Glenn Beck wants to be taken seriously as an activist, so he used his immense financial fortune to manufacture a rally in Washington D.C. at which he babbled incoherently for hours about “honor”. Whoop-tee-doo.
The photograph below shows what an activist with guts looks like. For the last 15 hours, a set of Greenpeace protesters have been hanging about 50 feet above the frigid Arctic seas underneath the Stena Don offshore drilling rig in the waters between Greenland and Canada.
I respect the courage of these protesters, but the most effective activism isn’t about showboating. It’s about making the change you really want to see in the world.
The purpose of the Stena Don protest is to prevent the rig from finding oil until the ice of the chilly waters starts to make it impossible for the rig to continue its work. But then, in order to make their way the long way up to Baffin Bay, the Greenpeace protesters burned a large amount of oil. They paid oil companies to drill that oil so that they could protest against drilling oil. The protest provides courageous images, but it doesn’t make much sense.
If you want to make a real difference, instead of just adopting a heroic pose, here’s what you can do tomorrow: Take the train to work instead of driving. Walk or bike to work, if you can. Consolidate the trips in which you need to use a car. Carpool. Stay home instead of going out to be entertained.
Sure, you can’t do it every day, but if enough Americans take these actions just a little bit more than they already do, they will shut down an offshore drilling rig. New offshore drilling operations can only continue for as long as they’re profitable, and they won’t be profitable if there’s a glut of oil.
We can stop the expansion of offshore drilling if we have the modest courage to make small sacrifices in our lives. Do you care that much?
I disagree with you. I think that – although perhaps not 100% effective in every single imaginable way – this is a great way to protest. As I’ve read on Irregular Times before, we are all, to a certain extent, trapped within the horrible system we live within. These guys are bringing attention to a cause, they’re sacrificing for it, and they’re being unabashedly radical. To me, that looks like a good way to make some progress.
Yes, we need what you’re talking about in a huge way, too. But we also need protesting like this.
Do we need it? Why? Being radical for the sake of being radical doesn’t accomplish much.
Don’t we all already know what the problem is? Are we really totally trapped? I don’t think so. We need to burn some oil to survive right now, but do we really need to burn all the oil we do? No way. Not even close.
At base, the problem isn’t that the oil companies are drilling for oil. It’s that we’re buying their dirty crude, making their rotten business possible. How does this protest deal with the consumption problem? Seems to me it takes the eye off the important target, and burns oil in the process.
Acts like this raise awareness, push the dialogue in a favorable direction (many times, but of course not always), and generally build up pressure to act on this issue. Sure, maybe the results aren’t as concrete and tangible as foregoing a car (and, of course, I think everyone should take the course of action you’re advocating, too) – not to mention, this isn’t ALWAYS effective, just like any other form of activism – but they DO do something.
No matter what we do the big oil companies are going to do what they’re already doing: drilling everywhere they can find the possibility of oil; spilling large amounts of it in the ocean, on land and in rivers and streams and continue the fossil fuel paradigm until it’s completely played out because it’s in their best interests to do so. Protesting won’t do jack to stop it and no amount of warning from scientists will disuade them from their profits. Until they are in a position to capitalize on the next energy source, the planet and all the species affected by climate change don’t mean a thing to them. They don’t care – it makes them rich and that’s all that counts for the ignorant humans in charge.
All platitudes like “making the change you really want to see in the world” only apply to individuals who care enough to change their own personal lifestyles to accomodate their realization of their part in the huge human fiasco we’ve become with respect to living on earth.
Waiting for “things” to change, or a majority to adopt these principles, will be in vain. As long as we drive cars or use any of the following partial list of products made from oil (or with oil as a component) we don’t have a choice (from http://www.3k88.com/products.htm).
This is a list of some of the products made from oil. Nearly everything in our lives is made from oil, made by machinery and systems dependent on oil, and transported by oil as either gas or diesel fuel.
Ammonia, Anesthetics, Antihistamines, Artificial limbs, Artificial Turf, Antiseptics, Aspirin, Auto Parts, Awnings, Balloons, Ballpoint pens, Bandages, Beach Umbrellas, Boats, Cameras, Candles, Car Battery Cases, Carpets, Caulking, Combs, Cortisones, Cosmetics, Crayons, Credit Cards, Curtains, Deodorants, Detergents, Dice, Disposable Diapers, Dolls, Dyes, Eye Glasses, Electrical Wiring Insulation, Faucet Washers, Fishing Rods, Fishing Line, Fishing Lures, Food Preservatives, Food Packaging, Garden Hose, Glue, Hair Coloring, Hair Curlers, Hand Lotion, Hearing Aids, Heart Valves, Ink, Insect Repellant, Insecticides, Linoleum, Lip Stick, Milk Jugs, Nail Polish, Oil Filters, Panty Hose, Perfume, Petroleum Jelly, Rubber Cement, Rubbing Alcohol, Shampoo, Shaving Cream, Shoes, Toothpaste, Trash Bags, Upholstery, Vitamin Capsules, Water Pipes, Yarn
eat factory farmed food, o
“it makes them rich and that’s all that counts for the ignorant humans in charge.” – But how does it make them rich?
Tom, if the price of oil diminishes due to decreased demand for it, oil companies will respond by reducing the amount of oil that they pump out of the ground, so that they can still make profits from what they do pump.
In my opinion, the purpose of anti-oil activism should not be to try to interfere with the ability of oil companies to make profits. I’m not interested in anti-profit activism, as that’s a kind of Marxist economic issue. Rather, I want to see a decrease in the amount of oil being burned, and in the amount of dangerous drilling taking place. So, working to decrease consumer demand for oil seems to be the most effective technique to do that.
Yes, let’s reduce our use of plastics as part of that. Yes, let’s eat more local food. There are a huge number of things that we can do. We have a choice on a huge number of the things that we use, and we do have margins of use that we can reasonably adjust.
The problem isn’t if we use any of the products you listed. We can make change by using less. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. There are enough people around to make a change through collective adjustment, rather than through revolution.
The net effect is the same Green Man, we’re still adding carbon (and other noxious stuff) to the biosphere, reversing the effect of sequestering this crap OUT of the atmosphere (for example) the earth performed over millions of years (before we got here). There are already too many parts per million NOW so adding ANY more won’t be helpful no matter the rate.