Somewhere, an Oil Baron Is Smiling

Congress squabbles over how to spend oil fund ... that doesn't exist

Posted at 2:22 PM on 08 Nov 2007

There are plenty of reasons we're glad we aren't members of Congress. Tops among them? Having to argue, with a straight face, about who's misspending money that doesn't exist. This year, four different bills have each proposed spending $6 billion that's expected to be collected from oil companies. The money would result from a fee assessed to compensate for oil and gas royalties that went uncollected in the late 1990s. But a recent court decision may mean the $6 billion never sees the light. Meanwhile, we get this from House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio): "This example of cooking the books has to set a record. Democrats tried to spend $24 billion when they had $6 billion, and now they don't even have that, according to the court." And from a spokesperson for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.): "It's hypocritical for the Republicans to criticize us." Honestly, it's a wonder this country ever gets anything done.

source: The Washington Post

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FANTASY WORLD of Powerful Pols & Big Oil

Thanks to the teachings of science, our children regularly report to us that Earth is round and finite in space-time. Easy enough.

Then, why is it that grown-ups with the very best education and responsibilities for ensuring a good future for the young deny one of these basic, irrefutable scientific facts?

While there is a clear consensus among young and old alike that the planet we inhabit is round, many political leaders and powerbrokers in the global economy act as if Earth is somehow infinite, not limited in its capacity to perpetually fulfill the needs and wishes of the human species. Their widely shared, consensually validated and specious thinking supports the idea that the Earth is a sort of cornucopia, a seemingly endless provider of whatsoever human beings desire. Our relatively small and frangible planet is treated by these erstwhile leaders like an ever expressive teat at which the human species continuously and eternally can suckle.

Take the example of the world's supply of oil. Children see that the oil supply must be limited because the Earth itself is bounded not boundless. In these times, the young ones recognize that older folks are rapidly building oil rigs everywhere on the surface of Earth, draining fields of their petroleum and then voraciously consuming it. Nonetheless, many people continue to consume the limited oil supply as if there must surely be no end to it. Given the requirements of practical reality, why are there not electric cars and trains taking us where we need to go? Where are meaningful economic incentives for limiting profligate oil consumption and promoting the development and use of alternative fuel sources? The policy-making and political decision-making processes of these leaders consciously ignores the current massive dissipation of the Earth's limited oil resources. Perhaps such behavior is both irrational and irresponsible.

It took millions of years for the oil reserves to form, thanks to God. And in the span of my lifetime it appears a few generations of voracious human beings, now numbering over 6.6 billion, are righteously "sucking up" the lion's share of the planet's petroleum capacity. If we old-timers simply keep doing what we are doing now to maximally expand oil production for immediate consumption, what resource base in petroleum will be left for our children and coming generations to this good Earth?

Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
http://journals.aol.com/sesalmony/HumanandEnvironmentalHe ...

by stevenearlsalmony at 6:13 AM on 12 Nov 2007

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