Environment
BP's apocalyptic Gulf gusher has put our ability to survive in serious doubt.
We have no reason to believe an end to the crisis is near---or even in sight. Nor can we begin to calculate the damage to our Mother Earth…to her oceans, to the core of her being…and to each of us as individual organisms.
Only one thing IS clear: we cannot ultimately survive without a rapid conversion to a Solartopian economy that is totally green-powered. That transformation will be forced by biological imperatives, not money or markets.
The powers that be studiously avoid the core reality that this disaster stems from the ability of large corporations to make all of us pay for their irresponsible greed.
The black poisons killing our global body gush from a system that grants corporations human rights but does not demand human responsibility.
It is suicidal to allow corporations to deploy technologies they cannot mange or insure and then make us pay for their greed.
From banking to industry to energy, the system privatizes profits and socializes disaster. It is the essence of what Mussolini called "corporate control of the state."
We have no reason to believe an end to the crisis is near---or even in sight. Nor can we begin to calculate the damage to our Mother Earth…to her oceans, to the core of her being…and to each of us as individual organisms.
Only one thing IS clear: we cannot ultimately survive without a rapid conversion to a Solartopian economy that is totally green-powered. That transformation will be forced by biological imperatives, not money or markets.
The powers that be studiously avoid the core reality that this disaster stems from the ability of large corporations to make all of us pay for their irresponsible greed.
The black poisons killing our global body gush from a system that grants corporations human rights but does not demand human responsibility.
It is suicidal to allow corporations to deploy technologies they cannot mange or insure and then make us pay for their greed.
From banking to industry to energy, the system privatizes profits and socializes disaster. It is the essence of what Mussolini called "corporate control of the state."
As Planet Earth continues to hemorrhage crude oil from its wound — with a worst-case estimate of as much as 100,000 barrels a day — we grope, beyond our anger and guilt, simply to imagine what damage we have done in the pursuit of human empowerment.
This is bigger than BP, blameworthy though the company may be. This is bigger than any sort of “us vs. them” scenario we can think of. It’s a crisis of civilization, which means all of us.
If we drive, use energy, buy products wrapped in absurd, throwaway plastic — if we live at all — it cuts across our lives. The roots of this disaster, and, God help us, the ones to come, are political and corporate and governmental, and they are also intensely personal. We all collude in society’s “addiction” to oil, or what I would call its sense of entitlement: This is our planet. We’re the boss.
What we’re truly addicted to, or at least inextricably caught up in, is what my friend Jim Oberg calls “doomsday capitalism” and its need for reckless, unlimited economic growth. With this system operative, we trend toward war, empire and exploitation.
This is bigger than BP, blameworthy though the company may be. This is bigger than any sort of “us vs. them” scenario we can think of. It’s a crisis of civilization, which means all of us.
If we drive, use energy, buy products wrapped in absurd, throwaway plastic — if we live at all — it cuts across our lives. The roots of this disaster, and, God help us, the ones to come, are political and corporate and governmental, and they are also intensely personal. We all collude in society’s “addiction” to oil, or what I would call its sense of entitlement: This is our planet. We’re the boss.
What we’re truly addicted to, or at least inextricably caught up in, is what my friend Jim Oberg calls “doomsday capitalism” and its need for reckless, unlimited economic growth. With this system operative, we trend toward war, empire and exploitation.
As BP's ghastly gusher assaults the Gulf of Mexico and so much more, a tornado has forced shut the Fermi2 atomic reactor at the site of a 1966 melt-down that nearly irradiated the entire Great Lakes region.
If the White House has a reliable plan for deploying and funding a credible response to a disaster at a reactor that's superior to the one we've seen at the Deepwater Horizon, we'd sure like to see it.
Meanwhile it wants us to fund two more reactors on the Gulf and another one 40 miles from Washington DC. And that's just for starters.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has warned that at least one new design proposed for federal funding cannot withstand tornadoes, earthquakes or hurricanes.
But the administration has slipped $9 billion for nuclear loan guarantees into an emergency military funding bill, in addition to the $8.33 it's already approved for two new nukes in Georgia.
If the White House has a reliable plan for deploying and funding a credible response to a disaster at a reactor that's superior to the one we've seen at the Deepwater Horizon, we'd sure like to see it.
Meanwhile it wants us to fund two more reactors on the Gulf and another one 40 miles from Washington DC. And that's just for starters.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has warned that at least one new design proposed for federal funding cannot withstand tornadoes, earthquakes or hurricanes.
But the administration has slipped $9 billion for nuclear loan guarantees into an emergency military funding bill, in addition to the $8.33 it's already approved for two new nukes in Georgia.
As oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, a shocking vote tomorrow (Thursday, May 27) may rush $9 billion worth of taxpayer guarantees into building three new nuclear power plants---two of them on that already tortured Gulf of Mexico.
Environmental groups (NIRS.org, PSR.org) are posting alerts and circulating at least one letter asking House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) to stop the handout. The public is being urged to contact Obey and other Representatives on the committee (202-225-3121). Shrouded in murky haste, the vote is currently scheduled for 5pm.
The bailout may be attached to an emergency appropriations bill meant to provide funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. How that "emergency" relates to building new nuclear power plants remains a mystery.
Insider accounts say the bill may provide $9 billion in loan guarantees for two reactors to be built at the site of the South Texas Nuclear Plant, currently home to two aging reactors. Funding may also go to a new reactor proposed for Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, where two two-decade-old reactors are also licensed.
