind of legislation forward. The Senate failed to do it this summer, but we should call on them to do it this fall. If the voices are loud enough, lawmakers will start to listen and (if only in the interests of self preservation) begin to move the country in a new direction.
I think our approach to energy is going to change one way or another. Eventually the Earth will make us change. It would be great if we could get in front of that - and better still, be here to enjoy it.
Learn more at NRDC.org/gulfspill
P.S. Ryan, if you read this, I hope you like the gift I gave you at TIFF 2010, I know your a huge fan, as am I, it is a gift from one fan to another.
http://teamdeadp00l.livejournal.com/ more about issues at hand especially this
Pollution apologists shill for corporate billionaire oil tycoon, not you.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
"A few weeks after the Lincoln Center gala, the advocacy wing of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation—an organization that oil billionaire David Koch started in 2004—held a different kind of gathering. Over the July 4th weekend, a summit called Texas Defending the American Dream took place in a chilly hotel ballroom in Austin. Though Koch freely promotes his philanthropic ventures, he did not attend the summit, and his name was not in evidence. And on this occasion the audience was roused not by a dance performance but by a series of speakers denouncing President Barack Obama.
Peggy Venable, the organizer of the summit, warned that Administration officials 'have a socialist vision for this country.'"
"Five hundred people attended the summit, which served, in part, as a training session for Tea Party activists in Texas. An advertisement cast the event as a populist uprising against vested corporate power. 'Today, the voices of average Americans are being drowned out by lobbyists and special interests,' it said. 'But you can do something about it.' The pitch made no mention of its corporate funders. The White House has expressed frustration that such sponsors have largely eluded public notice. David Axelrod, Obama’s senior adviser, said, 'What they don’t say is that, in part, this is a grassroots citizens’ movement brought to you by a bunch of oil billionaires.'”
"For instance, the U.S. government has generally propped the industry up with:
- Construction bonds at low interest rates or tax-free
- Research-and-development programs at low or no cost
- Assuming the legal risks of exploration and development in a company's stead
- Below-cost loans with lenient repayment conditions
- Income tax breaks, especially featuring obscure provisions in tax laws designed to receive little congressional oversight when they expire
- Sales tax breaks - taxes on petroleum products are lower than average sales tax rates for other goods
- Giving money to international financial institutions (the U.S. has given tens of billions of dollars to the World Bank and U.S. Export-Import Bank to encourage oil production internationally, according to Friends of the Earth)
- The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve
- Construction and protection of the nation's highway system
- Allowing the industry to pollute - what would oil cost if the industry had to pay to protect its shipments, and clean up its spills? If the environmental impact of burning petroleum were considered a cost? Or if it were held responsible for the particulate matter in people's lungs, in liability similar to that being asserted in the tobacco industry?
- Relaxing the amount of royalties to be paid
http://cleantech.com/news/node/554 Can't fan you again, so I'll just fav.
Please read Ricardo, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ricardo, then you will understand that taxes on oil with subsidies for green power, will only produce less power, incrase costs, and more pollution. This is a fact, so if you want to create pollution, increase the carbon foot print, then we need to continue this foolish policies of create huge subsidies for wind/solar power, tearing out dams for fish, and turning prime growing land back into deserts and swamps. We are destorying our wealth every day of the week, and as we are running at 1.5T dollar deficit at the federal level and have 40B dollar a month trade deficit, we are all goiing to regret it very soon. We have no more excess wealth to destory.
Anyone who doesn't understand that the oil industry is massively subsidized by the US government doesn't understand what's happening.
All anyone is asking is for the government to shift its subsidy from dirty energy to clean energy... home grown energy... and put the pollution apologists out of work.
You need to look it up, you have no idea what you are talknig about the government makes billions on selling oil leases. They make billions taxing oil companies, and the state have resource taxes on oil and gas. When you buy gas you pay sales tax, plus federal and in most states state tax on it. If you an electric car you do not pay any of these taxes but it is still more expense. Please look it up, otherwise you really look silly, you should not make statements like this. At best oil companies can get a tax break, but nobody pays a subsidy for gas/oil production, why would you, they make a ton of money of it.
He was not a free trader, at least not in the way you would consider him, what he understood is that if you pay a subsidy on any product, then people will produce more of that and less of products that were alternates to it, and society in general would get poorer. Look at Russia, they used to pay subsidies for grain production, and they used to be one of the largest importers of grain. Now they stop doing that, and they are huge exporter of grain. You do not need to like this, but it is a fact, and is one of the reason our economy is so bad, so many people agree with you. They want more money from the government invested in their ideas, and do not understand that the government prints money, they do not create wealth.
citizens drool,
mostly from oil related illnesses.
When you flew over gulf I am assuming you did so in a balloon made from corn starch, yes? You are more addicted to oil than me. You fly more than me, you spend more then me, and you consume more than me ie, you use more energy every day than I do. If you want to be green do what I do. I work 7 days a weeks, some place very close to my house. I bring a lunch to work. I go places I can walk to. I do take a shower every morning, but I have a very small yard, about 200 square feet. I grow some fruit in it, plums, oranges, and hopeful peaches. I use left over water from bath tub to water my yard, and collect rain water during the rain season. My association gives me tons of crap about it, but I do it anyways. Not because any of it is green, I do it because I do not have an excess of money as I have invested all my money into my business to create jobs. People like you, I am sorry to group you but I do in this case, make me very mad, as you do as you please and create rules to close down businesses like me. You would make everything cost more, without understanding that if it costs less it means it is more green.
