We Won’t Be Winning Any Awards from the Petrochemical Industry
Lauren Downs from Global Energy News writes: Hi Craig, I have tried many times to contact you regarding your Nomination in the 2016 Oil & Gas Awards without success. The last thing I want to do is become a nuisance, so I would appreciate your honesty. Is this something you wish to progress with?
If so, please reply with YES. If you have changed you mind and no longer wish to participate that is fine but it would be great to know.
Did I ever express interest in this? If so, I can’t imagine why. My only interest in oil and gas is making them go away before the planet lies in ruins as a result of our dependence on them. Trust me, not a single person or company in this space wants to give me an award.
In nations captured by the elitist corporate agenda hiding under the name “capitalism,” a deadly chasm forever yawns between the apparent well-being of economies on paper, and the well-being of the humans who, by their labor and consumer spending, make those economies work.
The impact on the natural ecology that ultimately sustains all life (and therefore all production) is hidden and ignored.
Here’s one notable warning sign: Our former national economic measurement, GNP or Gross National Product, was the sum of all goods produced in the nation. However, our captains of industry offshored factory jobs, cut domestic production of goods per capita, and shifted to extractive money-making. So, that old GNP hasn’t been a rosy picture. The current measure, GDP (Gross Domestic Product), is only a sum of all the transactions occurring in the US each year. The GDP (transactions) has been favored over the GNP (goods) since 1991. The difference is telling…
All of the following are just a few examples of what now show up as “positives” contributing to our GDP:
• Medical expenses due to rising disease and cancer rates, resulting from processed food and industrial toxins…
• Treatment of injuries due to violent crime and unsafe workplaces…
• Private and government outlays for psychological treatment and institutionalization…
• The huge price of imprisoning more of our population than any other country, mostly for non-violent offenses…
• The increasing cost of college debt…
At the same time, costs like the health impacts of fossil fuels (asthma, cancer, etc.) are allowed to be “externalized” from industries.
Yet the GDP is used as a main indicator of the “health” of our economy, and is used widely for policy-making and legislation.
By contrast, Bhutan, a tiny nation between India and China uses a careful accounting of “Gross National Happiness.”
Cameron,
“Gross National Happiness” in Bhutan is certainly careful !
The accounting “carefully’ doesn’t include about 23% of the population who are unfortunate to belong to an ethnic minority. Ethnic minorities, in particular the Lhotshampa population, are denied civil rights, human rights, subjected to rape, slavery or expulsion. Lhotshampas and other minorities are arrested, beaten, their property is expropriated, and females are kidnapped and held in servitude, including sex slavery. They, (and those Bhutan’s who support them) are denied access to the Bhutan legal system.
Why ? The Bhutan government demands conformity in religion, dress, and language.
Sometimes the fiction of a Utopian Shangri-la looks so good from the comfort and distance of the USA, but underneath the image, the reality is sadly different.
Hi Craig,
Um,…why not just send Lauren Downs from Global Energy News a short email expressing your lack of interest in participation, and move on ?
Your sneering response seems a little churlish, and even counter-productive since many of the awards are given for improvements and innovations in environmental projects, especially carbon reduction, site clean up technology, and restoration of old environmental damage.
To be fair, over the years when you filled your car with diesel you voluntarily participated in the pollution created by the oil industry.
Don’t you think the scientist among last year’s award winners who pioneered a micro-biotic method of decontaminating old service stations , thereby safely eliminating the need to provide land fill for carcinogenic pollution, is a worthy recipient for an award ?
After all these young scientists are helping clean up the pollution you found convenient to create.
Or is a quick snigger at the oil industry a better response ?
Hi marcopolo,
You seem to have mistaken my mention of Bhutan as though it were intended to be taken as an example of flawless utopia. I find that amusing. I mentioned it simply to draw a contrast to the obviously wayward strategy of counting domestic transactions as a measure of any value.
I’m not aware of a flawless utopia anywhere, nor do I expect such a potential from humanity.
You closed your comment to me with the statement, “Sometimes the fiction of a Utopian Shangri-la looks so good from the comfort and distance of the USA, but underneath the image, the reality is sadly different.”
Please explain how that relates to, let alone diminishes, my observation about the folly of using a sum of domestic transactions as a measure of value.
Thanks for playing.
Cameron,
Um,.. let’s see if I understand you correctly. You say you employed one inaccurate example of a system, as a “contrast” to substantiate your disagreement with another system ? Why ? Isn’t customary yo contrast something you believe is unworthy with a more laudable alternative ?
(I also note you express no concern, only “amusement” at the plight of the unfortunate Bhutanese minorities ).
As for your request for an explanation regarding the methodology of various economic indices, I’m not sure how such a discussion would be relevant, to the topic of Craig’s posting on this thread.
I hope you forgive me, but I simply don’t have the time or inclination to fathom the merits of your peculiar interpretation of economic methodology.
I refer you to an article by a colleague, Tim Callen of the IMF, which may assist your understanding of how economic indicators are formulated.
[ http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/basics/gdp.htm ]
In another example of typical tedium, you have employed yet another straw man tactic here…
You state, “I also note you express no concern, only “amusement” at the plight of the unfortunate Bhutanese minorities”…
In stark contrast, these were my words, “You seem to have mistaken my mention of Bhutan as though it were intended to be taken as an example of flawless utopia. I find that amusing.”
It’s obvious to any reader that my statement communicates that I find your mistake amusing – not the plight of any people.
Thanks again for playing.