McKibben connects dots between climate change, oil spills and Drill Baby Drill
Seasonal North Country resident, activist and environmental writer Bill McKibben has posted a commentary about the oil spill unfolding in Louisiana.
He draws a bright line between the devastating spill and the energy politics in Washington.
The oil spreading across the Gulf is a test, pure and simple.
Think of its twisted outline as a Rorschach ink blot for a society–maybe for a whole civilization. Will we respond in ways deep enough to matter? Or will we see nothing wrong in the devastating images of the oil slick, and continue on this path of destruction, danger, and dirty energy?
Forty one years ago, similar pictures of oil-soaked beaches and dying sea-birds off the coast of Santa Barbara, California galvanized the nation and set the stage for the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
But over the years, that environmental fervor faded, and we returned to business as usual–mostly, the business of burning more fossil fuel. In late March, President Obama decided to “drill baby drill”, lifting a moratorium on coastal drilling that had its roots in that first spill.
Just a few weeks ago, Obama said “It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills.”
How wrong he was.
So now we’ve got another chance–not just to come to terms with offshore drilling, but far more importantly, to come to terms with fossil fuel itself.
Please take a few seconds and send a message to President Obama and your Senators asking them to ban offshore drilling, and instead invest in safe, clean energy: www.350.org/drilling-ban
The water off the Mississippi Delta is slick with oil, but that’s barely the tip of the damage from fossil fuel. We now know that carbon dioxide spreading invisibly across the atmosphere is driving change on a massive scale: by raising the planet’s temperature, it’s melting everything frozen, raising the level of the ocean, powering ever stronger storms. In the Gulf, and in every other ocean on the planet, that extra carbon is turning seawater acid.
And there’s no way to prevent global warming with better valves on oil rigs. The only way is by ending our addiction to fossil fuel with great speed. The scrawny climate bill that the Senate may take up later this summer barely nudges the oil industry-as Republican Senator Lindsay Graham explained earlier this week, the big companies helped write the bill themselves.2
So now is the time to demand more–a new chance to ignite a broad movement to protect everything we hold dear. Can you add your voice today?
What do you think? Is this another sign of a society that needs to rethink its energy needs? Are spills like this a price we’re willing to pay for cheap energy?
Commenets welcome below.
Moving to clean energy is not enough. Conservation, energy efficiency, and more thoughtful use of the resources we have are the quickest ways to help the environment, improve national security, and in the long-ish term save money. Our energy supply should come from varied sources and those sources should be closer to the end user. Wind farms, solar farms, and hydro-power may be relatively clean but there is a loss of power in transmission. Also, when so much of our power supply relies on being sent long distances on the grid we are in danger of massive blackouts due to grid failure or even foreign attack. Better to have a solar panel on every house and small windmill in many backyards along with a mix of other power plants including natural gas, and even coal and nuclear ( I’m saying this as a dyed-in-the-wool tree-hugging, socialism loving, knee-jerk liberal) but the technology must be improved to make coal and nuclear cleaner and safer. Big problems, but maybe better use of research dollars than in sending a man to Mars.
What I don’t understand is how someone can be against drilling in a small portion of ANWAR- where the environmental impact is quite minor and Alaska residents are supportive- yet be for offshore drilling- where the enivornmental impact is much greater and shoreline residents are, I think, less supportive. It makes no sense. Or I am missing something?
Scratchy,
You’re missing the fact that we’re going to run out of cheap oil, and soon, no matter how much we drill, no matter where we drill.
Check out the graph in this blog post:
http://www.countercurrents.org/arguimbau230410.htm
This is the real deficit we face.
I don’t know I really have changed my opinion on off shore drilling based on this total disaster in the Gulf. I though incorrectly, that the technology was better. This is not a random situation, we have a well that we don’t know how to shut down, to cap, I question our ability to really do off shore drilling safely.
Sure accidents happen and yes I would accept some spills, some problems, but to not be able to do basic things like stop the oil that is flowing freely as we speak into the Gulf tells me that the problems are much deeper than we have been led to believe.
anon makes a good point about running out of “cheap oil”.
Whether we run out of oil in 15 years, 50 years, or 500 years isn’t the point.
What matters is when the “cheap oil” runs out, the currently-more-expensive alternatives will become more viable, and eventually, cheaper than the future oil.
The market, not the government, will decide when this will be.
One of the problems currently is that the cheapest, most readily available alternative to oil is coal.
Coal is a green house gas producing energy source, widely available in the US.
