don't blame us

The oil industry has it right," Don't blame us for the oil spill. It's not our fault." Spoken like a true drug pusher. Blame the addict.

Unfortunately, in this case, there is more truth to it than meets the eye. While oil spills cause a lot of damage, they are "hardly the most baleful consequence of America's oil addiction" according to The Economist.

Furthermore, devastating as they may be, spills are not even the main source of oil floating around in the oceans. Offshore drilling accounts for only 1%, tankers and pipelines for only 4%, compared to 33% from other shipping.

What you also may not realize is that much of the oil spilled in this disaster is expected to evaporate before reaching the coast. So never mind the poor sea gulls, watch what you breathe. Honestly people, if you get upset about this look no further than your own garage. That is where the true culprits are.

pardee reservoir

Pardee Reservoir in the Sierras is the heart of East Bay Municipal Utility District (affectionally known as East Bay MUD)'s drinking water supply. It is also a "recreation area" where families can enjoy fishing, boating, and camping, according to the Pardee Recreation Area website. Now EBMUD wants to enlarge the reservoir so as to better serve its customers. No, EBMUD is not thinking of providing more recreation or better fishing. It is thinking of the growing suburbs in the East Bay, with their overly thirsty water-wasting families.

EBMUD, with its token environmental stance -the recreation area is closed during migratory bird season for example- is going to flood and destroy a unique landscape, drain the Mokelumne river, destroy its fisheries, all so its customers in the affluent East Bay suburbs along highway 24 and 680 can water their lawns, wash their cars, and flush their toilets with pure drinking water. ( in case you wondered if I forgot to mention drinking, note that the upscale suburbanites in the East Bay drink bottled water)

EBMUD is considering how the area will grow over the next 20-30 years. That is if we don't run out of food by then or get hit by some other disaster of our own doing. It is no doubt rejoicing the fact that California gave the go-ahead to add a fourth bore to the Caldecott tunnel. Ostentatiously there to reduce traffic jams that aren't caused by the the tunnel itself, the fourth bore will no doubt stimulate further development along the "680 corridor." More people will move into the near-desert area east of the Oakland hills and start watering and flushing as if they lived in Hawaii.

At a time when many agencies are considering removing dam sites and restoring the enormous environmental damage some of these sites have brought on, EBMUD is taking a leadership position by proposing to build a new and larger dam for Pardee. It will add 40+ feet of water to its present reservoir and drain the river to create an eyesore out of what is now one of the more scenic and attractive riverscapes in the state.

In the eyes of EBMUD however, none of that beauty can match the elaborately manicured, over-watered, and over-fertilized lawns of Lafayette and Danville.

GO EBMUD!

carbon credits

It has been interesting to watch the Obama administration come to terms with our current predicament. It is for sure that we are in the worst crisis any of us have ever seen. This is no longer a recession. It is a true depression and a depression of the sort that only comes around every 100 or so years. A 100 year flood.

First the president was more or less realistic. I say more or less because he did paint too rosy a picture. That was before the State of the Union. At the State of the Union, he was extremely optimistic and hopeful and it was probably necessary because the previous tone (which I call the rosy picture) was no doubt too depressing for the general public to bear. 

Then he unveiled a budget with some positive steps. Unfortunately it is still a budget that focuses on the wrong ideas. It does not call for less energy consumption, it calls for alternative energy. It does not call for the abandonment of car traffic, it puts money into rebuilding highways. Obama calls it his "work on the foundations," but it appears the work is of a restorative nature only. It is not about rebuilding the foundations. It is about patching up and shoring up the existing foundations. And that is unfortunate. Because we need to rebuild those foundations.

We are slipping and sliding deeper into depression. From an environmental perspective that is truly good news. The consumer economy that was built on horrendous over-consumption and waste was a real environmental disaster. And I am not talking about the Bush policies per se. I am talking about ordinary citizens driving several large SUVs, building enormous McMansions and vacation homes, roaming around the globe on numerous vacations, buying goodies left and right only to trash them and replace them with newer goodies in a few days.

The Bush policies only did what could be done to support to this idiotic destructive behavior. The very people who despised Bush for his environmental record, were driving SUVs, filling up trash cans, and destroying nature as if there were no tomorrow. But perhaps because they threw some of their trash in the recycling bin, they felt better about themselves? Who knows?

The Bush policies made it possible for the consumer economy to do what everyone wanted it to do. These weren't Bush's ideas either. It all started with a man, many now consider a hero and one of the best presidents we ever had: Ronald Reagan. If there was ever a man who truly believed in environmental rape and destruction it was good old Ronnie. Unfortunately the world will all pay for the excesses of Ronnie's hare-brained ideas for many decades to come. 

Maybe good old Ron did not know any better? Suffering from Alzheimer's and coming from Hollywood make-believe, the cowboy of Santa Barbara may have thought the world was really all about glamour and indulgence. He may have truly believed it was his destiny to turn America into a giant movie-studio where people live the lives of fantasy, unaware of the destructive impacts of their actions. He may have thought prosperity was all about replacing real life with one big movie. A place where everyone can escape from reality.

Unfortunately, the movie is over now. The screen is dark, the nasty room lights are on, and we are kindly ushered back onto the cold and rainy streets. Places where things are tough, where reality bites, where people suffer real hardship and die real deaths, where mortgages have to paid, and where no one can wait for a knight in shining armor to magically fix all problems. No Hollywood endings here.

We are talking about some real work on the foundations. Work needed to put those foundations back into reality and away from Disney make-believe. Work needed to build foundations that can withstand a real flood.