_
Today the Senate debates
the merits of an oil pipeline disastrous
to the common good. The Keystone pipeline and its
cousins will enable the development of Canadian tar sands, helping to make
catastrophic climate change inevitable
and irreversible. Except for the momentary fever
dream of an ephemeral
energy boom, it offers Americans nothing but the prospect of oil
spills and higher
energy prices. But the fossil fuel companies invested hundreds
of millions of dollars in this legislature, and so we get fossilized
fuel public policy.
Last week's hallucinatory
agreement between the US and China to start considering getting
semi-serious about fossil fuel emissions is already receding into the carbon
dioxide haze.
For those of us who
have hoped that humans might act to ensure our grandchildren's well being,
it's enervating stuff. We almost certainly doom our civilization if
we don't start moving it away from fossil fuels starting . . . well,
starting years ago, actually.
I am no longer surprised. We have a bad habit of
assuming that since individual humans are capable of intelligence, forethought
and planning - that this means we should be equally capable of intentional collective
action. Unfortunately, collectively our species demonstrates the cognitive
abilities of a toxic lichen. Civilizations, perhaps achieve the blind tropisms
of a nematode or a pea plant - sometimes able to evade a fatal obstacle. A
nation or a government can often lurch around with the spastic enthusiasms of a
poorly coordinated toddler . . .
I don't place much hope in the plans of our leaders or their critics, but hey, sometimes yelling at toddlers helps - if only as a personal tonic.
I don't place much hope in the plans of our leaders or their critics, but hey, sometimes yelling at toddlers helps - if only as a personal tonic.
_
I know you weren't trying to be funny, but I'm snorting over here. Toxic lichen.... poorly coordinated toddler! I think I've reached the stage where I might as well laugh, because there isn't much else I can do.
ReplyDeleteYa gotta laugh.
DeleteAt the moment, it would appear that the authorities are more worried about peak oil than global warming. I saw that the Chinese seemed to downplay the agreement in their won media. They seem to be more worried about the local manifestations of severe pollution than in global concerns.
ReplyDeleteRussell, Since there's no political momentum to jettison the fossil-fuel-fueled-growth paradigm, I think you're probably right that whatever movement there is has much to do with other related issues.
DeleteI am freaked out by the tar sands and this pipeline proposal, and I'm afraid that the Republicans will keep at it until they ram it through. As I see it, we need to get away from the "growth is good" paradigm, which is so entrenched it will never change - at least not in my lifetime.
ReplyDeleteThere are people working on this who feel that if we can drag our feet on the process long enough, it's going to become un-economical to develop this kind of very expensive oil. If Keystone doesn't get built, it will be because they were right about that.
Delete