Our Patience With Oil Train Wrecks Is At An Ebb
Here’s a piece that covers one of the many hidden costs associated with petroleum: cleaning up oil train wreckages. That, in and of itself, wouldn’t qualify it as unique, or even terribly interesting, given how increasingly common these disasters are (they’ve increased in frequency 16 times from 2010 to 2014). What is worthy of note here however is the admission that accidents like these are inevitable, and that they are clearly the result of putting profits in front of the health of the environment and the people who live in it.
From the article:
“We’re playing Russian roulette,” de Place (policy director at the Sightline Institute, a progressive Seattle think tank) said. “I think the industry is perfectly willing to put a gun to our heads and risk our lives for the sake of making money. It is abundantly clear this enterprise is unsafe, unsustainable and they don’t know how to manage it.”
Sitting next to his 7-year-old son as he spoke with the newspaper, de Place said he was in a “blind rage” about the fiery crash in Mosier. “It’s appalling that we’re allowing this to continue,” he said.
For his part, Appleton (local fire chief) confessed the experience has changed his perspective on what should be allowed. “I hope that this becomes death knell for this mode of shipping this cargo. I think it’s insane,” Appleton declared on Saturday. “I’ve been very hesitant to take a side up to now, but with this incident, and with all due respect to the wonderful people that I’ve met at Union Pacific, shareholder value doesn’t outweigh the lives and happiness of our community.”
There are always risks and downsides to any industrialized society.
The upsides we take for granted, the downsides attract outrage and indignation.
Transporting oil by rail is safer and more efficient than by road, but certainly not a safe as by pipeline. Perhaps Eric de Place should re-think his admiration for President Obama’s largest campaign contributor, (Warren Buffett) whose investment in rail stock profited greatly from his lobbying the President to oppose pipelines.
It’s always a case of “not in my backyard”. Everyone accepts and demands the benefits of modern civilization, but no one wants the downsides.
When Eric de Place’s house catches fire, he won’t be agonizing over what fuel powers the 30 ton fire engine that arrives to save his home and loved ones. Eric de Place will drive his diesel automobile on a road made from oil to the airport and catch a jet made possible by an oil products to attend a conference where he will castigate the transport of oil !
From where I am sitting, I can see more than 100 products made from oil. From my keyboard to a ball point pen. Probably if conducted a little more research I could identify thousands of essential products produced from oil within 100 metres of where I am sitting.
It’s pointless pretending that a Utopian world is possible if only those terrible evil oil companies weren’t conspiring to destroy our delusions.
This is not up to your usual high standard of argument Marco. It’s trotted out as an easy & general retort to those raising a red flag about problems with organized societies far too often. The oil companies are basically evil and greedy, witness the current coast-to-coast attorney general’s investigation of Exxon. Most of those 100 products you see could now be made with plant-based alternatives. Those that could not could be made with more *responsibly* derived oil. It’s a problem of political and corporate will vs the lack of will and knowledge of the general public.
Marc,
Thank you for your comment.
I understand that some people need to see the world as a sort of old fashioned morality play, with simple values, heroes to cheer and villains to hiss.
But reality is very different ! Oil companies are no more “greedy” than any other corporation. (Actually, they are far better US corporate citizens than Apple, Google, Micro-soft, Solar, Wind etc).
The myth that oil products an easily replaced is absurd.
In fact, of just the 138,678 “essential” product’s produced by the oil industry, less than 102 could be produced from alternatives.
Nothing created by man is “risk-free”, all we can do is try to improve our technology to minimize the risk and unintended negatives.
It’s also human nature that with the advent of any disater, a puritan will always be present, sanctimoniously standing with pursed lips, gloating with disapproval when things go wrong. Y’know, these are the sort of people who upon seeing someone stumble over a concealed obstacle, admonish “careful “!
The admonishment,( being too late) is pointless, useless and irritating. It’s only purpose is to make the puritan feel smugly superior.
Likewise, I don’t believe the environment is assisted by vilifying industries whose activity is economically essential. The best hope for environmental progress is by developing newer, and superior technology.
Developing new technology is an expensive business. R&D is expensive and needs a very strong economy to fund development and investment.
The idea that some sort of socialist utopia will produce this new technology, is a bizarre fantasy. As recent history has shown, what you get is not a Tesla, but a Trabant !
It may be that it was a mistake to oppose the Keystone pipeline. At the time it was being opposed, I wondered about the relative safety of rail transportation compared with pipeline transportation but that matter received very little attention. I think that the decision should be revisited with safety being an important consideration.
This is why I supported Keystone, and was bitterly disappointed when it failed.
Society will not ween itself off of its dependence on oil in the next 4 decades. During the next 4 decades the Athabasca oil sands will become more and more important.
We condemned our society to suffering the oil spills from trains over the next decade rather than suffering the 3-order-of-magnitude-lower spills from pipeline.
Some of the advocates on the other side of that issue really need to meditate on the idea of “allowing the Utopian dreams of ‘perfect’ to destroy good.”
To be fair, however, this still is a trivial issue in the grand scheme of things. In a world where we’re dumping 33 GT of CO2e pollution into the atmosphere every year, a few thousand bbls of oil on the ground is at best an annoyance and at worst a distraction.
Good points.
My viewpoint on rejecting the pipeline was that it was symbolic, but that it was an extremely important symbol.
Craig,
I guess I’ll always be more cynical, and less romantic.
To me symbols are usually distractions – which are worse than nothing. The big picture is the one we need to see. Symbols are usually trees that distract us from the forest.
Thanks. That’s a very sane viewpoint, but mine differs: http://www.2greenenergy.com/2016/06/08/protect-environment/
Craig,
I think you’ve nailed it ! That would appear to be what’s important to the more extreme in the environmental movement, “symbolism”.
No matter how counter-productive, impractical, pointless and ill-considered, it’s all about grand rhetoric and adherence to political ideology that’s important.
I think that you’re right.
Sometimes, or perhaps often, well meaning people do not consider all the facts before making decisions. For reasons that I did not understand, all the environmental organizations that took a position on it condemned the pipeline and completely ignored the almost certainty that killing the pipeline proposal would not greatly reduce the amount of oil shipped. We are now seeing the results.
Of course we must practically eliminate the use of fossil fuels, but we must use realistic means to do so.