But the extraction and processing is every bit as environmentally invasive as oil extraction.
So I think the debate over next alternatives has to be more than simply a market-driven approach, right?
If it’s only about markets, then coal (and coal gasification) is the obvious answer.
–Brian, NCPR
First off, why did it take Obama and the Fed Gov’t over a week to respond to this event? Rigs like this don’t just “blow up”. And since he’s sent “swat” teams to all the other rigs, doesn’t that concern anyone just a little? Was this an act of terrorism? Will we ever know?
We’ve reached and passed peak oil in my opinion. And while it may surprise some, I think friend Knucklehead has some darn good ideas. We cannot sustain anything like our current standard of living without energy. While I’m not a wholesale advocate of “global warming/cooling/climate change” (what ever the term is to fit the needs this week) I am an advocate of conservation, good stewardship and of not letting people freeze, starve or die of heat stroke. That nasty oil has kept a lot of us alive and without it a bunch of us are going to be taking a dirt nap. So it’s one thing to say we need “clean energy” (I agree) and quite another to put it in practice.
Take a look at this mess and combine it with our high speed food inflation, our lousy job market and our debt and the tell me this isn’t just one more reason to gird your loins for a collapse. What if a couple more rigs “accidentally” explode? The cost of gas will skyrocket past $5.00 a gal and this miserable excuse of an economy will grind to a complete halt. How do you pay your sky high taxes when you can’t afford to get to work (if it’s still there) and feed yourself? Do you think anyone in Gov’t will care about your problems?
I don’t have an answer for our long term energy problems. But I do know it won’t be simple, cheap or painless. I just hate to see my friends and neighbors suffer because they put their money into big screen tv’s and jet skis when they might better put it towards paying off debt and adding a woodstove.
Bret –
Sometimes you say things that beggar common sense.
If this were terrorism, why wouldn’t President Obama simply say, ‘I think we’ve had an act of terrorism and we’re investigating.’
Are you implying that the Federal government is trying to cover up an act of terrorism against a British oil firm?
It needs to be said bluntly:
When you raise hare-brained conspiracy theories like this, that are a) illogical on their face and b) are offered with no supporting fact, it damages your credibility.
–Brian, NCPR
I’m asking a question Brian- if this was an accident it “beggars common sense” to send out swat teams, does it not? And yes indeed, if it were terrorism why wouldn’t he say so or explain why he sent the swat teams? It was his White House that said they sent “swat teams” Brian. Does this make any sense to you? What’s your explanation?
Ignoring the obvious damages your credibility Brian. In my mind it’s illogical for someone to speak of sending “swat” teams to an environmental event.
The only thing I’m clearly implying is that that after Katrina any administration that takes a week of 10 days to mosey out and take a gander at something of this proportion and doesn;t make headlines about their lackadaisical attutde
I’m asking a question Brian- if this was an accident it “beggars common sense” to send out swat teams, does it not? And yes indeed, if it were terrorism why wouldn’t he say so or explain why he sent the swat teams? It was his White House that said they sent “swat teams” Brian. Does this make any sense to you? What’s your explanation- hare brained or otherwise?
Ignoring the obvious damages your credibility Brian. In my mind it’s illogical for someone to speak of sending US “swat” teams to an environmental event on what you state is a British owned rig? I’m not a trained journalist but I am trained at observing the obvious!
The only thing I’m clearly implying is that after Katrina any administration that takes a week or 10 days to mosey out and take a gander at something of this proportion and doesn’t make headlines about their lackadaisical attitude shows just where the political sympathies of the main stream news organizations lays.
Sorry aobut the double post.
Predictably, the conservative blamestream media is trying to make Obama responsible for the response to the latest disaster caused by the lack of resources for sufficient governmental regulation and oversight. It is ironic that those who constantly advocate for less government are the first ones to complain about the government when they need it. As with other areas involving big business (like energy, finance, health care, etc) the government is out-gunned by high-paid corporate lawyers and lobbyists who make sure the politicians don’t actually give government agencies the laws or staffing to do the job the public thinks they are supposed to do to protect them (see also Financial Meltdown).
And let’s stop fantasizing about relying on the “free marketplace” to solve our energy problems or any other. There is no such free market – it is one of the biggest conservative myths. The rules and boundaries of the markets are established by the government through corporation lobbyists who obtain “rules” favorable to their industries for playing the market game. The public interest is generally left out of the process. Take a hard look at coal or any other big energy business (especially nuclear). They all have fantastic government subsidies of many kinds. Conservation is a serious alternative. But when you look at the subsidies given to large corporations to extract and produce energy, compared to the token effort for conservation, it is easy to see why the popular mantra is “drill, baby, drill” instead of “caulk, baby, caulk.”
