Environmentalism and Integrity

Once again I find myself using a blog post as a comment response to a Facebook conversation. This works out well though as I get to flesh out my ideas and thoughts. I will for the sake of continuity of reading paste the specific comment I am responding to. If you want to view the entire thread you may view it here.

“’There is nothing ‘clean and green’ about your efforts.’ is an outright lie. Environmentalists don't promote deep water drilling. But Palin promotes deep water drilling or do you forget 2008 when they were screaming ‘drill baby drill’

None of the oil drilled in the US belongs to the US it belongs to Corporations that can choose to sell it to Americans or choose to sell it to the Chinese. “

There was also part of the original comment that stated, “Wouldn’t be a Sarah Palin article if it wasn’t riddled with half truths and outright lies.”

This was in response to a portion of a previously posted comment of mine which included the request to “Please do me a favor and point out the outright lies in her message so I can research that myself. Preferably with sources.”

I had planned to respond to this a little sooner but it happened just as I was getting ready to head out on a cruise with my beautiful wife. It has given me a bit more time to consider a portion of my response. I started thinking about the charge of an author’s article being “riddled with half truths and outright lies.” The theme of Integrity has been on my mind a lot the last several weeks. After looking at great examples of integrity such as George Washington along with several other people in history and a few that I know personally, I have come to the decision that leveling a charge against someone’s integrity is the absolute most serious charge or claim you can make against a person. It goes to the very character of one’s soul. In my opinion you need to absolutely make sure you have all of your facts lined up straight before leveling such a charge and make sure those facts are indisputably verified. In regards to the specific example cited in the quote above, I believe I have addressed it logically below as part of my response.

How an oil lease works.

You lease your land to the company that has the ability to produce, or extract, the natural resource. They typically give you a percentage of what they sell the product for. It is the same for state and federal governments. YOU control access to the land, therefore YOU own the land and all minerals contained therein. A private company is given a lease to develop the resource and they pay a percentage of the money they make for your granting them access to the natural resource. Whether a private individual or a government, you would never see a single red cent from the natural resource unless it was developed. The company “producing” the natural resource is paying you to access the resource. You own the resource. Most leases are for a specific amount of time. Most also include clauses that say you can sell the lease to somebody else if they don’t develop the resource. As you, or in the case of government, the state, has control over the terms of the lease, and can even specify the amount of time the lease is good for, YOU OWN THE RESOURCE, NOT THE OIL OR GAS COMPANY. When the lease is up, they can no longer develop that resource. I know a lot of people say, a percentage (the average is up to 25%) really isn’t fair, but considering the immense cost to develop natural resources you score pretty good. You do none of the work but get a pretty good payday at the end of the day. Besides, 25% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_and_gas_law_in_the_United_States

Objective vs Subjective

Palin’s statement that the work of “Extreme” environmental groups is not green is subjective. My college humanities class that I just completed spoke about critics in the world of the humanities and using critical skills in real life. There are two types of observations a critic uses, those that are subjective, and those that are objective. Objective observations would be the factual ones such as “the movie was filmed in black and white.” Subjective observations would be one such as “that movie was lame.” Palin made a subjective criticism there which cannot fall into the realm of being an outright lie because she was not claiming to state a fact. She was using a subjective opinion to describe her view on the results of over 30 + years of environmental lawsuits that tie up the ability of developers who have been granted leases by the government to develop our natural resources so they cannot be developed. As a result, developers have had to go further out to areas where the “Extreme” environmentalists could care less.

Extreme vs Environmentalism

I would like to think most people view themselves as friendly to the environment and attempting to be good stewards of the resources God has blessed us with. It is something that Governor Palin has addressed several times. Yes we need to be responsible, but at the same time we cannot lock everything up so we can all have feel good tingles running down us. There is a difference in wanting to be a good steward over the environment and taking those views to the extreme. That is what Palin is addressing and she is well acquainted with it. The State of Alaska has been declared ground zero for extreme environmentalism. From people attempting to blow up pipelines to filing frivolous lawsuits, they see it there. There is this article documenting “extreme” environmentalism to this essay written showcasing how “Global Warming” has been elevated to that of a religion by those on the left.

While groups like Green Peace have moved farther to the extreme side in completely limiting and locking up even good land use, one of its cofounders, Patrick Moore had this to say about Nuclear Energy. In the same article he discusses the lack of dependability in using energy sources such as wind and solar. Because Mr. Moore has turned against the more “extreme” environmentalists and suggested common sense approaches to some of our energy and environment concerns, in true Alinsky fashion they have turned on him.

Domestic vs International Development

You mentioned that the oil companies can sell to the Chinese if they want to. That is very true. I could sell my Toyota corolla to the Chinese if I wanted to. Because of the terms of the lease, the developer can sell to whomever they want. However, most developers prefer to sell to locations that are much closer to where they are extracting the resource. Less cost involved. It’s a tenet of basic economics. That is why the Chinese are pursuing their own leases and production capabilities. Coincidentally they just inked a HUGE lease deal with Cuba. The Chinese will drill in the same waters that are affected by the current spill and based upon their STELLAR work safety record I am sure the Chinese will develop it much more environmentally friendly then we do our own resources. So, China will develop what they need for themselves and who is left to buy their surplus, oh yeah us. Not only will China control all of our national debt but they will control a large portion of the oil we then use.

Decreasing Consumption

This one is very simple. In order to decrease consumption of something you have to produce a viable alternative. Otherwise demand for the original product will never go down. Once again, it’s basic economics. How can you decrease the demand for oil if you do not have a viable alternative to it? Some alternatives have been looked at, but none of them are to the point where they can decrease demand because they are either too expensive or do not produce a true economic benefit for the consumer, i.e. save them money. Once an economically viable alternative is found, developed, able to be produced at a low enough cost that people can afford it, you still have to develop a national infrastructure to make use of it. I am a believer in developing and using alternative sources, but it is something that has to currently be a long term goal as neither a cost effective alternative nor the infrastructure exist to carry out such a plan. In regards to oil, you also have to look at all the things that are made from petroleum products. Even if we all drove rainbow powered cars you wouldn’t even make a dent in petroleum consumption. You would need to eliminate something like plastic. This means, no IV bags, no IV tubes for the hospitals, no Vaseline, etc. It means no effective packaging method to keep food fresh and inexpensive for the public, no tvs, no computers, no radios, pretty much most of the products used by the public would have to disappear or use less cost effective and less safer alternatives to meet that demand. Here is a partial list of items made from oil.

http://www.ranken-energy.com/Products%20from%20Petroleum.htm

Energy and the Environment are subjects I have tackled here, here, here, and partially here.

As always everyone, keep yourself informed and don't be afraid to speak out.