June 19, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

NO COASTAL DRILLING

Right-wingers frequently remind me of vultures. Use any opportunity to advance the "free market" and gouge the rest of us. George W. Bush was spouting off yesterday that we need to lift restrictions on coastal drilling. The idea is that we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil if we drill off our coasts, in protected lands, and in ANWR. It's absolute nonsense. Like so many other of Bush's proposals, it's another gift to corporate America. We are at another turning point in our history. Humans have gone from hunter gatherers to agriculturally-based economies to industrialization largely powered by fossil fuels. Now is the time to move on to a new and environmentally cleaner age. This editorial is from The New York Times at www.nytimes.com:

It was almost inevitable that a combination of $4-a-gallon gas, public anxiety and politicians eager to win votes or repair legacies would produce political pandering on an epic scale. So it has, the latest instance being President Bush’s decision to ask Congress to end the federal ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along much of America’s continental shelf.

This is worse than a dumb idea. It is cruelly misleading. It will make only a modest difference, at best, to prices at the pump, and even then the benefits will be years away. It greatly exaggerates America’s leverage over world oil prices. It is based on dubious statistics. It diverts the public from the tough decisions that need to be made about conservation.

There is no doubt that a lot of people have been discomfited and genuinely hurt by $4-a-gallon gas. But their suffering will not be relieved by drilling in restricted areas off the coasts of New Jersey or Virginia or California. The Energy Information Administration says that even if both coasts were opened, prices would not begin to drop until 2030. The only real beneficiaries will be the oil companies that are trying to lock up every last acre of public land before their friends in power — Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney — exit the political stage.

BEWARE OF NUCLEAR POWER "SOLUTION"

A few decades ago nuclear power was thought to be the answer to our dreams. It was "clean" energy. We know now that nuclear power is not clean and not safe. Nuclear waste is toxic for hundreds of thousands of years. Even the mining of uranium to produce nuclear power is a very nasty and toxic process. John McCain, of course, is advocating nuclear power. We also shouldn't forget that nuclear plants are, in essence, ticking time bombs. If there is a meltdown toxic nuclear material can get spewed into the atmosphere. Nuclear plants would also be prime targets for terrorists. This article by Chip Ward is at www.truthout.org:

Nuclear power is now offered as an alternative to coal power. But, in actuality, Big Nuke is Big Carbon's mad-scientist cousin. Both externalize their costs: to the land, to the atmosphere, to miners, to consumers, to communities near the mines and refining facilities, and especially to future generations who will live with the long-term consequences of our short-term gains. The damage that both do is, of course, justified as necessary and unavoidable.

In addition to the ecological devastation they cause, their most compelling similarity is that both can get under your skin and make you sick. Westerners who live near uranium mines and mills will tell you that those activities can be as dirty and noxious as coal mines, coal-fired power plants, tar sand pits, and oil refineries. Cancer from inhaling coal dust feels the same as cancer from uranium dust. In the age of carbon and fission, what we refer to as "environmentalism" could just as well be called "embodimentalism," since the decisions we make about what we allow into our air, water, and soil get translated into flesh, blood, bone, nerve, and experience.

Perhaps those iconic cooling towers we picture when we think about a nuclear power plant are like industrial cathedrals, monuments to our hubris and the unsustainable materialism it generates. Our fervent faith in economic growth makes us blind to natural processes, ecological relationships, the long scales of time, and ultimate consequences.