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Nothing says I care about environmental health more than another big oil and gas rig planted serenely in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. What beauty, you might be thinking! What elegance! Look as the infrastructure corrodes and this giant's legs rust and grow barnacles with each passing week. What visual splendor!
Of course, think of the view those marine animals must have. Aren't you jealous? I'd imagine the feeling is akin to having an individual Eiffel Tower being placed over my home. Wouldn't you be thrilled? Think of the economic benefits, after all!
The first two paragraphs were satirical. But what many of us turn a blind eye to everyday is no laughing matter. Senators Webb and Warner have not assured Virginians that safety issues aboard oil and gas rigs have been appropriately addressed (when that unimportant little incident in the Gulf of Mexico is even mentioned these days), and yet the gallant efforts for more oil and gas in the Atlantic continues.
I won't purport to be an expert on rig safety just as I won't allow myself to be played for a political foul. Safety measures cost time and money, in some cases, a lot of time and money. And we all know how the game of capitalism has worked in the U.S.: make profits and then make some more, even if it means cutting necessary safety corners.
Maybe Virginians like to drill holes in the ground, period. Not only do Virginia's political "leaders" want to drill holes in the Atlantic, they want to drill holes in southern Virginia. And I'm not even mentioning the preexisting holes that have been drilled in Virginia's soil.
So what, you might gab back? In the case of the Atlantic Ocean in particular, drilling holes stands to create a complex host of effects for marine animals living in the area, effects that are still unknown to many scientists and policy "experts." What's the value of disrupting and possible eliminating any number of marine species? Of course, this outcome may or may not happen, but are we really willing to chance it for questionable amounts of oil and gas resources?
Between Senator Webb's history writing adventures and Senator Warner's grand visions of becoming president, Virginia seems to have lost its progressive leadership. Maybe it was never truly there to begin with. Or maybe our politicians have themselves been worn down by the political process. Any way you spin the bottle, the results may be the same: a grim future for Virginia's environmental integrity and ecosystem sustainability.
Virginia's waters might be safe for a little while longer after the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee failed to reach a revenue sharing agreement on Thursday.
Although the legislation could still push through the Senate committee at a later date, for now its fate is up in the open.
The bill to open Virginia's waters to oil and gas exploration was introduced by Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb. Each proposed a 37.5% share of the revenues obtained from oil and gas exploration for states that allow energy production in federal waters off their coasts. The bill would also grant Virginia an additional 12.5% for federal projects.
Following the committee impasse, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska noted optimistically that the committee would come to an agreement on revenue sharing and push forward the legislation.
But while our exceedingly wise politicians count only the dollar signs behind this legislation, there is much more at stake than the almighty dollar.
Oil spill after oil spill, and gas leak after gas leak, has shown that these forms of fossil fuel extraction are prone to devastating environmental consequences.
Maybe most important of all are the living organisms that are killed off or badly affected. While we may not see these creatures in our everyday lives, they are what gives life extra meaning. They are an intangible good whose worth is inevitably difficult to pin down. When we lose them, we lose a lot more than what meets the eye and a lot more than what money can compensate for.
Who needs Sarah Palin when Virginia has its very own proponents of "Drill, baby, drill" in the form of Jim Webb and Mark Warner? Notwithstanding the fact that drilling today wouldn't start producing benefits for some time to come, the tendency to concentrate on fossil fuels distracts our political representatives from seeing the bigger picture: renewable forms of energy are the future. The argument often follows, among others, that renewable forms of energy aren't economical enough at present. If we take this claim to be true for the moment, it might well be because government subsidies have gone to environmentally devastating forms of energy like the fossil fuels instead of renewable forms of energy (as if Big Oil and Big Coal and Big Gas needed more money).
I can't think of one form of energy that's in widespread use right now that has not received some form of government subsidy to "get the ball rolling." But the tepid investments in energy sources like wind and solar are simply not enough to bring these renewables to scale in a timely fashion. It is as if there are some special interests who are opposed to the widespread use of renewable forms of energy in America!
Of course, there are such groups in America, groups who would rather poison the American people and exterminate the natural world as we know it (or used to know it) for a profit. But my concern isn't simply that of someone who loves the natural world intrinsically. It is a practical argument that takes into account the harmful economic consequences that environmental devastation has had, is having, and will have in the future for America, a form of devastation that has been fueled (sorry for the pun) by nonrenewable forms of energy.
Still we wait and hope for the best. Maybe our rational and scientific minds will find the magical solution to this dilemma. Maybe the "American spirit" will figure out an ingenious method to pour more poison into our rivers and atmosphere without the environmental and human health repercussions. That might be what Senators Warner and Webb think; otherwise their actions bear little rational justification.
A draft management plan released by the George Washington National Forest in Virginia on Wednesday will limit the type of gas and oil drilling that could occur within its 1.1 million acres of territory while opening up segments of the forest to the potential for wind energy construction.
The plan would disallow horizontal drilling, a form of drilling typically using hydraulic fracking to reach deposits of natural gas. Hydraulic fracturing has become more and more controversial as increasing evidence has mounted against its unsafe use.
Half of the George Washington National Forest sits on top of the Marcellus shale natural gas formation, a natural gas deposit that ranges from the state of New York to the Virginias.
Fortunately, there is no drilling being undertake at the moment in the national forest, located in Virginia and West Virginia.
Wind energy would itself only be considered for development in areas not deemed "sensitive," according to the draft management plan.
The insistence by many to "drill, baby drill," is as obviously compulsive as it is dangerous to human beings and the surrounding ecosystems, which is why the national forest's draft management plan comes as such a great relief.
Until hydraulic fracking in particular can be done in a safe way, there is no sensible reason why it should continue.
The ultimate goal is an energy independent future for the U.S., but the U.S. will not have a future if it continues to search and rely upon nonrenewable sources of energy, the extraction of which does much more harm than good.
Here's a painfully funny video from the Alaska Wilderness League to support a petition drive to President Obama to protect America's Arctic.
"Isn't it finally time to protect the treasures of America's Arctic from destructive drilling? Last year, there were more than 90 oil spills per day in the United States.
All of America's polar bears live in the Arctic Ocean, migratory caribou still roam free in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and birds from around the globe congregate at Teshekpuk Lake in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. These are natural treasures that belong to us all. We have a duty to protect them."
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