Dear Mom - Letters to Heaven

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Dear Oil Industry Fuck Off!


Fantastic news - the oil industry's permit approval for oil rigs in the Gulf is down from pre-Deepwater Horizon Oil Disaster levels. It's up from last years approval process, but since its not back to pre-Deepwater disaster levels the oil lobby is crying like stuck pigs to the Department of the Interior.

They of course are claiming they would have a positive impact on jobs if they were left to do business as usual and more people would be put back to work like helicopter pilots and oil rig workers. Keep in mind we are talking about 20 oil permits for drilling. I have a few things to say about all that so lets use the dirty energy sectors own language and talk about "affordable" energy and "multiplier" effects.

When it comes to pollution and its across the board devastation the region, contractors, builders, local fisherman, car dealerships, airlines, deep sea fishing industry, furniture, retail, retirement community, restaurants and motels would be better served by a healthy environment and robust tourism trade versus a few more helicopter pilots.


Sorry dirty energy sector - I know you are going to drag your heels, kicking and screaming into the 21st century but the byproduct of your last century technology and the "multiplier" effects of pollution and cancer have ramifications across the board including hyper inflating health care costs. That order of magnitude washes away the economic benefits of 11 workers per rig, and 2 helicopter pilots. Seriously the spin is overwhelming.

You need to see the handwriting on the wall and stop dragging your heels and get in front of the trend. Just because you are making money for a few people hand over fist doesn't mean what’s good for your old deregulated business model is good for the entire region or country. The iron clad monopoly of cars being only powered by oil is slowly but surely coming to an end as well as the death grip of nuclear, coal and oil for generating electricity.


Cheaper? Cheaper for who? The overall aggregate cost of healthcare and the drain on our economy? The overall aggregate cost of cleaning up your Superfund sites? The overall aggregate cost of storing your nuclear waste? The overall aggregate cost of your yearly tax payer funded subsidies? The status quo maintained is cheaper for who again do tell? Certainly not the tax payers.


To use the dirty energy sectors own language claiming the “administration is practicing its own form of selected industrial sabotage" is also called "governing". That's what governments are supposed to do. Unregulated capitalism destroys all the natural resources in its path, whether its mountains, forests or oceans for a quick buck and passes the damage they cause right back to the tax payer the way the system is set up now.

Well done but the cost is finally too high and your days are numbered. Not because the dirty energy sector or individual businesses are inherently evil but because they are short sighted, and grossly, narrowly, hyper focused on their own interest and bottom line to the exclusion of all else.


They don't see the macro economy as an integrated system and thus overfish, blow mountains to bits, pollute the water, air, and food and claim its not their responsibility - "we are only responsible to our share holders and profit margins" - great way to run a business if you can get away with it - lousy way to "govern" a country.

So while you complain you are not getting your own way anymore and the permit approval is up but not at the old levels - you revel for the umpteenth time you are only concerned about yourself. You don't give a rat’s ass about helicopter pilots or your oil rig workers or no one would have died in the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

So guess what genius - your market sector is only one part of the overall economy - you are not going to get special treatment, and your tax subsidies are going to be taken away from you and hopefully directed to the more beneficial macro affordable, clean energy market.


When you don't count the pollution and destruction of your business practices in your bottom line - you are cooking the books. Dirty energy is not cheaper when you add in the resource wars going on in foreign countries, the death of our soldiers, the costs of the wars, the cost of the destruction of the oceans and the death of your employees.


Coal, nuclear and oil are only cheaper when we look the other way and tell Appalachia tough sorry for the contaminated water and cancer, sorry about the dead miners, gulf coast sorry for the gusher and the end of the billion dollar fishing and tourism industry and oopps sorry Japan for the meltdown and catastrophic loss and devastation.


There's no free lunch. We do not operate our separate industries in a vacuum and yes you are responsible for your actions, decisions, and down stream pollution and its affect on our health, quality of life and the impact on the other market sectors.

And yes governments job is to govern the country to the best benefit for ALL, insure a level playing field, and to police those who won't hold themselves responsible or accountable for the destruction and danger of their business models; including but not limited to the pharmaceutical industry, the pesticide industry, the tobacco industry, the agriculture industry, the financial industry, and the defense industry as well as the coal, oil and nuclear industry.


Wake up and straighten your act out. We have zero sympathy for you and your spin is complete and utter bullshit. Hell you don't even share royalties with the States that let you drill off their coasts. What a bunch of shit stains you are and I'm calling you out! Wah, wah we don't get our way anymore Texas cry babies.

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