Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Back in 2008, after the election, it seemed that Barack Obama was actually going to make things different from how they were under George W. Bush. Remember that?

Here’s what President-Elect Obama had to say on climate legislation:

“My presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process… Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security.”

Here’s what President Obama has to say on climate legislation now:

Yesterday, congressional Democrats announced that they would stop trying to pass “comprehensive energy legislation”. That’s the new term they took on after they had removed real climate action from the bill, and added in big subsidies for oil and coal companies to encourage more fossil fuel use.

Now, the Democrats are saying they’re not even going to try to pass THAT shameful compromise. It was Barack Obama who led the way in abandoning the effort to deal with climate change. He just stood back and watched it fail.

Now, in the middle of the hottest year ever recorded, watch as climate change continues “to weaken our economy and threaten our national security.”

Vote for Barack Obama in 2012? This environmentalist says Hell no!

In a hearing of the House Science and Technology Subcommittee on Energy and Environment yesterday, Chairman Brian Baird declared that, “Whether the moratorium on drilling activities in the Gulf is lifted in 30 days or 30 years, we must accept that the hydrocarbon reserves in these fields will be produced someday.”

Why? Why must we accept that offshore drilling for oil in the riskiest deepwater environments is going to take place?

Don’t we have the freedom to choose another course? Is our government that much in the thrall of the oil industry that our leaders will accept no possibility of an end to deepwater offshore drilling?

They call it progress. BP is capturing four times the amount of oil that it had claimed was actually leaking from the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling site, and still, huge amounts of oil are gushing out of the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, evading the best technological solution it has, a solution that took a month and a half to put into place.

Look at this, here, a photograph of the water next to the site where BP’s cap is in place. That’s from just a minute or two ago, and as you can see, the water is still a disgusting brown, filled with massive amounts of petroleum escaping into Gulf waters.

They’re saying we should feel good about this, but the way I see it, it’s same kind of progress as a skydiver with a malfunctioning parachute finding that he can reduce the speed of his fall a little bit by sticking out his arms.

No, BP, it’s not good enough.

Weird headline of the day comes from Jake Blumgart of the Philadephia Inquirer, writing that U.S. owes dead coal miners real change.

Of debt and death: How can the U.S. government owe change to dead people? What are the dead people going to with change?

The article’s right that the U.S. government owes it to some people to force the lazy coal industry to operate safer mines. However, the people who deserve change are the people that change can actually help: The coal miners who are still alive.

The big coal industry is busy putting a lot of advertisements on TV telling us how great clean coal is. Why, you’d think you could use it to wipe your kitchen countertops with, it’s so clean.

And then, reality intervenes, like an explosion… or as an actual explosion. In Turkey, 13 coal miners were killed this week when methane leaking into their coal mine exploded. Many other coal miners were sent to the hospital with severe injuries.

Is that coal that they brought out of the ground along with their blood clean?

Ride a bicycle, and you’re reducing the demand for oil. Demand for oil is one of the biggest motivators for war these days. So, ride a bicycle, and you’re riding for peace.

Economic efficiency, clean environment, and physical health are benefits too, but when I’m on a bicycle, I’m mostly thinking about the peace.

Wear this tshirt to spread the word of bicyclists for peace.

This far out blast from the past come from the Democratic Caucus:

How much did a gallon of gasoline cost when George W. Bush took office (and I put the emphasis on took)?

$1.39

Can you imagine how much your monthly budget would change if the price of gasoline were back down to that level?

It can be done – if America invests heavily in solar, wind, and geothermal power. When I say “America invests”, I mean the American government.

Let’s end the economy-destroying military occupation of Iraq, and redirect that budget to implementing green power, back here in the USA where the investment will be returned to the government in the form of taxes resulting from a stronger, more efficient economy. Those bullets in Iraq don’t bring anyone any economic benefit. Windmills keep on giving, long after their initial deployment.

Drop energy prices, not bombs.