Dear Planet Earth,
We, Big Oil, need your help. For all your help over the decades, we say, “Frack you very much”. But, could you help us out a little with California?
You might have thought we peaked in extracting fossil fuels and would be seeking non-carbon alternatives. Nah, not with these prices:
Nah, not with these prices...
See, we know where the money, er, oil and gas is buried. We just needed to figure out how to get at it. We’re sorta smart, in a “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder” kind of way. Look what happened when we figured out how to frack in 2006:
Look what happened when we figured out how to frack in 2006...
Can you say “Boom!”? There goes a carbon bomb! We learn quick when money is to be dug up, er, made. You might have thought it was tricky of you to hide your burnable fossil carbon in tight shale formations, literally locking up our profits, but we outsmarted you.
30% of American gas was fracked in 2010. Nah, nah, nah-nah nah!
Of course, the drop in coal emissions was an unintended side effect.
We’re aiming to total $5 Trillion, yes, with a “T-“ in investments by 2035. Almost $300 Billion a year. Slowing down? We don’t think so. We just have to work a little harder for our, eh, $100 Billion in profits a year. As one spokesperson, Mr. Reed, a U-T San Diego editorial writer says: “The fracking economic miracle is real and on full display in North Dakota, Montana, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Colorado”, and now on to California and its 13 billion barrels!
You know, it’s contagious. Even Gov. Jerry Brown said that increasing oil production could hand California a “fabulous economic opportunity.” You didn’t figure that all that oil money would “grease” (get it?) the palms of politicians, did you?
Oh, crap, now there’s only 600 million recoverable barrels in Monterey Shale? What are you doing to us? That’s only enough for smaller drillers. Are we going to have invent another, even nastier way to extract all that cash, er, crude? Isn’t the most corrosive acid (hydrofluoric) enough? We will keep working on it. You can bet on it.
Sure fracking is messy. All sorts of chemicals and vapors in the air - we oil executives are sure not to live near a well. It uses a lot of water - a 100 million gallons of it in California a year. Poisons it, actually. Too bad if that contaminates the groundwater. Too bad there’s a pretty bad drought in California now:
The California Drought as of May 5, 2014
Actually, it’s a really bad drought: For the
first time this century, 100% of the state is in at least severe drought, 50% in extreme drought, and 25% in the highest & rare severity: exceptional drought. It is causing some concerns with agriculture. Could you help us out? Maybe break the drought, so people forget about it for a little while?
Too bad that we, the fossil fuel industry, has been fueling (heh, get it?) the hotter, more extreme weather. It is too bad that burning these billions of tons of carbon is cooking the planet. Really too bad. But nobody is stopping us, soooo…. we do what we do. Hey, it’s only half a trillion tons of CO2 - we’re hard at work on the next half trillion and the next 400 ppm… We are trying hard to keep those non-carbon renewables out of the picture, to like 16% in 2040 per the EIA. With ALEC and the Heartland Institute and the Koch brothers on our side, hey, we have (at least) $100 million in misinformation floating around, with over $40 million a year in lobbying. Of course, not paying for our water, air or carbon pollution makes it all possible and profitable. Bwuahahahahah!
As long as word doesn’t get out about how renewables could supply 100% of California’s and America’s energy needs by 2050, we will be okay. Please don’t let people hear about Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson’s plans for all 50 states to use solar, wind and water. And don’t let them go to The Solutions Project website. That sort of thing could be bad for business.
It's great that everyone, including the governor, thinks we HAVE to have oil to fill our gas tanks. Even Gov. Brown at the Democratic Convention said “Californians are driving 330 million miles a year , and 99% is fossil fuel… So the challenge here is gigantic!”
Californians are driving 330 million miles a year , and 99% is fossil fuel… So the challenge here is gigantic!
Let’s keep investing in fossil fuel infrastructure that will be around for at least 40 years. By then it will be too late and all these environmentalist wackos will give up. We’ll adapt. Hey, everyone could eat oil-derived synthetic “food” (hmm, profitable!) and jellyfish.
And whatever you do, don’t let people call their California Senators in support of this awful SB1132 fracking moratorium bill. BREAKING: SB1132 passed through the CA Senate Appropriations Committee. Are you kidding me?? Where's our lobbyist army? The next thing you know, they will want a complete ban on fracking! This is important, because we know so goes California, so goes the rest of the nation. (And absolutely do not let anyone go to the big Climate Summit in New York this September, that Bill McKibben is inviting everyone to - how about another Sandy right then, PLEASE?).