Fascinating. The largest oil spill in history, which almost took down one of the largest companies in the world. Questions about regulations, fear in the oil industry, Cheney dashing off to meet with King Saud despite his heart condition.
And the price of gas pretty much stayed the same.
Next time an oil-shilling Republican gets into office and the price of oil hits $4 a gallon because of "market forces," I wonder if anyone will remember how it went down over the past 6 months?
Anybody that tries to argue the price of gas is anything but a game the Saudis play with Texans is kidding themselves.
This well was not used to collect oil from, it was drilled to look for oil, and was in the process of being shut down when it blew up, If they had been collecting oil and gas from it, it never would have blow up. So it had effect on the price, now what will have an effect on price, is the fact that nobody is looking for oil, so in about say 4 years when the price of oil goes up it will for two reasons. Number one less US oil as companies will stop looking for it, and number two the insurance you will need will be huge due the fact that companies will be forced to buy 20B in liablity insurance. So this spill has reduce our supply of oil in the future, and the costs in the future, but no worries, I am sure our economy in the future will be fine, as it is not like we have a huge debt we need to pay off in the future, so I am sure we will be able to import all the oil we want with our dollar being worth so much
The USA print money, but that's too complicated for ya.
We're a long way away from kicking oil, but for pity's sake - could the extraction mega-corporations AT LEAST do their job responsibly in the meanwhile ? They brag about their safety record - in fact it's atrocious, in the Gulf and worldwide. Richest companies in the history of Earth - constantly cutting corners.
"But, but, but... what about teh victory-mosque !!!"
Yes, companies like BP throught it was much cheap to pay lobbyist than focus on safefy, they were the largest payer of money to lobbyist. See, most foreign companies pay tons to lobbyist, US companies can not pay as much, this is the reason that most elected officials favor companies from overseas over US based on. Where did Mr Clinton go when he got out of office, China, where did Mr Reagon go Japan, and Mr Bush I, went to the middle east. Think about this next time you wonder why so little investment into the US by US companies.
"Addiction to Oil" is the most condescending and judgmental phrase today. What? Where we *addicted* to wood before? Tallow? Whale oil? Coal?
It's called "survival" and only those so far removed from actual survival would be so blase about it. We flip a switch and there's light. We twist a faucet and we have clean water. We have more variety in our diet in one day than most of humanity will ever have in their lives. Our clothes are clean, our beds are warm and our children have medicine. But hey, let's all feel bad about it, okay? "Hey you! Yeah, you with 2.5 children, dog and microwave! Thanks for ruining for everyone else, you addict!!"
I think more people would be interested in supporting other energy technologies if they weren't being called names. Last time I checked, the success rate for "nagging" was pretty low.
A lot of Americans are still driving around in their circus wagon Hummers and SUV’s the size of aircraft carriers to move one person to Costco where they can buy so much stuff that they have move it out to their gas guzzlers on a front end loader…
Americans with Hummers and pickup trucks they like their politicians on the far right because it is all about them…Far right Republicans like war and cheap gas, flag waving, and waving their finger in the air proclaiming that we are number one…
So as long as they are getting their fix of me, they do not care about anyone or anything except themselves…least of all the oil spill, clean air, the wars, or anyone that doesn’t agree with them…I don’t even think they feel bad about any of it…
Yes, right wing people do not breath air, and they love war, see you have more right wing people in the military than left wing people, and right wing people love to die. Right wing people are glad the oil spill happened, heck, we want more of them. Guess what Rick, the price of something determines how green it is. Something costs less, it costs less to make it. Most green energy uses more energy than it produces, if green energy costs less people would use it. See we tax the crap out of oil, and gas, and we create huge subsidies for green energy, but it still costs more. Read Ricardo, and the theory on rents, then maybe you will understand, I doubt anything I say you care about. BTW: I am more green than you I am sure, but not because it is green, I am because I spend all my money on business to employee people, do me a favor and increase my taxes more. This way I can close my business, lay off my workers, and just jet to Greece and have a vacation for weeks at a time.
Not much dead animals when you only have 1PPM of oil in the water. See, you could drink tap water with 1PPM and it would have no effect on you at all. Dang, people use to driink oil out out of the ground in the early part of the century. You can bath in oil, and it will not hurt you at all. The only issues oil really causes is things can grow in it, and they can make you sick, oil directly out of the ground will not kill you at all. Methane gas is produced by cows and even people, you have more methane gas produceed at my house after a meal of hot dogs and beans than you will be exposed to if you bathed in this plume for weeks.
You are correct right now if you look at the total tax on gas in the United States from all sources it is about 1/2 the costs of the oil. The sad part is the government in Europe are even worst, there the cost of gas is about 80 percent tax. So it cost about $1.00 per gallon to get oil to the market, the rest of the costs are fees, taxes and profits. Green energy on the other hand normally cost about $7.00 dollars per equivalent of a gallon of oil. But this it the worst part, to produce 1KW of green energy normally costs about 1.5KW of energy. So the money you tax oil, the more green power costs, and this the reason that even in Europe where gas costs up to $10.00 a gallon green energy still requires subsidies. Green energy increases our carbon ouput, not decreases it.
Shifting taxes from income tax (or registration fees, which are way lower in Europe, or tolls, which are practically nonexistent) to consumption taxes like on gas can be done in a revenue neutral way. But of course conservative Americans prefer to listen to fossil energy lobbyists.