J-one, I’m not blaming. I’m trying to point out the double standard between media treatment of the right and left. Had an “R” been at the helm the media would be alive with accusatory pieces about the “R”‘s lack of response. Basically, if the “R” (or conservative/libertarian) hadn’t personally donned a wet suit and attempted to stop the well he’d still be “uncaring” and “out of touch”.
As for the rest of your post regarding subsidies and gov’t manipulation of the free market- yupper, I agree. Different tone to my agreement, but you got it about right.
Well at some point President Obama IS in charge it IS his problem and HIS government and the responses we see are his responsibility. But people have far far too high of an expectation of what the government can actually do in response to a massive oil spill or a massive hurricane or our lives in general. If there was not enough regulation then that is HIS problem he controls that.
I do think you are going to see some people get excited that this will be his Katrina, but that is not really true or fair and frankly we should be more worried about the real destruction down there. As far as free markets go, well Wal-Mart did a better job in responding to Katrina than the government did, and I trust Wal-Mart more than I do the government so yes I would favor the free market in many cases over power and control types in the government. The government is usually a far more dangerous beast than the market.
As an aside; there are very legitimate explanations for the President keeping it secret if the explosion was terrorism. I would not be critical of him for that at all.
Okay, let me try and make this clear- I don’t think Obama is SLOW responding anymore the Bush was slow responding. My point is there’s a double standard in play. The President isn’t a first responder, he underlings way, way down the ladder that do respond and did in both cases. But nobody is tearing Obama a new one over his failure to act in the disaster of the day.
Second- If this was terrorism, there is ZERO excuse not to put the wheels in motion. I’ve heard zilch about an upped security alert so far. So I’m asking WHY send “swat” teams to the rigs? Were they swat teams or were they evidence tech or bomb techs? Why say swat if they weren’t? Something is either being misreported or something is being kept under wraps.
But that is how covert operations work. How do you know the wheels are not in motion Bret? Also misinformation is an important and legitimate tool to use in these sorts of environments.
I would agree about the double standard as far as responses go. Personally it seems to me that people act like Obama is not really in charge, that somehow he is still an “advocate” for the people against unnamed government forces, when in reality he owns this, he owns this oil spill and the response to it just as much as President Bush owned the response to Katrina.
There is a major difference between a natural disaster like Katrina and an oil spill from an oil rig owned and operated by a money making corporation. Why should there be any expectation that the government should need to respond to a spill. Why isn’t it the total responsibility of the energy corporations to have a spill response plan ready and sufficient to deal with any disaster? Whatever the costs to maintain this readiness it should be borne by the stockholders. This is the problem with the power and influence of corporations on our political system. Energy corporations are given drilling rights on public lands but are not required to maintain preparedness for all contingencies. Power companies are given licenses to operate nuclear plants and the government says it will take care of the wastes. Goldman Sachs is allowed to place huge bets, like a private casino, and the government backs up their chips. These are all money making private enterprises, where is the accountability? If you are drilling offshore you should be responsible for anything that might go wrong and be prepared to deal with it as part of the cost of getting the oil. If not, you shouldn’t be out there. If you are selling insurance on financial derivatives you ought to have sufficient assets to cover any claims. Why are these corporations entitled to expect the government to bail them out when they get in over their heads? The taxpayers wind up footing the bill and the corporate executives keep their jobs and get a bonus – where is the accountability in corporate America?
I agree.
Brian: to your point about a market driven approach and to follow up a bit on J-one. The problem is, and has been, that the market does not take into account the true costs of various options. If it did then conservation and energy efficiency would be far and away the most obvious choice. The cost of environmental degradation is not accounted for in the use of coal (or anything else) nor the costs associated with climate change. Nuclear is touted as a clean option but the storage cost of spent fuel is an unknown and the cost of the original research is never tallied. Another value that is never taken into account is the future value of the energy resources we are now burning or wasting. Just a few years ago we were burning $20/bbl oil now the value is about $85/bbl in a very short time that oil may be worth much more, especially for use in pharmaceuticals and chemicals.
Never mind the cost of spills, it isn’t really cheap energy now, it’s just that we are passing costs on to future generations.
