Some local people cry "Drill, Baby, Drill," reminding us of our nation's need to be freed from dependency on foreign oil. And we are regularly treated to TV ads praising "clean coal" in generating electricity.
Coal is never clean. Natural gas is seen as an alternative to coal and oil, as a bridge energy on the way to greener generation, or as a backup for intermittent wind or solar sources.
Rick Perry's "solution" for our economy: End all environmental air-quality regulations and drill offshore in the gulf, drill on federal lands in Alaska, and voila, we will have 1.2 million new jobs. In health care, perhaps?
The big picture is a picture puzzle. Some seem to think that they can just take a piece or two out, carve it into a different shape, then just fit it back in.
Dick Cheney had a similar thought _ fracking can give us access to the natural gas in shale, heretofore inaccessible. To promote that extraction, he and George W. Bush connived to make fracking exempt from the clean air and clean water acts. Wonder why?
There are consequences for every change, but some can only imagine windfall profits by avoiding the rules. The rules, however, are basically just the rules of nature. Since the 1800s, energy has kind of exempted us from these rules. Or so it seems.
We can be warm or cool as need be, apart from climate. We can swoop at will around the Earth on land, sea and air. We can move mountains, cut forests down, dam rivers and fish out the ocean. We can commit to a beef-intensive agriculture while ignoring whole populations starving at a subsistence level.
It might be useful to recall how the original Native Americans were living off the land. For them it was bountiful, for they had it all. But they had an ethic of taking no more than they needed from the Earth that sustained them.
We have lost both that ethic and almost any sense of being connected to nature. We just take what we need, when we need it. The consumers are not the takers. Energy providers capitalize on their access to natural resources for profit. Conservation costs them money.
When extraction is imprudent and without conservation regulations, the world has been ravaged and polluted without regard to the finite availability of resources. Regulation implies planning. Planning is different from the mad scramble of opportunistic exploitation, to "get mine now" in the market game of finders-keepers.
TV can show the strong-hearted what cage fighting is like, a primitive no-holds-barred, anything-goes contest something like gladiators fighting to the death. What governs them is nothing but their power, not refereeing.
That was the mentality of Mitt Romney's road to riches working for Bain Capital, a private equity company he co-founded. The pattern was to buy up functioning companies, bankrupt them with debt, then liquidate them, putting thousands upon thousands of workers on the street while reaping huge profits _ over and over.
The plundering class tends to plunder, and that is shortsighted activity, not at all exhibiting planning. Consider Perry's giving gas drillers in drought-ridden Texas all the water they want for fracking, millions upon millions of gallons of fresh water.
In a world reaching for civilization, we are still a long way short. As we all know, decisions always involve balancing competing interests and addressing the conflict. We need to increase our exports to bolster the jobs market. And we need to shepherd the energy resources upon which the American lifestyle is so dependent.
Now see that energy company Dominion Resources Inc. is seeking government authority to export 1 billion cubic feet of liquified natural gas per day (Daily Star, Oct. 10). We have such a big surplus that we can just sell off "excess" natural gas for short-term profit without consequence, or so money-hungry as to auction off this precious resource like a third-world potentate, who gains from his people's suffering.
I would say that this should not be about someone's profiting, but about our long-term situation as a nation in a world of increasing needs and looming shortages.
We need to manage our decisions, not by default to opportunism, but according to considered planning. Planning is a role proper for government, providing a form of "coaching" and "refereeing" among competing short-term special interests.
Rational planning can address community interests in the long term, providing sustainable management instead of exploitation.
William Masters can be reached at wmasters@thedailystar.com. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of The Daily Star and its editorial board.
Columns
There's no such thing as completely clean energy
- Big Chuck D'Imperio
- Cary Brunswick
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Some wisdom is best passed down through books
I was visiting a friend out-of-town recently and the subject of providing a "reading list" to young people came up in conversation. He said years ago he had asked a respected acquaintance in Oneonta to compile such a list for his teenage daughter, to help her be better prepared for life, culture, education, politics and people.
Continued ... - Let pragmatism, not politics, determine birth control debate
- As Center Street Elementary goes, so goes Center City
- U.S. intervention in Syria's uprising would be a gamble
- Santorum, Obama both got it wrong on Honduras
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- Chuck Pinkey
- Guest Column
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If we don’t develop a sustainable system, who will?
