Democrats & Liberals Archives

The Climate Chu Chu Train

“Drill, Baby, Drill” has been the standard cry of oil bugs for several years. Oil enthusiasts - climate change deniers - have been shouting daily that we don’t have to depend on other nations, because we can be “energy independent” by drilling offshore in the Gulf and in other coastal waters. So we told BP they can drill, and the result is the currently-developing energy/environment/economic/cultural/humane catastrophe in the Gulf.

I need not dwell on the details of the cataclysm. All news outlets are doing a damn good job. Suffice it to say that we must still rely on ocean-going vessels to bring us oil from hostile countries as we did before. Even if this BP rig were successful, we would still be dependent on other nations delivering us oil by tanker.

Because as "everyone knows," we must have more and more energy to support our lifestyle, our economy, our civilization, our international standing. Also, it is "well known" that the best way for doing this is with oil.

However, the calamity on the Gulf points us to facts, undesirable but undeniable facts, negative but obvious facts, disturbing but eye-opening facts:

1. Oil Drilling is Not Safe - Because oil is getting harder to extract from Earth it is becoming much more hazardous than before. BP had to go 50 miles out to sea and dig several miles down in the water. According to ProPublica, "...from 2001 to 2007, offshore drilling accidents resulted in 41 deaths and 302 injuries."
   
2. Oil Drilling Ruins Ecosystems - The gushing oil is killing fish, fowl and mammal in large numbers. We see it every day in today's news.
   
3. Oil Drilling Ruins Economies - This is especially true of the shrimp industry, the dominant industry in the Gulf states. Instead of improving, the depression in the Gulf states may get worse.
   
4. Oil Transport Fouls Economies and Ecosystems - Exxon Valdez is a primary case. But there have been many other spills all over the world.
   
5. Oil Use Sickens People - Oil use fouls the air, which causes many physical ailments, from which many of us die.
   

These facts hit us in the face. There are 2 other consequences of our love of oil that, though contested by some, are even more dangerous to our world. The first is that oil is leading the world to climate disaster. By adding CO2 to the atmosphere, oil use causes global warming, which in turn is producing a more violent climate, a drastic change in world ecology, and eventually an unlivable world for humans. A super-majority of climate scientists attest to this.

Another consequence of our addiction to oil is that it feeds belligerence, aggressiveness and war. It's no secret that wherever oil is drilled, people are killed for profit. Many oil-rich nations are antagonistic to U.S. Remember when Saudi Arabia cut off our supply of oil in 1973, thus ruining our economy? Oil and aggression go together in what we call the competitive world economy.

The most urgent problem facing the world today is the climate-change problem. I say, that this will be impossible to solve without solving the overly-aggressive competition problem. 195 nations meet at Kyoto and they bicker. They meet at Copenhagen and they bicker. Each nation places the burden on another nation. Each is concerned only with its own future. No nation considers the world as one big community that must be saved and if not no nation will escape calamity.

This requires a different type of thinking: competitive thinking must be replaced with cooperative thinking.

President Barack Obama has chosen Steven Chu to be Secretary of Energy because Chu is a Nobel-winning scientist, and also, because Chu understands the need for cooperation among nations if we are to solve the climate-change problem. Since cooperation among 195 nations is extremely difficult under any circumstances, why not seek cooperation among only the major polluters? As Wired Magazine says:

For Chu, this makes China the key to America’s energy future. Since the US and China produce some 40 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, Chu argues that far-reaching multicountry agreements aren’t really necessary. All the diplomatic inertia and endless compromise make them difficult to achieve and unlikely to have real teeth. It’s smarter to deal with China alone.

There's been a lot of discussion about competing to be the first in renewable energy resources. But Chu places a more cooperative cast on the project, as the Wired article points out:

And for the US? Chu sees an opportunity for the country to expand corporate experimentation. Take building efficiency: Because China is developing so quickly — and since its zoning and construction codes are not very restrictive — it’s much easier to experiment with green buildings there. Domestic companies can get to China, learn what works, and use the information to profit back home. In other words, the US provides the raw research, and China serves as the real-life lab.

I'm sure once this experiment in cooperation succeeds, many other opportunities for cooperation will develop and the chances of us licking the climate-change problem will improve tremendously.

The old super-competitive oil-based economy is dying and making the world die with it. Let's replace it with a cooperative renewable-energy based economy that will make the world thrive. The oil-tankership economy is killing us. We must follow the lead of Stephen Chu and jump on the Climate Chu Chu Train.