So, Planet Earth, we know you were bored with the Holocene - the same old temperatures, no real changes. We have blown that stability away. You are welcome. The job is not done yet. There are billions of tons of carbon we want to relieve your crust of… Don’t you think it’s better in the air where it has freedom? And you won’t have put up with that annoying summer arctic ice, or so much of the Sierra snowpack, or the irrigation of California’s central valley, or all those pine forests... We know you’d like your seas higher and higher, your storms more and more extreme, your droughts deeper. Hey, those wildfires can get pretty spectacular, can’t they? Exciting!
So help us out, and we’ll get help you out of your fossilized carbon, and that boring stable climate.
Frack you very much,
Big Oil
PS: Hey, cool it with the earthquakes around our fracking sites, will you? It’s making the natives nervous.
|
California Fracking Moratorium Blogathon
May 20-May 23, 2014
Key votes will be held this week on California Senate Bill 1132, which imposes a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking as it commonly known. The fracking process poses many unacceptable public policy risks. These include contaminating water supplies; degrading public health; disproportionately affecting low income families and communities of color; using scarce water supplies in drought-stricken states; causing earthquakes; and harming wildlife and habitat fragmentation. If the bill fails, the legislative process toward moratorium must restart next January.
Please join us for a blogathon May 19-23 in a campaign to tell lawmakers to support this bill. This is a coordinated effort with a coalition of more than a dozen NGOs, including Earth Works, Sierra Club, and Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment.
And please call key lawmakers, ASAP. Tell them YES on SB 1132!
Sen. Darrell Steinberg: (916) 651-4006
Sen. Kevin De Leon: (916) 651-4022
Sen. Ricardo Lara: (916) 651-4033
Sen. Ed Hernandez: (916) 651-4024
Sen. Cathleen Galgiani: (916) 651-4005
Sen. Ben Hueso: (916) 651-4040
Sen. Lou Correa: (916) 651-4034
Sen. Carol Liu: (916) 651-4025
Sen. Richard Roth: (916) 651-4031
Sen. Norma Torres: (916) 651-4032
Please Help Pass a Moratorium on Fracking in California!
More details are in this announcement diary by boatsie.
|
|
California Fracking Moratorium Blogathon: May 20-May 23, 2014
Diary Schedule - All Times Pacific
5:00 pm: Blogathon announcement diary - CA Fracking Moratorium Blogathon: SB 1132 in Suspense! by boatsie.
1:00 pm: If Texans can't live with fracking, Californians can't either by Txsharon and Jhon Arbelaez, California Organizer for Earthworks.
2:00 pm: SB 1132 Blogathon — Letters, Comments, Talking Points, Environmental Wisdom, and Music by WarrenS.
3:00 pm: Fight Back, Don't Frack! by Senator Holly J. Mitchell (D-Los Angeles/CA).
5:00 pm: A fracking ban might just have to start at home by Daniel Kessler, Communications Director at the Climate Lab.
1:00 pm: Letterman passes fracking torch, Colbert blows it up. SB1132 Blogathon gets comic relief! by citisven.
3:00 pm: Ca Fracking Moratorium: A little Boat, So Many People by boatsie.
4:00 pm: U.S. Cuts Monterey Shale Oil Potential by 96%: Don't frack California by FishOutofWater.
5:00 pm: CA Fracking Blogathon: A word from our member by Environmental Action.
8:00 am: What the FRACK is going on by HipHopTC.
11:00 am: Chasing the Red Queen in Frackingland by James Wells.
2:00 pm: Governor Brown: Face Fracking by Linda Capato, Fracking Campaign Coordinator for 350.org.
4:00 pm: How Fracking, Oil & Gas, & Deep Injection, Trigger Earthquakes - the facts: Don't Frack California by FishOutofWater.
5:00 pm: Richard Heinberg: "Visualize Gasoline" by Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute. (posted on his behalf by boatsie)
11:00 am: Horace Boothroyd III.
1:00 pm: RandW, Co-Founder and Communications Coordinator for 350 Bay Area.
3:00 pm: Reverend Lennox Yearwood Jr., President and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus.
5:00 pm: Damien Luzzo, CEO of SaveWithSunlight.
Our Daily Kos community organizers are Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, boatsie, rb137, JekyllnHyde, citisven, peregrine kate, John Crapper, Aji, and Kitsap River, with Meteor Blades serving as the group's adviser.
Please tweet all diaries posted during the day, adding the hashtag #SB1132. Feel free to link to your Facebook pages, and remember to republish each diary to your DK Groups. You can also follow all postings by clicking this link for the Climate Change SOS Blogathon Group. Then, click 'Follow' and that will make all postings show up in 'My Stream' of your Daily Kos page. Graphic Credit: 350.org.
|