Is "more oil" part of the Biden plan?
While perusing the Facebooks I found this interesting Margaret Flowers broadcast. Here are the key sentences from the intro:
The Biden administration claims to care about the climate crisis but it is currently allowing a dredging project to proceed in the Matagorda shipping channel to open the way for crude oil exports in Texas. Not only will this drive a surge in oil extraction, but it will also increase mercury pollution by digging in a Superfund site left by the aluminum company, Alcoa. The project will decimate the struggling local fishing industry.
At any rate, it appears that, for someone in the Biden administration, it's okay for oil exports to increase. The United States is the world's sixth-biggest oil exporter, and they think we ought to keep it that way. Moreover, someone in the Biden administration thinks that the oil industry is more important than the shrimp industry. Flowers' interview with the hunger striker begins at around 23:10.
So how is this channel building, this government handshake with the oil industry, different from climate change denial? I'm sure that the "bright green" people (as Jensen, Keith, and Wilbert would call them) will tell us that it's all completely okay, and that solar and wind will soon become so cheap that there will be no market for oil anymore. The market will save us! We will all, magically, not need oil anymore. Energy consultancies are telling us that, even by 2040, 85% of our energy will still come from fossil fuels, but somehow they're drastically wrong. I'd like to hear how this is so. It's a long drop from 85% to 0%.
So are you consuming oil in your gas tank? Shame on you! You're to blame for why we're all going to die! But it's okay, though. In the "bright green" imaginations, we will all drive electric cars, except, though, that we'll need at least 30 times more in terms of minerals than what we've got now if this-all is to be made possible. Or maybe they can make electric cars (and the solar panels which will run them in the bright green future) with magic instead of mining now. I don't know.
If I were a Congressmember (which I'm not), and if I were conducting a hearing on the Biden climate plan (which I'm not), I'd want to ask: what's the plan? Where are you going to find all these minerals, how are they going to be extracted, how is the ramp-up of "green" technology going to do anything more than supplement the fossil-fuel industry and, ultimately, who's going to pay for the electric cars?
You've all got enough spare cash lying under the household sofa to afford electric cars, right? No, wait, 80% of Americans are in debt! Does all that debt magically go away like the mineral requirements for electric cars and solar panels are magically going to go away? Like the fossil fuel industry will magically go away once the solar panels are cheap enough?
What's the plan?
Comments
Do you suppose
There are many people who see this? It seems so obvious.
I think about the lifestyle changes people need to make. And yet even if all of us make those changes, as long as the military continues as it is and container ships use their extremely filthy, polluting fuels, it would make little difference. The big polluters have to be shut down for actual climate progress/improvement.
I just tell people
, "It ain't my fault!"
Yes
The answer is yes to your question.
Next!, next question ...
What?, you are shocked!, ... , why are you shocked?
It's Joe, right? Sheesh ...
something else to consider
The petroleum industry is more than just fossil-fuels. You could completely do away with the petroleum products causing global warming, and there'd still be all kinds of need for petrochemicals and petroleum engineering. Burning is one problem; extraction presents its own set - and as the bumper sticker says, "If It Cannot Be Grown, It Must Be Mined".
We've finally begun talking about plastic in recent years, but we've *only* begun. Making straws and dinnerware out of biodegradable materials sounds like it should be easy enough (years ago, I saw a remarkable demonstration where they showed how a bit of Bill Nye-esque classroom chemistry could recycle Styrofoam - I forget into exactly what now, though), but what will, say, the action-figures of the future be made from...?
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Well
Cass, thanks for this. Well said. We will still be getting 85% of our energy from fossil fuels by 2040. Sobering really even for me. Godamn I love numbers. Jesusfuck we are so done. But wait, I’m thinking we will have more than reached “Tipping Points” by 2030 let alone 2040. Who are we kidding. Very well said. Yes, I have moved on from climate science to primate behavior. Much better. No surprises. Of course we won’t step up because we are primates. Lol.
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Yep
cue my sig
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
What's important --
-- in asking "what's the plan" -- is that we might get an actual plan out of it. And, sure, we can criticize that, when it comes out. But an actual plan would be better than throwing a few billion dollars at the matter and saying "we've solved the problem," which is apparently what they're doing.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
Here's a piece I was reading this morning
which is related, I think:
https://neuburger.substack.com/p/goodbye-carbon-deniers-hello-carbon
The money quote: "If a policy proposal delays effective action — either because it makes the problem worse, or because it's picked to subvert a much more effective action — those proposing it want you and yours to suffer tomorrow so they and theirs can add to their wealth today." It's really this simple, I think. We're past the point of kicking this down the road more and we're past the point where we take positive action without substantial lifestyle changes or while allowing a healthy profit margin.
What you're talking about with the Biden administration is more of the same, changing nothing while trying to give the appearance of doing something. The emperor has no clothes, but hey, I'm sure Musk will take us all to Mars with him. (I mean, someone has to do the shitjobs, right?)
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Biden himself actually has no plan.
He is simply a front man for the desires of his big donors.
Here's the plan...and yeah, priorities
From: link
Unconscionable
, yep that's the word I was looking for. I am not surprised that Trevor Noah understands the reality of what is happening. I am, however, so very saddened that most of the cognoscenti will never under understand.
There are (humane) solutions, and correct actions, but as long as they do not fit the current narrative we will continue to the very sad end.
Cheap energy is the plan
It just so happens that oil is still the cheapest energy source, so yeah. How else can profit be made? "We're capitalists" said Dear Leader Nancy Full of Fridge. Not environmentalists, not conservationists, not pacifists, not world saviors. She "feed the people" packaged sugar and salt sprayed with glyphosate, "a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide and crop desiccant. "Iowa is corn." Sorry not sorry. Expected.
California is an oil state, always has been, always will be. And Texas. Nobody I know is willing to make any quality of life sacrifice, none at all. Especially young immigrants! OMG it's pedal to the metal and get the fuck out of the way pretty much. I've never seen people work so hard to reach hell faster. Good luck to all.
Peace and Love
It's so hard to answer questions when
you have to hack your way through a thicket of false assumptions in order to even start.
And I'm not talking about your assumptions.
Just to tackle one of the easiest pieces: electric cars.
Well, as far as affording them is concerned, easy peasey--any government that can afford to casually drop trillion-dollar checks in the laps of a few hundred of the richest people in the world can afford to subsidize the purchase of said cars right down to an easily affordable level for everyone. Even the homeless, although electric cars might be an odd thing to prioritize in the case of the homeless.
And a country that regularly dumps about 700 billion dollars a year into its military and security budget could also spend money building the infrastructure needed for such electric cares. Easy peasey lemon squeezy.
The amount of minerals needed for the production of these cars is troubling, so obviously, a larger amount of money and resources needs to be put into public transportation. I think some really creative thinking needs to be done around public transportation.
I personally feel that the use of fossil fuels should be limited to planes, spacecraft, and transoceanic liners (and that we should be working on ways to make those ocean liners run on something else). And, of course, scientific and medical uses, of which there may be some.
Obviously, yes, we should also be changing our "lifestyle," in that riding on planes should be a far, far less frequent thing.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I just put up a new diary about this.
https://caucus99percent.com/content/green-capitalism-china-and-our-delud...
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.