J-one- I agree to an extent. But since this is now an “environmental disaster” gov’t will be involved. The main reason will be to gather evidence to levy fines and lay blame, not so much for damage control. That’s just how things work.
Mervel- “Covert ops”??? Sorry, but I’m of the opinion, and it’s getting stronger, that someone mis-spoke. I’ve been led to a blog by some on site workers familiar with that operation and it appears to be an unhappy accident. Apparently this rigs do “just blow up”. So why speak of swat? Clear it up before more damage is done.
This commentary from Bill McKibben comes on the heels of the Federal approval for Cape Wind, the proposal for the first off-shore wind farm on the U.S. East coast. McKibben endorsed this project: http://www.capewind.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=100 in an essay in Orion Magazine titled “Serious Wind” first published in Orion Magazine seven years ago in which he noted how hard it will be to adjust our habits and attitudes to respond to the crisis of a warming earth. How true his words have proven, since seven years later, this project, and the benefits it would bring, are still threatened by NIMBYism and the hipocracy of those , like the Kennedys, who say they support the alternatives to more drilling, untill the chips are down and they might have to see a windmill. Untill people understand that the health of the planet is more important than the scenery or some claim about disruption of Native American rituals, the drilling will continue.
Bret I don’t know, yes it may be just a screw up. My only point was it is not crazy to keep things quite if you have an ongoing investigation going on.
But anyway that is kind of a side topic. It is obvious that the technology for doing large scale off shore drilling safely is not what it should be. So if this kind of an accident is a normal possibility and it is normal that we have no way of even stopping the oil gushing into the sea, it would seem to me that we need to reconsider everything about allowing offshore drilling.
Too right Fred! And here in our own back yard we have our Limosine Liberal equivalent to the hypocritical Kennedys in the form of the Adirondack Council and their sympathisers and former board members at the APA. These ‘picture window people’ value the view from their vacation homes higher then the well being of future generations. Oh, yeah, – and in the case of seeing cell towers, higher than the lives and safety of the current generation.
“First off, why did it take Obama and the Fed Gov’t over a week to respond to this event?”
But the Coast Guard was there in less than 24 hrs. Last I heard the CG was part of the US government.
“….it would seem to me that we need to reconsider everything about allowing offshore drilling.” Well that’s all fine Mervel, but do you think the Chinese or any other country is going to care about what we want? Lets say we outlaw oil production off our coast. So the Chinese go 201 miles off shore and drill away! What are we going to do. start a war?
This goes along with Brians post today about our future energy needs- no matter what America does, even if we wean ourselves off oil, does anyone believe the rest of the world will give it up? Just how big is our ego?
PNElba- yes, and other Federal agencies, including the Coast Guard, were on scene in NO after Katrina before, during and after the storm. SO why the double standard re- Bush v Obama?
The difference is that Bush was warned, days before, that a category 5 huricane was about to hit the Gulf coast. Someone forgot to warn Obama that the oil platform was about to blow up.
Yes, of course. Bush should have forced Nagan and Landreau to do what he thought was best after they turned down the good advice offered by other gov’t agencies. Right.
I don’t know Bret I don’t remember any country drilling outside of US waters that has ever had an ecological disaster that has impacted the US.
This type of drilling is obviously not as safe nor reliable as we have been led to believe. I think we need to continue to explore and drill for oil but we also have a right to regulate an industry that has major external costs which impact our country and we have to pay, this would be one of those times. Deep water drilling has major problems as this disaster has shown and it should be reconsidered until they can prove it is much safer than it is now.
As far as giving oil up I don’t see that happening as long as there is plentiful oil to be had. We don’t have a technological problem with replacing oil, we know how to do it, we have a cost problem. When oil becomes more expensive than the alternatives we will switch. I don’t know all of this talk about weaning ourselves off oil and so forth to me almost seems bogus, the continual sales pitch that never happens.
[…] McKibben connects dots between climate change, oil spills and Drill Baby Drill. – Brian Mann, North Country Public Radio, April 30, 2010 Seasonal North Country resident, activist and environmental writer Bill McKibben has posted a commentary about the oil spill unfolding in Louisiana. He draws a bright line between the devastating spill and the energy politics in Washington. The oil spreading across the Gulf is a test, pure and simple. Think of its twisted outline as a Rorschach ink blot for a society–maybe for a whole civilization. Will we respond in ways deep enough to matter? Or will we see nothing wrong in the devastating images of the oil slick, and continue on this path of destruction, danger, and dirty energy? Click Here […]
Mervel says:
May 3, 2010 at 10:03 pm
“I don’t know Bret I don’t remember any country drilling outside of US waters that has ever had an ecological disaster that has impacted the US. ”
I don’t remember any other rig EXPLODING before either! And I never said anything about deregulating the industry. I have heard nothing about this rig being run in a haphazard fashion. As I understand it this was the result of a 30KPSI spike in a system designed around a 15KPSI expected spike. It’s not something anyone anticipated, just like we never thought anyone would fly planes into skyscrapers or give loans to unqualified applicants. But here we are.
