Greenblade - creation - faith - justice
User Login
Greenblading
Who holds trumps?
“But if there is one lesson above all from this disaster, it is that business cannot continue as usual. The economic interests of the oil industry cannot be allowed to trump the long-term health of the gulf and the jobs and the lives that depend on it.” (What the Gulf Can’t Afford, NYTimes, June 26, 2010)
How do we decide – as a people, as a nation, as Christians – what trumps what? One of the most exhausting aspects of the crisis we are embedded in now is listening to people with an ax to grind, people with an economic agenda, people with political aspirations, people on the Gulf Coast whose way of life is threatened, people who can't bear to see animals suffer, people who fear for the future of the Gulf, people anywhere else who know on a gut level that their way of life is threatened, all making their points as forcefully and with as much rhetorical vigor as they can muster. But if all the arguments could somehow be lined up on a table, on the basis of what would we decide among them? In the quote above (which, I happen to agree with) what is the moral or ethical basis for the “cannot”?
Is there a philosopher in the house?
Comments
"If we were ever to live comfortably with drilling it would happen because *we* demanded the solutions. The drilling companies will not do it on their own and we cannot trust them. Period. Full stop."
On this I think we are in full agreement...
I do not believe these two goals are inconsistent in theory. It is just that we have not yet learned to make them consistent in practice. Not that we cannot - and perhaps this is the task before us - but so far we have not.
I have only anecdotal evidence from several places but when drilling companies come into a place they generally do not hire local people. The "economic development," such as it is, is mostly limited and not sustainable. And the intangibles, which are haunting me right now, are all the jobs and livelihoods lost because of the impact of this industry.
If we were ever to live comfortably with drilling it would happen because *we* demanded the solutions. The drilling companies will not do it on their own and we cannot trust them. Period. Full stop.
But why doesn't it hold water? Even if they are primarily interested in shareholder value, they're not going to be able to increase that without actually hiring people to live and work (and spend money) in the region... I don't mean to be obtuse here, but is there a reason to think that a concern for shareholder value and an interest in the welfare of the region (even if only for their own longterm prospects and hopes of getting new leases) are inconsistent?
Forget the "anti-frackers." No doubt there are flaws in their arguments, but those arguments are not what we are talking about right now. The fact that the anti-frackers are wrong about some things does not make the pro-frackers right. Right now look only at the corporations who would gain control of our region. They have zero vested interest in the welfare of the environment, the welfare of the people who live here, or the welfare of our future. They have no interest in creating jobs or in developing this region economically. Their sole responsibility is to their shareholders and, therefore, to making money any way they can. The "jobs" argument just doesn't hold water, either short term or long term.
I have just come back from the region in Colorado that has been fracking extensively for years so I will have more to say about this.
I don't think I disagree with anything you say here: I am certainly not opposed to thoughtful and very serious regulation and oversight. The anti-frackers, though, seem to exemplify a kind of blanket opposition that strikes me as underappreciative of the benefits that come from economic development in a region like ours.
There are plenty of people who don't want to carry the cost of the energy they consume or who oppose drilling or fracking on aesthetic grounds. But there is good reason to be concerned about the environment. Only a healthy Gulf of Mexico can support the vast numbers of people whose lives depend upon it. Arguing that drilling must be allowed because it provides jobs is compelling but only in the short term and for a small number of people. If that drilling is not closely monitored and vigorously regulated, entire eco-systems can be destroyed. And that is happening right in front of our eyes.
We need to see this problem as holistically as we can. Humans cannot thrive in an environment in which animals, marshlands, or birds do not thrive. We can exist temporarily in such conditions but we cannot thrive. We do not want to admit how dependent we are upon the welfare of the land we live on but we are. It seems to me that any system to determine trumps must be able to grasp the ecology as a whole.
Is that a rhetorical question? :)
The strict "cannot" in the Times quotation seems to be grounded on our collective interest in the health of the gulf AND the jobs that it supports, over and against the oil industry's parochial interest in sucking up as much oil as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Stated in this way, the argument seems pretty compelling.
The problem is that (as many observers have pointed out since April 20th), the oil industry is not some sort of monstrous evil from the land of Mordor which we can simply face down and defeat with enough collective action, petition, and regulation. Rather, it is a natural extension of *us* and our demands for cheap airfares, long roadtrips, commuting relationships, global agriculture, and rock star travel schedules (I am as guilty as anyone here).
If gas went to $6 or $7 a gallon (as it is in Europe), there would be truckers and cab drivers and airplane pilots amassed in the streets, and the politicians responsible would soon join the legion of America's unemployed. These trucks, cabs, and planes take us and our food from place to place, continent to continent. That's why, when we stare for so long at the oil-slicked surface of the Gulf, we start to see our own faces.
You've heard this before, but what worries me about environmentalist not-in-our-backyard (or backbay) impulses is just that it's not clear that there will be enough "green" jobs to replace all the ones lost if we overregulate drilling, fracking, logging, and mining. It is one thing to say that we can accept higher prices at the pump, but it is another to call for the demolition of industries that sustain huge swaths of our blue-collared neighbors and the economies of otherwise impoverished areas -- like the Gulf, like upstate New York (see our discussion of Fracking Man Camps from a few months ago).
In the absence of alternatives (and, really, there are not energy alternatives at the moment in the way that there are meat alternatives), it is hard for me to see how the "cannot" can be categorical. The Times quotation puts "jobs" and "lives" on the side of the regulators, but we all know that the oil rigs support quite a few of those as well, at least when they don't explode.
I'd like to see a study - or even an article, for starters - that says that fracking improves the economic climate and quality of life for the community to which it is introduced.That the jobs go to people working a split shift at Target, that tourism improves, that people on food stamps can still drink well water and don't have to buy bottled - that sort of thing. A co-worker from Pennsylvania says that the opposite is true, and our bishop says the opposite is true - so if both are wrong, truly, I want to know. And I'd like to know where the information comes from, so that I can question their sources, like I've questioned the sources of the anti-fracking community.