That was the subject of
the “point-counterpoint” on the AJC
opinion page the other morning. The “counterpoint”—on the bottom of the
page—was a piece by Karen Grainey, chair of the Coastal Group of the Georgia
chapter of the Sierra Club. Sierra’s agenda is clear, and Grainey represented
it in a plea on behalf of the beauty, ecological richness, and economic value
of Georgia’s coastal marshlands.
Her worry is that the Obama administration has given the
go-ahead to seismic exploration along the Atlantic coast, and the oil companies
are lining up for the leases. Grainey doesn’t want oil derricks off Georgia’s
coast. She remembers that the herring fishery in Prince William Sound never
recovered from the Exxon Valdez spill, and she doubts that we’re anywhere near
assessing the ecological damage to the Gulf of Mexico from the 2010 BP catastrophe.
She hopes Obama will put on the brakes, decide not to grant the drilling leases
after all, and focus instead on developing green power.
In other words, Grainey was saying exactly what all of us
reasonable and thoughtful people say here in the early decades of the 21st
century: that the earth matters, and that we need to stop trashing it.
Hard as it is to believe, though, there is another way to
look at things. The column on top of the page, “Protect nature, fill gas tanks,”
illuminates this dark ideological terrain. Anastasia Swearingen, identified as a
senior research analyst at something called the Environmental Policy Alliance (which
is part of something called the Center for Organizational Research and
Education), is pleased to confirm that all this relief we’ve been feeling at
the gas pump is in fact a direct result of a “great boom in oil production”
here in the U.S. And guess what? “Families could save even more money if the
federal government wasn’t standing in the way.”
The
U.S. holds “vast energy resources” in the Atlantic, but that infernal Bureau of
Ocean Energy Management refuses to lease them. “The feds ought to open the
spigot,” writes Swearingen, then spouts the predictable economic benefits:
billions in “added economic value”—whatever that means—not to mention tax
revenues and, of course, jobs.* Even figuring in the potential costs of the
downside—ecological damage, oil-spill clean-up, increased carbon emissions—the benefits
of exploring the Atlantic “exceed costs by 3 to 1.” Three to one? Wow. End of argument.
If
any further reassurance were needed, Swearingen reminds us that “major oil
spills are incredibly rare” and “the ability to clean up after tragic spills
has improved immensely.” Just look at the Gulf, she says, where pessimists
predicted an “uninhabitable wasteland.” But BP stepped up—hurray!—and “devoted
dollars and man hours to Gulf restoration.” Today the Gulf is faring “better
than expected by most accounts” and “permanent damage seems less likely.”
You’d
swear it was a parody. But it’s not. A couple of clicks and you’ve discovered
that the blandly titled Center for Organizational Research and Education is
basically a PR firm representing big business and that the ironically titled
Environmental Policy Alliance (EPA) is the Center’s pro-extraction,
anti-environment wing. A trip to the EPA website, which describes the
organization as "devoted to uncovering the funding and hidden agendas
behind environmental activist groups," will confirm everything you suspect
about this strange antiworld.
What
is its appeal, anyway, except those who sit in the luxurious lap of Big Oil?
That’s the mystery to me. Here on the same page of the paper are these two smart
young people, one following the path of light and reason, the other fallen by
the wayside, thrashing in the weeds of prevarication and hypocrisy. How does it
happen? It’s like when poor and marginalized people vote Republican. You want
to stand up and holler, Hey! Stop! Those
people do not represent your interests!
I’m
always hopeful that today’s young people are going to do a better job than
their parents did of figuring out what’s what, and, particularly, who’s for ‘em
and who’s agin’ ‘em. But then there’s Swearingen, working for that tired old
man.
I’m
hollering. I’m waving. Anastasia . . .
Anastasia . . . You’re still young . . . It’s not too late. . .
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