Cypher Had It Right
Here it is:
Amid the backdrop of soaring oil and gasoline prices, a sharply divided Senate on Wednesday voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, delivering a major energy policy win for President Bush.
The Senate, by a 51-49 vote, rejected an attempt by Democrats and GOP moderates to remove a refuge drilling provision from next year's budget, preventing opponents from using a filibuster -- a tactic that has blocked repeated past attempts to open the Alaska refuge to oil companies.
The action, assuming Congress agrees on a budget, clears the way for approving drilling in the refuge later this year, drilling supporters said.
Well, what did you expect? Environmentalists lose so many battles that their opponents accuse them of actually wanting to lose; of being addicted to the victim mentality. This is reality. People don’t give a flaming shit about the environment, or the flora & fauna that live in it. All we are left with now are excuses. Bullshit arguments about how progress and human ingenuity will somehow save the world, even as we plow under species at a rate that qualifies as a major extinction event:
The five largest mass extinctions in Earth's history occurred during:
The late Ordovician period (about 438 million years ago) - 100 families extinct - more than half of the bryozoan and brachiopod species extinct.
The late Devonian (about 360 mya) - 30% of animal families extinct.
At the end of the Permian period (about 245 mya) - Trilobites go extinct. 50% of all animal families, 95% of all marine species, and many trees die out.
The late Triassic (208 mya) - 35% of all animal families die out. Most early dinosaur families went extinct, and most synapsids died out (except for the mammals).
At the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary (about 65 mya) - about half of all life forms died out, including the dinosaurs , pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, ammonites, many families of fishes, clams, snails, sponges, sea urchins and many others.
Oh yeah, and now.
But fuck it. Right? Let's stage an SUV parade to show just how determined we are to rape the planet. [pause] Okay. I'm sorry. I'm going crazy, aren't I? I'm just being an environmentalist "wacko". I need to calm down and contemplate how the great economic victory over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will help America become even more number one. I'm obviously getting all angry about this because I'm a stupid liberal do-gooder who doesn't understand how the world works. I need to fix that. I need to take some time to try to reorient my worldview, because if the world works how I'm currently thinking that it works...I'm not sure I want to be a part of it.
3 Comments:
Yes, Kelly, you DO need to reorient your worldview, because your opinions on "how the world works" are for the most part, correct. I too, used to get upset about the incessant raping of our planet, until I heard a particularly true routine by, of all people, George Carlin. He spoke of being awestruck at the incredible adaptability of the planet earth - and pointed out that when people say "we need to save the planet", what they REALLY mean is "we need to save ourselves". The fact is, the planet itself will be just fine, sure to go on for millions and millions more years - thankfully, without us.
I'm not bringing this up as a justification of the Senate vote, or Bush's energy policy - I'm just saying that this is just the latest example of the slow circling down the drain of a once promising species, so you might as well sit back and amuse yourself with the view on the ride down. If you're lucky enough, you won't have to worry about being a part of a world you don't approve of, because chances are it will cease to exist within your lifetime. The planet will go on to evolve into something else, as nature starts over...maybe with the bees?
Ah, Lubow. I can't disagree with Carlin's logic, or your own. I am, in fact, concerned mainly with myself. Yes, the earth will survive for awhile and then eventually die, but viewing reality through the prism of geologic time presents an easy escape from the reality of here and now; it's relativism on steroids. But that's another discussion. I confess that my chief concern lies in what happens in my own lifetime. Personally, I would like to be able to travel through pristine natural environments, untouched by commercial development, industry, or even tourism. I have this wild fantasy of existing in a forest while being left entirely unmolested by security bureaucrats and/or property owners: those rotten ogres who always come along to kick you off "their land", douse your fire, point their flashlights in your face, and demand to see your "permit". (This has happened to me on numerous occasions, and always in one of our National Forests…and as you are aware, out National Forests are leased out to home owners, power companies, agribusiness, and a plethora of other private concerns). I also want to have (non-life threatening) encounters with animal life in the wild. None of this is easy to achieve when you live in Chicago, which is good distance from a National Park. So, yeah. It's all about me. It's all about today. I'm as guilty as anyone.
By the way, Lubow, apropos of our previous discussion, here's this from Romenesko via Atrios: "As dutifully covered by C-SPAN, the vote was close (49 to 51 against), and Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chair of the proceedings, was wearing -- and I could not make this up -- what appeared to be an “Incredible Hulk" tie." Apparently, it's a tradition.
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