May 05 2010

Gulf Catastrophe: The Fierce Urgency of Now

(8PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)



Gulf Oil Slick: May, 4 NASA

Seriously, only in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of U.S. national politics would a fossil fuel disaster make it less likely that we would get a bill designed to wean us from fossil fuels!~emphasis mine~

Climate Progress

We watch the unfolding of a historically catastrophic event. The explosion that rocked and sunk the Deepwater Horizon rig off the coast of Louisiana is transforming from a horrific disaster at the outset to something much more toxic and deeply profound. The oil quickly spreading across the waters into the conscience of the American people is a wake up call. The metaphors reaching deep into our psyche is clear and will have ramifications for a long time. The metastasizing spill is slowly beginning to kill.

This is a moment in history. A truly substantial catastrophic environmental disaster is unfolding in one of the most fragile coastal regions in the United States. There is no stopping the oil as it gushes from the embedded rock below the surface of the ocean. There is no stopping the narrative that is beginning to unfold.

Bottom line: This bill has no chance to pass unless President Obama gets behind it with all his power, mobilizes the public and rounds up the votes. He has to lead from the front, not the rear. Responding to this oil spill could well become the most important leadership test of the Obama presidency.~emphasis mine~

Friedman, NY Times



HuffPo Pics

Over at Climate Progress Joe Romm had a post up yesterday titled:

Is Obama blowing his best chance to shift the debate from the dirty, unsafe energy of the 19th century to the clean, safe energy of the 21st century?

In it he poses a perfectly obvious question.

If you can’t explain to the public now that there are hidden costs of our addiction to fossil fuels, that fossil fuels are injurious to our health, the environment and national security, when can you? ~emphasis mine~

Climate Progress

The President has time to act. Congress has time to act. But the time is now. We can no longer wait for action to be taken to support the environment. We can no longer rely on sources of energy that are toxic to our biosphere, to our planet, to our home. The time to act is now and it is becoming increasingly clear.

As Andrew Sullivan even states at the Daily Dish:

If the Democrats do not use this disaster to advance the energy bill ASAP, they may miss a critical moment to escape the oil-addiction even George W. Bush acknowledged in his final years.

Andrew Sullivan

Rachel Maddow succinctly states what is needed in the video below…

“Somebody’s got to stand up against those companies on behalf of the public, the land, the people, the country”

This is a time for leadership. A time for bold and decisive action to support the environment, green jobs, and a clean energy future. The time to act is now. We have reached a moment of crisis. The entire world is watching to see what we do now. How we respond. There is no clearer moment when the ‘Fierce Urgency of Now’ is needed. Move us toward a green economy and away from our deadly addiction to coal and oil. Mr. President, Congress, support the people, the land, the country, and not the corporate masters who are plundering our heritage.

Take Action Now:

Stop Offshore Drilling

NRDC – Urge Passage of Energy Legislation

EDF – Call Your Senator today with Talking Points

Cposted at Orange

16 comments

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  1. Climate Progress states:

    This is the way the climate dies, not with a bang, but a whimper.

  2. Excellent essay.

    The Gulf Oil disaster is a big piece in the planet wide emergency.

    http://understandingdeeppoliti…

    From Globalization to Planetization

    If we pull the camera back as far as we can go, humanity and the earth hang in the balance between two stark alternatives: globalization versus “planetization” (a term first coined by Teilhard de Chardin). We must distinguish sharply between the search for global peace and justice and “globalism”- the purported quest of global elites for top-down world domination through the United Nations our any other institution it can manipulate. Yes, yes, just who the “globalists” are is matter of wide debate. But a shadow world government has in fact evolved. It long ago moved into the power vacuum created by the lack of individual accountability before law at the planetary level and the gridlock of overt politics at the nation-state level.

    And so we ask: Is it so far-fetched to believe that the profiteers from the globalization of capital and the global war system are not also politically organized at the global level?  Here’s a short course in the back-story: Once communism collapsed, capital accumulation could be unleashed planet-wide, free to be projected far beyond the grasp of its local and even national roots; power and profit have been ceded from locality to nation, and from there to corrupt global elites. The winner is the player with the lowest cost of capital and the greatest influence on those secret organizations and secret societies that comprise the de facto shadow world government.