The problem is that we’re already on very, very thin ice economically. Whether this was a simple accident or not it pushes the speculators to take a different view on things and that can drive up the cost of oil. Now we’ve got another terrorist incident in NYC. What if OPEC decides to boost prices a bit in a week or two? Or if a pipeline gets bombed somewhere? If the price of oil rises like it did a couple years back it could literally drive the economy into the gutter. We don’t have an alternative at this point! It doesn’t matter if we stop drilling or production here- our people will die in the cold this winter or starve if we can’t produce the food that oil plays a part in. It’s all well and good to talk about alternatives, but just how far off are they? What is the cost of switching, not just for the individual but for industry and Gov’t? If Cap and Trade goes through Obama has said electricity costs will at least triple. I’m not trying to be an alarmist, but how many people will that kill in a hard winter?
Ya know, I’m all for alternatives. We HAVE to move to them. But no matter what alternative is suggested for us, there’s the whole rest of the world to consider. China is building a low tech, filthy coal plant every week. They have ZERO interest in keeping the air clean. India is in the same boat as is most of the 3rd world. How do we realistically maintain our standard of living, or something close to it, move to an alternative and maintain our economy at the same time when someone is fighting every alternative in one form or another and the rest of the world (more or less) is rushing to hamstring us while grabbing as much as they can at the same time? Gov’ts interest in energy is laughable IMO. As long as the excise taxes on fuel keep flowing they’re good with the status quo. As long as they can fine the violators they’re happy. Like I said before they either need to help or get out of the way and they are doing neither. So that leaves private industry. Special interest groups block some at every turn and wants subsidies for others, gov’t blocks them and puts huge regulatory qualifications on everything and then taxes the heck out of them if their successful at all. IMO this is too serious a problem to be playing politics with.
No, what Bush should have done is rescue the 30,000 people that had no food or water instead of playing guitar. Maybe use helicopters? Or he could just do nothing and blame the state government (who were also at fault).
I’m just curious. Has President Obama done a single thing right since he was elected? Anything at all that he might be congratulated for? Anything?
Bret on China: “They have ZERO interest in keeping the air clean.”
Not exactly.
They have huge political and monetary interests; those were just overrun in the initial Chinese rush to development. And in some ways, they’re working harder on those issues than we are. You should read this story, “China’s Silver Lining,” from The Atlantic’s James Fallows:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/06/china-8217-s-silver-lining/6808/
Hi Bret I wanted to comment on this point you made:
“If the price of oil rises like it did a couple years back it could literally drive the economy into the gutter. We don’t have an alternative at this point! It doesn’t matter if we stop drilling or production here- our people will die in the cold this winter or starve if we can’t produce the food that oil plays a part in.”
No they won’t. The price of oil could go to $200 per barrel and we would still have a working economy and no one would starve anymore than they starve now. At that price alternatives become more economically viable. Oil is only one component of our fossil fuels, you still have natural gas and coal as huge huge resources in the US not to mention Canada, throw in Nuclear and the rest is gravy.
Europe pays $5-$10 per gallon for gas at the pump and have for years and many of the larger EU countries have less poverty than we do.
I just don’t see the doomsday you do on oil prices.
Look around the NC we live in a area of the country that has higher than national average prices for gas at the pump, do you see a bunch of demand for tiny cars? No way people like what they like and have a pretty price inelastic demand for gas. So I don’t see a price run up in oil as a huge disaster, its not good, but once again we will muddle through.
PNElba- Yes, Obama has done something right. I’m almost sure of it. BTW- I was unaware Bush was a guitarist. Thanks. That’s interesting.