In Otsego County’s local elections last fall, a number of candidates — most of them on the independent Sustainable Otsego line — ran on an anti-fracking, pro-sustainability platform. They recognized that our current way of life — dependent on increasingly scarce, costly and polluting fossil fuels — cannot continue.
Continued ... - Time to get off the bus and on the computer
- Cuomo's Machiavellian maneuvers are a danger
- Home rule laws aren't a radical idea
- Sustainable shouldn't be a dirty word
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If we don’t develop a sustainable system, who will?
- Lisa Miller
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Being a parent is a constant learning process
I am sitting cross-legged on the floor in the dressing room, waiting for Allie's dance number to be called. The cave girl costume has been donned, the jazz shoes double-tied, the hair pulled back, the requisite dab of lipstick applied.
Continued ... - Healthy doesn't have to mean expensive
- A family era ends with close of Potter series
- Independent stores make up for loss of Borders
- Untethered from the cable box
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Being a parent is a constant learning process
- Mark Simonson
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Perfect attendance by Saturday’s Bread for 20 years in Oneonta
Oneonta became a settlement and has been a place to do one's "trading," whether it was the 18th century, or 2012, because of the five valleys that converge here. Only the places of doing the "trading" have changed a bit over the last 100 years, and Oneonta remains a place that attracts visitors and has always been a decent place to live and work.
Continued ...
100 Years Ago - Recalling the Hindenburg, John D. Rockefeller in May 1937
- Oneonta residents had diversions aplenty in the spring of 1952
- Damaschke essential to ensuring Oneonta baseball in 1927
- Area tunes to WONT in November 1972
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Perfect attendance by Saturday’s Bread for 20 years in Oneonta
- Rick Brockway
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Climbing is one thing, but skydiving?
OUTDOORS COLUMN BY RICK BROCKWAY ... Last week, my friend George and I returned to the Gunks for another rock-climbing adventure. After last week's column, I asked about the rattlesnakes and was told not to worry. Rattlers are usually quite timid and will avoid people as much as possible. It's the copperheads that'll give you trouble. They're aggressive and will stand their ground to defend it. Oh great!!
- Rattlesnakes may be closer than you think, so pay attention
- Spring is here, so fishing should pick up soon
- Sneaky fox may be the next animal looking to horse around
- Pass down the rush of turkey hunting to your kids this weekend
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Climbing is one thing, but skydiving?
- Sam Pollak
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I'm happy with our kids to a certain degree
It was several years ago, and I was in the kitchen, telling my eldest daughter and my then-teenaged son about the person who was taking over as publisher at The Daily Star.
Continued ... - I get by with a little help from my 'friends'
- It’s not easy for a politics junkie to get off the stuff
- The Encyclopaedia Britannica in print, unmourned by me
- Angelo Dundee was always a good man to have in your corner
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- William Masters
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Time for lawmakers who put needs of society first
Richard Lugar, after six terms as a Republican senator -- known for his middle of the road rationality and his foreign policy finesse -- has been ousted by a Tea Party extremist backed by outside right-wing funding.
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War not worth gambling with lives of soldiers
Are you not tired of our war in Afghanistan? It had a point, once, after 9/11. Bush couldn't distinguish his myopic personal agendas from the nation's needs and let Osama escape, dropping the ball entirely, causing many deaths.
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Titanic was a microcosm of U.S. economic disparity
Haunting reminders of the Titanic tragedy have wafted over us with the centenary of its sinking. The maiden voyage of an impressive, state of the art vessel, was a little like that of the Challenger space shuttle, at the cutting edge of developing technology. But the shuttle carried our pride in science and space exploration, not hundreds and hundreds of people.
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William Masters: Nation stands divided between 'us' and 'them'
In February, Trayvon Martin was shot dead as "suspicious" by a volunteer neighborhood watch man. The case has aroused community reaction in Sanford, Fla., and is still echoing across the country.
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A quarterback can't win the game alone
What is the relationship between democracy and wealth? Democracy is a political system, while wealth relates to economics. We have equal political rights, but we don't all have money. Extreme differences destroy the continuity of community solidarity.
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Time for lawmakers who put needs of society first