  3. Junkies live through overdoses, hepatitis, busts, bad relationships …

    Heroin, be the death of me

    Heroin, it’s my wife and it’s my life

    Because a mainer to my vein

    Leads to a center in my head

    And then I’m better off and dead

    Because when the smack begins to flow

    I really don’t care anymore

    About all the Jim-Jim’s in this town

    And all the politicians makin’ crazy sounds

    And everybody puttin’ everybody else down

    And all the dead bodies piled up in mounds

    ‘Cause when the smack begins to flow

    Then I really don’t care anymore

    Ah, when the heroin is in my blood

    And that blood is in my head

    Then thank God that I’m as good as dead

    Then thank your God that I’m not aware

    And thank God that I just don’t care

    And I guess I just don’t know

    And I guess I just don’t know

    Well, it’s increasingly that way from the average fucker. Get’s his fix from an online game, a trashy novel, endless TV, endless porn, shopping, shopping, shopping. Heroin is more fucking honest.

  4. …de Chardin and Velvet Underground, I choose de Chardin every time.  I feel sad for those who cannot feel his inspiration, but can only see how terrible everything is.

    Not that I don’t appreciate VU’s work, I do.  But…

    Reminds me of Lord Buckley’s little stand up act, “The Naz”, about Jesus Christ.

    The Lord had them pretty eyes.  He wanted everyone to see with his eyes so they could all see how beautiful everything was!

     

  5. Thom Hartmann has this to say on his 5/5/10 blog:

    Thom’s blog

    Big Oil Pulled the Wool Over the Eyes of The New York Times

    ProPublica is reporting that a “conservation group,” the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, took an “it’s not so bad” angle in a front-page New York Times story on the Gulf oil spill disaster. Problem is that this so-called “conservation group” is made up largely of oil industry executives. TransOcean the owner of the rig that exploded hosted this so-called “environmental group’s” most recent board meeting. Quenton Dokken, the executive director of the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, told the New York Times for their article titled, “Gulf Oil Spill Is Bad, but How Bad?”, “The sky is not falling. We’ve certainly stepped in a hole and we’re going to have to work ourselves out of it, but it isn’t the end of the Gulf of Mexico.” When big oil succeeds in pulling the wool over the eyes of The New York Times by handing them a phony “conservation” group to quote about this oil spill it’s a serious indictment of both the state of journalism at the Times as well as the power and mendacity of Big Oil. A starting point for addressing this problem of giant transnational corporations ripping up our environment and our media is to enforce the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and for the UK to enforce their version of it – to break up these giant monstrosities. Such huge entities largely didn’t exist before the Thatcher/Reagan era when both stopped the enforcement of anti-trust laws, and still don’t exist in many of the world’s countries where anti-trust laws are enforced. Such laws ensure competition, as well as preventing corporations from becoming so large they can become the tail that wags the dogs of media and government. It’s time to start enforcing them again, like when Teddy Roosevelt broke Standard Oil into over 30 companies, or when Jimmy Carter broke up AT&T. In both cases, the result was an increase in shareholder value and an increase in competition in the marketplace, leading to more innovation and lower consumer prices.

    –Thom

  6. I went to a friend`s shop today.

    I took ten pictures & put them together.

    This is what the “gusher” will be killing.

    It will do a lot of it`s damage away from the concerned eyes of those economically at risk.

    But who will speak for this.

    Please click on this image & go to “original” size.

    This image covers only 14 feet long by 3 high & 3 deep.

    Vivid Aquarium

  7. What we are.

    A violent predatory zero order species.  We have eyes in front of our head to focus on what we had to kill to survive.

    From Nicola Tesla to Eugene Mallove the mountains of evidence about 100 years worth of technology us sheeple just don’t have.

    A thing running in your basement which provides all the power you need.

    Richard Hoagland-NASA

    Secret classification levels above pResident of the United States.

    Michael Schratt-exotic secret aircraft researcher

    Slave Species of God

    Michael Tellinger

    Klaus Donner on ancient artifacts.

    Joseph Farrell on where did the Nazi’s go!

    http://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Int…

    So not it’s not about oil it is an infopocalypse.

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