Mervel- How far off are those alternatives? What will they cost? You seem to be certain that we’ll all just tighten our belts a notch and muddle through. I don’t think so. With the current economy you have banks closing, people out of work, food and fuel prices rising. Do you really think that if gas and diesel go to $5,6, 8.00 a gallon that other prices won’t rise? That jobs will remain? If fuel and food go up 20 or 30% (and they will) do you think taxes will remain at their current level? It’s all a big can of worms and it’s not as simple as just saying wages will rise with inflation. Each time wages rise jobs are lost. Each time costs rise jobs are lost. Each time taxes rise- same thing. It’s just that we don’t notice because it’s a job here, a job over there, a business closes there and another 2 counties away. That’s wonderful for Government because they can waltz in as the rescuer and desperate people will put their hope in the rescuer and the change he promises. Worked for Mussolini and Hitler and Lenin, worked for Carter and Reagan and Clinton.
Please don’t quote European prices. The world price of oil is the world price. Europes taxes are the reason their prices are so much higher. They also use a lot more diesel and in cars and trucks that would never pass an emissions test here. Apples and oranges.
I wish I had your faith in “the system”. I feel it’s much, much more frail than you believe. I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.
Hi Bret,
Well I was not really referring to alternative energy sources but sources we have now, mainly coal, natural gas and nuclear power.
Nuclear power is a long ways off I do admit; in that we don’t want to build anymore but the technology is ready now and President Obama is talking about it at least. But coal and natural gas are ready to go.
Natural gas can be used for automobiles and that is a transition but it is not a massive one.
I don’t like comparing us to Europe all of the time either, largely because I don’t want to be Europe and do not consider them some sort of model to emulate. My point was only that modern economies can and do survive with $5.00-$7.00 per gallon gas at the pump.
I don’t have faith in the government I do have faith in our economy, which is simply the sum of what we are doing providing goods and services to each other.
Okay, but OUR economy isn;t going to continue on with $5-7.00 gas, much less diesel at that price. Diesel at that price will pretty much shut down a whole lot of truckers, farmers, loggers…anyone using a large diesel engine. You take dairy farmers that are scratching by on $2.50 diesel and double or triple the price and you’ll have dairies shutting down in a heartbeat. That’s to say nothing of crop farmers that use enormous amounts if fuel and oil based fertilizers. Lots of them will call it quits. So you’ll be left with a relatively few mega farms owned by the giant co-operatives or corporations that will be able to charge a premium price for their products (and still probably get subsidies too). So food will skyrocket.
That’s just one area Mervel. The same goes for a whole bunch of other areas. People aren’t going to drive 50 miles to go “malling” or to see a movie or visit gramps. It’s just not affordable. So the economy drops as people stay home. Fact of life.
We may not like comparing ourselves to Europe, but that’s what we’ll become if we don’t get smart, fast and develop some alternatives. I know too many Europeans to think I want this to become France or Britian. There are alternatives, but there’s somebody fighting each alternative too. People will fight coal, right up till they get cold or have no power. And if we switch to nat. gas for our cars the price of that will boom. You and I know there are workable alternatives we could be using, but there are a million somebodies out there ready to fight us, many are paid to fight these ideas.
Tough ride ahead friend, no matter what we do.
ha, Bret after today I might be moving over to your way of thinking. 1000 points down in one hour, a glitch? Riots in Greece?
I don’t know I better buy some seed.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/36992469
Key point- “Similarly, the US faces a debt burden that, while not as large a percentage of gross domestic product as Greece, is approaching that level and could spark major problems domestically.”
“We are not Greece. We have more time. But what the Greek crisis tells you is debt and deficits matter,” El-Erian said. “The structure of your deficits matter and the US doesn’t have much flexibility.”
“Drill, Baby, Drill!” I heard ‘em yelling it at the convention. They had their straw hats on, their little flags waving and their faces all sweaty. Chanting, they were, like some big sex act was going on: “Drill, Baby, Drill!”
Yeah? OK? Now what? So now what you big “drill babies”? How you gonna clean this one up?
. . . the taking out. That’s what we done way too much of. And now we’re gettin‘ our comeuppance. Yeah, it’s coming up on us and it’s big and it’s way black and it way ain’t good.
. . . I’m talkin‘ oil, and if you’ve ever pumped gas you know nasty. But now, picture someone taking that gas pump times a few thousand or more, a fire hose, a sewer the size of bus and it’s pouring all over you. Open up your mouth and filler‘ up!
. . . They say it’s goin’ up the whole East Coast now, some kind of underwater currents pushin’ it up there to lobster-land. Oil up your Chesapeake, up your Potomac too.
Don’t mess with yo Mamma like that, boys. You think you can throw a few billion at her after what you done and walk away? Uh-uh. Momma’s not gonna let you get away with that. You gonna pay. You gonna pay, big time.