Are You Mesmerized?
It is blowing like crazy at the Alabama Gulf Coast and I have promised myself that until it calms down I won’t go to the wildlife refuge. Every time I’m there and the wind has the surf kicked up a mist of wind-blown water and oil coats everything. I am no longer willing to breathe the toxic soup…no matter how safe the EPA, BP, NOAA and other involved officials say it is.
I am sitting at my mom’s on Mobile Bay watching white caps pound the bulkhead. This momentary pause gives me an opportunity to write about some things pounding in my head.
While driving down I-65 yesterday I was listening to NPR and heard a story on advertising and marketing. Did you know some corporations are doing studies with volunteers who lay in MRI machines and have their brains mapped while watching commercials? The corporations can then see which images and other content activate the desire and craving centers of the brain. They are then able to apply this technology to selling more products. In other words…they zero in on what makes us want more. They can activate our consumer drive to purchase more products.
As I was listening, I thought of petroleum corporations and how they have drilled into residents (pun intended) of the Gulf Coast that they must have the oil industry present to survive. It is so ingrained within the consciousness of the populace and workers that these folks claim that to live without the oil industry, in places like Louisiana and Mississippi, would mean certain death of a way of life to communities.
These same energy giants tell us that drilling for natural gas (fracking or fracturing) in Pennsylvania is safe and causes less global warming. That injecting toxins into the Earth in order to force gas up through shale is safe. They ignore studies like Cornell University did concluding that 8% of methane escapes into the atmosphere during Fracking and could cause more global warming than traditional coal burning energy productions. Yes, they wave their hands in front of our faces, in front of our senators and representatives (along with a lot of smelly money) and say….”You are lost without this. It is safe.”
As we look further, we see that we are also told that we cannot live without nuclear energy and that it is safe. Their hands wave to cover their smurks and to distract us from the truth.
As I was listening to a panel discussion Thursday night sponsored by Spirit of the Gulf Coast, I thought that we, as a global community, roll the dice with the planet…with our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren. Decisions are made to use these toxic processes, these risky energy productions all on the odds that the rare events such as the Gulf Oil Spill and the Japan Nuclear Meltdown won’t happen. Or if they happen the current policy-makers will be long dead so why be concerned?
This kind of irresponsibility must stop. We must look ahead to the future and make the difficult decisions NOW to switch to alternative forms of energy production. Instead of subsidizing the oil and gas industry, subsidize the solar energy production and wind energy production businesses. Instead of mass-producing toxic and dreadful energy sources that pollute and destroy, mass produce solar and wind energy components. Put the oil workers at the Gulf Coast in facilities that produce clean and renewable energy. Let them earn a living enriching the Earth instead of destroying it.
At some point we have to turn away from destructive, pollutive energy production. Why not now? What if we had done this in the 70’s when we had gas shortages? Just look where we’d be now.
Are you mesmerized? Are you awake? Are you willing to support clean energy now and stop believing the lies and waving hands that keep us in slumber and pose serious and real risks to the future of our kids and generations to come?
4 Replies to “Are You Mesmerized?”
No, I’m not mesmerized! I am appalled that the once-great American people would split into factions of stupidity (apparently guided by their fat content and burger enrichment) and support the ignorance of the Tea Party (ignoring the future of not only the country but their own grandchildren) and after hearing today of the once-legitimate Republican Party ready to shoot Lincoln (only in effigy) again, I know the only path to victory is to first, sink to the bottom of the pit!
This is an excellent assessment, I must say. It’s true that eventually we will have to switch over to energy sources other than fossil fuels, so why not do it while we still have an environment that’s habitable? Our leaders allow industry to roll the dice over and over, because they themselves are victims of the hand waving and fear tactics. I hear it over and over again – less regulation is the only way to save the economy and jobs. Besides the fact that this is simply incorrect, what about having a habitable planet with clean air and safe drinking water? Do these count for anything?
The only point I would expand upon is regarding subsidies. Really, alternatives don’t need subsidies so much as we need to END the excessive subsidies and socialized costs of traditional energy, including nuclear and natural gas. If you level the playing field, alternatives are almost always more cost competitive. But the citizenry continues to finance the difference in the costs of these energy sources and the actual prices that we pay for them, which distorts the market. I’ve always thought this was so ironic – you hear about the merits of capitalist, free-market economies, yet these same people support current policies that are blatantly ANTI-free market.
Check out this outstanding article that highlights the point that additional regulation on energy production actually has a POSITIVE effect on the economy and CREATES jobs! http://realclimateeconomics.org/wp/archives/835. The author does a fantastic job of highlighting the external costs and the general market failures associated with the way we are currently producing energy, – a main focus of the panel discussion the other night.
We have to keep educating people on the true costs of our current energy policies if we’re going to move beyond this fear-based, factually incorrect hysteria. Conversations like this are critical.
Thanks for everything you are doing! See you on the coast soon! 🙂
These conversations are critical, and I am so glad there are people like you, bringing these topics to the fore. I also see how involved I am in trying to survive financially, and still experience a fairly enjoyable lifestyle, to the point of avoiding spending time on important matters such as our environment, our political situation, etc.
This important ecological movement involves sacrifice, where there is barely blood left in the turnip. While we need to support all efforts to find sustainable means to live comfortably, we may, in the meantime, need to seek jobs that require using less fuel to travel. Go to sleep at sunset to reduce the use of electricity…learn to eat locally-grown, seasonal foods, refuse to buy goods that are mailed and packaged in petroleum-based materials….and I could go on.
What about dispensing with the use of fuel-consuming devices and technologies, which though they may be wasteful in their use of electricity, and hazardous due to the toxic materials used in their manufacture (not to forget the radiation we are exposed to), are also invaluable in helping us to band together, and to learn and communicate more easily over far distances, i.e., internet, computers, phones, etc.
We need to demand products made and shipped using reusable, non-toxic-producing, and sustainable materials. We need to demand that our food be produced humanely and in balance with nature. We need to demand transparency in how our products are manufactured (as well as transparency in how our laws are made!)…It is a daunting task.
We have to start somewhere, and we are overcome with what the task requires, in time and sacrifice, to complete…possibly many years past our own limited lifespans. We have taken astonishingly short years to wreak the latest ecological damages…but what we have done may take several generations to repair. It is a difficult step to take alone, and yet it will require that people take that step, as individuals, before the movement can truly take root, and even begin to hope to bear fruit.
You have shed a ray of snuhinse into the forum. Thanks!