World At Risk

Great rewards have been reaped by the supporters of the oil companies, and from the state of this country the public at large has suffered a lot. It isn't difficult for the oil industries to find itself willing servants when it has such control and such means of rewarding their efforts. Global warming has been a result of disregard of all the serious science that showed what was happening - while the U.S. and China among the worst offenders plowed on into a dimming future in total disregard of the steps needed.

A body of science that disputed the evidence pointing to global warming appears to have been just another oil by-product in bad need of cleaning up.

Yesterday I got into a discussion with fellow Atriot 'Moe' about the Hudson Bay area, and he, as a (new) Canadian, was quite familiar with the damage being done by oil industry there. Looking into it I found a lot of sources, and am putting one that was warning us a few years back in here;

In recent years, scientists have become increasingly concerned over damage to the arctic environment caused by petroleum, hydroelectric, mining, and other large-scale development projects. Additional apprehensions are expressed as the Circumpolar North becomes a major depository for organic pollutants and heavy metals derived from sources both within and outside the Arctic. Thinning of the ozone layer with a corresponding increase in ultra-violet radiation is expected to have significant effects on biological organisms in the region, which in turn, will promote further disturbance in the atmosphere. The impact of human activities encourages melting of the northern permafrost, thereby creating the potential for destroying large portions of tundra ecosystems. Risks associated with the release of radionuclides into the environment have also multiplied, of which extensive military dumping of nuclear wastes into the Arctic Ocean is but one example.

While the most dramatic evidence of environmental devastation and rising health problems is found in the Russian north, serious threats are by no means confined to that area alone. Nor are the negative effects limited to the borders of the countries in which they originated. Indeed, the deleterious ecological impact of our global industrial economy has become sufficiently profound that growing numbers of policy-makers are beginning to ask whether existing natural resource development strategies causing such harm to the Arctic should continue, and if not, what should take their place.

Listening to Ohio Representative Marci Kaptur last night talking about development of alternative resources, I was struck by her naming the many most wealthy companies, most were oil companies. Her point was that by allowing them to dominate energy production, we were sending the profits of our own society abroad rather than supporting our employees, our industries, and our economy that rests on these. I would point out that with the proven destructive nature of petroleum energy productions, we're threatening the world as well.

The business world likes to revere self-interest as a healthy underlying motif. It looks from the nature of industry's actively undermining healthier industries, self-interest in the larger world scene is working in the interest of self-destruction. Like cockroaches, the minions of big oil may survive what wipes out the rest of us, but only if they're not the same species. And I don't really believe they are, just inferior in their regard for life forms.