In just the past few months, one shocking reversal after another has occurred on the environmental front. Most of these turning points on issues have been brought on by public pressure tipping decision makers to change directions.
Shell Oil, with hell-bent determination and President Obama's blessing, was going to drill in the Arctic's Chukchi Sea. Now they're not. Green Peace and other environmental organizations risked lives to protest what Shell finally realized was a losing proposition for them both financially and publicly. I doubt, however, that Shell will ever own up to the risks in the Arctic of environmental damages, which had the potential to be comparable in scale to BP's destruction in the Gulf of Mexico or worse.
Fracking, the sweetheart technology of oil and gas drillers worldwide, has been meeting resistance at state levels with New York and recently, Florida, reassessing the wisdom of blasting the earth's innards apart right under their feet. California activists continue to point to the state's years of drought as reason enough for their thick-skulled leaders to oppose hydrofracking, which consumes and pollutes millions of gallons of water per well. Although Oklahoma and Texas have banned fracking bans and maintained their "drill-baby-drill" philosophies, Oklahoma has pretty well admitted that injection wells and possibly fracking (both very human activities) are the most likely cause of a swarm of earthquakes in the last few years. (Oh well, ho hum.) And, methane pollution from fracking operations has joined toxic water as actual problems the industry professes it is finally addressing. They behave as if their dumping into our shared air and water is a complete surprise to them so they're going to do better now. We'll see if it's even possible to control well methane or somehow render toxic water clean again. Citizens bringing political pressure, not a sudden rise in industry's moral consciousness, will be the only thing to turn this horror around.
And, why is anyone surprised Exxon has known since the late 1970s that burning fossil fuel could lead to climate change? Exxon says their research has always been out there, that "there might be a connection between the carbon dioxide emissions from humanity's use of fossil fuels and climate fluctuations," but that "climate change is not given to a single, simple conclusion." Their science has not slowed the company down, however, from extracting and selling as much of its oil and gas as possible for decades as global temperatures rose. Nor, according to climate activist Bill McKibben, has it prevented Exxon from investing millions in promoting doubt as to the connection between human activity and climate change. What they knew and when they knew it is important information, but so is critical thinking by the rest of us. Most sentient beings have a clue that when you burn something, there will be smoke up your nose. Denial comes when we pretend the chemicals in that smoke won't hurt life on the planet. The fall-out from Exxon's own science vs. their moral compass is just beginning to roll downhill.
Of the current high profile-politicians, Bernie Sanders long ago was the first to take an activist role in opposing both the Keystone pipeline and the Trans Pacific Partnership trade and investment agreement. Hillary Clinton got religion on those two issues just recently and opposes them, at least for now. Just last week, President Obama finally underwent his own sea change on Keystone, but still holds a tight embrace on that trade agreement. Now that the trade agreement's recently outed 5,544-page text is no longer for privileged eyes only, it will be interesting to see if Obama, in his mission to address the climate change threat as a legacy of his administration, will still hold onto all parts of the agreement. The Sierra Club says the corporate power in the document provides "polluter giveaways that would undermine decades of environmental progress, threaten our climate, and fail to adequately protect wildlife because big polluters helped write the deal." If this is true, all national environmental and economic rules and regulations will be moot points anyway.
Climate change has finally made the big time and been asked about in presidential debates. The "Leave It In the Ground" movement regarding fossil fuels is gaining status. And, both the pope and the Dalai Lama have opined on global climate change. All this tipping and turning has this old enviro's head spinning high and dipping low.
What a ride!
Commentary on 11/10/2015