Environmental groups (NIRS.org, PSR.org) are posting alerts and circulating at least one letter asking House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) to stop the handout. The public is being urged to contact Obey and other Representatives on the committee (202-225-3121). Shrouded in murky haste, the vote is currently scheduled for 5pm.
The bailout may be attached to an emergency appropriations bill meant to provide funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. How that "emergency" relates to building new nuclear power plants remains a mystery.
Insider accounts say the bill may provide $9 billion in loan guarantees for two reactors to be built at the site of the South Texas Nuclear Plant, currently home to two aging reactors. Funding may also go to a new reactor proposed for Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, where two two-decade-old reactors are also licensed.
As BP destroys our priceless planet, its lawyers gear up to save the company from paying for the damage. The same will happen---only worse---with the next atomic reactor disaster.
By law, BP may be liable for only $75 million of the harm done by the Deepwater Horizon.
Ask yourself why the federal government would adopt legislation that limits the liability of an oil driller for the damage it does to us all.
Ask the same question---on another order of magnitude---about nuclear power plants.
Some lawmakers have tried to raise this cap so BP could be made to pay for the wounds they have not yet stopped inflicting.
By any calculation, BP did more than $75 million in harm during the first hour of this undersea gusher. That sum won't begin to cover even the legal fees, let alone the tangible damage to our only home.
By law, BP may be liable for only $75 million of the harm done by the Deepwater Horizon.
Ask yourself why the federal government would adopt legislation that limits the liability of an oil driller for the damage it does to us all.
Ask the same question---on another order of magnitude---about nuclear power plants.
Some lawmakers have tried to raise this cap so BP could be made to pay for the wounds they have not yet stopped inflicting.
By any calculation, BP did more than $75 million in harm during the first hour of this undersea gusher. That sum won't begin to cover even the legal fees, let alone the tangible damage to our only home.
Money is power. Each of us has it to varying degrees. Our challenge is to use our spending to advance worthy goals. Right now we see economic power being used against the state of Arizona because of the awful legislation recently passed that makes it all too easy for police there to seek proof of citizenship from virtually anyone they choose. Many groups and government entities have already cancelled conferences and other activities in Arizona, sending state and business leaders into a frizzy. They deserve to suffer as do the vast majority of Arizona citizens that supported the legislation. Every American that professes love and respect for the Constitution should avoid spending their tourism and other kinds of spending in Arizona.
As you read this, the life of our bodies, nation and planet is being blown out a corporate hole in the Gulf of Mexico and into a Dead Zone of no return.
The apocalyptic gusher of oily poison pouring into the waters that give us life can only be viewed---FELT---by each and every one of us as an on-going death by a thousand cuts with no end in sight.
Yet our government---allegedly the embodiment of our collective will to survive---has done NOTHING of significance to fight this mass murder.
As it did while New Orleans drowned downstream from a willfully neglected levee system, our most potentially effective counter-force dithers on the other side of the world, in the wrong Gulf.
We squander our treasure on the largest conglomeration of people and weapons the world has ever seen. It's bloated with hardware designed specifically to destroy and kill. Hundreds of thousands of Americans sit on our dime in more than a hundred countries, rotting in the outposts of a bygone empire.
Why aren't they in the Gulf of Mexico, fighting for our truest "national security"?
The apocalyptic gusher of oily poison pouring into the waters that give us life can only be viewed---FELT---by each and every one of us as an on-going death by a thousand cuts with no end in sight.
Yet our government---allegedly the embodiment of our collective will to survive---has done NOTHING of significance to fight this mass murder.
As it did while New Orleans drowned downstream from a willfully neglected levee system, our most potentially effective counter-force dithers on the other side of the world, in the wrong Gulf.
We squander our treasure on the largest conglomeration of people and weapons the world has ever seen. It's bloated with hardware designed specifically to destroy and kill. Hundreds of thousands of Americans sit on our dime in more than a hundred countries, rotting in the outposts of a bygone empire.
Why aren't they in the Gulf of Mexico, fighting for our truest "national security"?
As vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), Rich Cizik represented 4,500 congregations serving 30 million members. Considering himself a “Reagan conservative” and a strong initial supporter of George W. Bush, Cizik had been with the organization since 1980, serving as its key advocate before Congress, the Office of the President, and the Supreme Court on issues like opposition to abortion and gay marriage.
Santa Rosa, CA (2. April 2010) With the media coverage on the horrific Gulf Coast oil spill largely centering on the volume of the spill and efforts to stem the outflow, Post Carbon Institute offers 12 additional important angles, each tackled by one of the Institute’s 29 acclaimed Fellows. For further perspectives, information and insight contact the Institute.
1. The Ripple Effect
RICHARD HEINBERG (Senior Fellow – Energy & Climate) – We’ve only just begun to see the true cost of the Gulf Coast oil spill. As we saw with Hurricane Katrina, the ripple effect of disruptions in oil supply can lead to profound and surprising outcomes. When you add the unimaginably large costs associated with the discovery and delivery of deep water oil to the even more prohibitive costs of cleanup and damage control and remove the oil industry subsidies, suddenly ‘alternative’ energy supplies seem far more mainstream, affordable and realistic.
1. The Ripple Effect
RICHARD HEINBERG (Senior Fellow – Energy & Climate) – We’ve only just begun to see the true cost of the Gulf Coast oil spill. As we saw with Hurricane Katrina, the ripple effect of disruptions in oil supply can lead to profound and surprising outcomes. When you add the unimaginably large costs associated with the discovery and delivery of deep water oil to the even more prohibitive costs of cleanup and damage control and remove the oil industry subsidies, suddenly ‘alternative’ energy supplies seem far more mainstream, affordable and realistic.