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
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My pal Brucie, savior of Sidney's hospital
Ask any hospital administrators if they've ever heard of a closed hospital in New York state that has ever been re-opened. They will say, "Impossible." In a half century of going through records you can't find any.
Continued ... - Catching a whiff of 'Vermont Vapor'
- Selections from the virtual mailbag
- Recalling days of 'Doughnut King'
- Opera great's visit still a thrilling memory
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My pal Brucie, savior of Sidney's hospital
- Cary Brunswick
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We've become our own worst enemies
The past month has been marked by a seeming unprecedented number of man-made tragedies, as distinct from those caused by violent outbursts of the natural world, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis.
Continued ... - Plenty of blame to go around for Bangladesh horror
- Obama is going against his word on Social Security
- Reflecting on a Florida trip
- Those magnificent spies in their flying machines
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We've become our own worst enemies
- Chuck Pinkey
- Guest Column
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Records seizure is an insult to free press
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
Continued ... - The evangelical view of same-sex marriage
- Manor's fate will be Otsego board's legacy
- A closer look at our economy - Part II
- Use fracking to fill budget gaps
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Records seizure is an insult to free press
- Lisa Miller
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A view from above
Fire towers in the Catskill Mountains have always been destination points, built to capture some of the region’s best views. These sentinel stations served an important role for the earliest possible sightings of forest fires in the remote mountain ranges. But the fire towers and those who manned them fulfilled a multitude of other roles as well.
Continued ... - Being a parent is a constant learning process
- Healthy doesn't have to mean expensive
- A family era ends with close of Potter series
- Independent stores make up for loss of Borders
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- Mark Simonson
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General Clinton Canoe Regatta got a new home in 1972
Ever since 1963, when Charles Hinkley and a group of Tri-Town businessmen came up with the idea for what we know today as the General Clinton Canoe Regatta, people lined the shores of the Susquehanna to watch the canoeists as they made their 70-mile trek from Cooperstown to Bainbridge.
Continued ... - Sunday movies in Oneonta finally shown in 1934
- Politics, fitness and landmarks dominated local news in May 1968
- Local people sought income in many ways in 1933
- Local windstorm in 1983 caused tense moments
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- Rick Brockway
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Kids have sparkle in their eyes
When I was in my teens, old Bill Naatz told me about a stream north of Lake George where a man had panned out enough gold to make his wife a wedding band. It was all rumors, but to his grandson and myself, it sounded like the makings of a great adventure.
- People make the outdoors even better
- Turkey season has ups and downs
- Spring air isn't always the freshest
- Adriondacks keep growing and growing
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Kids have sparkle in their eyes
- Sam Pollak
- William Masters
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Schreibman tops Chris Gibson on women's issues
As the time to vote draws near, we need to remember how money can run politics more than we can. Raising funds is a prominent (if not the dominant) task of getting elected. Raising issues is also crucial, but those efforts are subject to distortion and fear-mongering.
- Republicans feelentitled to allthey can garner An entitlement is a legal benefit available from the government to individuals who are within a defined category of recipients, such as needing insurance for unemployment or health services.
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Romney focuses on self; Obama emphasizes unity
Mitt Romney criticizes President Obama for saying a person's success is rooted in his community, and is not all his alone. Romney belittles this with his belief in individual initiative. He is better at the put-down than the push-up.
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Romney shows little regard for common man
The Republicans in Congress have voted over and over, 33 times, redundantly and uselessly, to rescind what they call Obamacare.
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Scouts' gay ban creates problem where none exists
The Boy Scouts of America's "emphatic reaffirmation" of its vow to exclude any and all homosexuals from its hallowed ranks is ill-considered and pathetic, especially in view of its having reviewed the matter for two years.
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Schreibman tops Chris Gibson on women's issues
