Owing to this horrifying BP oil spill, it is now blatantly obvious to all but the thickest observers that America's addiction to oil is the greatest threat facing this country now and in the future. America has sold its soul to the oil industry and the end-game is now unfolding. What was once a secure source of energy that enabled economic growth and progress has now become a massive ball and chain that will severely inhibit all economies rigidly tied to fossil fuel infrastructure.
The threats are overwhelming, with clear linkages between the environment, the economy and national security, three areas that one would think are high priorities to policy-makers. And yet, like the 800 pound gorilla in the room, policy-makers of all stripes still walk on egg shells around the slimy oil industry, even as it sponsors global warming disinformation and fights tooth and nail for more drilling rights in the gulf, not withstanding the current environmental fiasco. Obama now looks like a total fool for having opened new areas to offshore drilling just 3 weeks before this catastrophe started, no doubt alienating a big part of his political base. Meanwhile industry tools Bobby Jindal (Governor of Louisiana) and Louisiana Congressman Charles Boustany are bent hard over opposing Obama's 6-month drilling ban which was intended to give time to investigate the root cause of the oil spill and take corrective action. It's mind boggling that these shills can't see taking 6 months to figure out what happened and how to prevent the same in the future, even as their state's fishing and tourism industries are in the process of being wiped out.
This gulf oil spill disaster is just the latest reminder that the industry as a whole is taking on greater and greater risks in its quest for oil. Rigs are operating at extreme depths using unproven methods without adequate safeguards. All appropriate regulations have been bypassed, as the necessary regulatory agencies were greased up front, assuring swift approval without adequate (any) environmental review. Speaking to an environmental attorney this past weekend, he told me that all of these deep sea rigs were approved on the premise that they posed de minimis environmental risks ! i.e. the lowest level of environmental review was required, basically a rubber stamp.
And if you think this BP gulf spill is bad, clearly this is just business as usual for the oil industry pigs who have left their greasy hoof print in every corner of the globe.
Hurricane Body Blow
Those cruel gods of reality have found a most direct way of punishing the U.S. for its oil addiction. It's a hard fact that the average hurricane is now 50% stronger than it was 40 years ago, and worse yet the occurrence of deadly category 4 and category 5 hurricanes has also increased proportionally. Although, oil industry apologists and everyday morons still deny the linkage between burning fossil fuels and environmental catastrophe, these are the types of people who will deny anything that is not in their own immediate self-interest. They are like a a 400 lb fat man who can't get out of his own way and needs every ounce of energy just to get back into the buffet line.
As for the legitimate scientific community, there is now overwhelming scientific agreement on anthropogenic (manmade) climate change. Even the American Association of Petroleum Geologists has recently shifted stance to a new "non-committal" statement, although also (finally) admitting:
"Climate change is peripheral at best to our science…. AAPG does not have credibility in that field…….and as a group we have no particular knowledge of global atmospheric geophysics".
Oh right, now they tell us, I wouldn't trust these corrupt house boys to tell me the time of day.
Back to the key point, this season NOAA expects 8-14 major hurricanes, which would make it one of the deadliest seasons ever recorded. It's not hard to predict that the growing ubiquity of these deadly hurricanes is going to eventually decimate a majority of gulf coast and Atlantic seaboard communities, causing widespread economic dislocation.
Between oil spills, rising sea levels, deforestation, desertification, droughts and recurring Katrina's, the credibility of the oil industry and its copious disinformers will eventually be lower than Wall Street's. Unfortunately that day will likely come at a time when it will be far too late to do anything of consequence about the problem. Suffice to say that by the time there is political consensus on global warming and the need for immediate action, there will be a lot of bodies buried.
The other blood-stained aspect of this oil soaked faustian bargain we have entered into, is this oil-for-souls economic/military "strategy" that has grown out of control in the Middle East. Apparently squandering hundreds of billions in oil payments to the Saudis, Iranians, Kuwaitis and other corrupt Middle Eastern regimes has not been a great idea. Come to find out, some of the hundreds of billions we gave them, was not just used to prop up puppet governments and corrupt potentates, but it also found its way into the hands of dozens if not hundreds of terrorist groups. Using armed coercion to keep these same terrorist malcontents at bay in the region hasn't been working out great either. These costly, never-ending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have simply further hollowed out, destroyed, and otherwise destabilized those failed states which will no doubt become renewed hot beds for terrorist activism when the U.S. inevitably pulls out. That will leave the region with two very unstable and hostile nuclear armed regimes in Iran and Pakistan, augmented by two or more totally failed and anarchic states (Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen etc.) that can be used as training bases. Essentially, it will be a nuclear-armed insane asylum, having a major axe to grind with the West and the U.S. in particular. Meanwhile, from an economic perspective, along with outsourcing, this entire oil import strategy has contributed to the total depletion of the economy and left the U.S. imminently dependent upon the generosity of foreigners for day-to-day funding and rollover of debt.
And yet, for all that, the U.S. is the only major developed nation that still does not have a basic consumption tax on oil, therefore we are essentially subsidizing the entire oil industry with all of its environmental "side-effects" on top of subsidizing the entire Middle Eastern terrorist complex.
