The facts as I see them

August 25, 2014

By JOEY RACANO

Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb and he spoke as a dragon. (Revelation 13:11)

Sleep is difficult when your breathing sounds like a door opening and closing in a haunted house. I can’t make up my mind if it’s being caused by Cesium 137 from the Devil Canyon Atomic Reactor a scant six miles from my bedroom window, or dander from the dog sleeping next to me in my bed. Whatever it is, it feels like my sinuses have jumped into the octagon with my allergies for a one-round bout that lasts from bedtime ‘till morning. I’m wondering what’s going to happen when Cesium 134 from Fukushima starts arriving in earnest. Sea stars melting, no rain, red tides, nukes- and that’s just the good news.

So let me get to the real point of this piece: the giant demon with horns like a goat that burned in the Gulf of Mexico back in 2010. Although it’s long gone underwater by now (along with enough COREXIT 9500 to atomize and sink oil, keeping anybody from taking aerial photos of oil slicks that might have been used against BP in court), that’s not what’s important. What’s important are the ‘eco-voters’ tired of the Bush/Cheney cabal, who thought they were saving the world by voting for President Obama.

Then came Obama’s big speech at an Air Force Base in Maryland replete with a big American flag and U.S. fighter jet as a backdrop, and did he ever let us have it. Calling it an ‘olive branch to big oil,’ Obama opened up the entire eastern seaboard of the United States to oil drilling, spilling, killing and seismic testing with 260 decibel air canons- all in the birthing basket of the endangered Northern Right Whale.

But that’s not all; he also announced more and deeper drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the opening to deep water drilling in two seas in the pristine waters of the Arctic. A mere 20 days after this speech, this ‘olive branch’ as it were, the Gusher blew at British Petroleum’s Macondo Well in the Gulf of Mexico. Sure, it was a few years ago now, and sure, we’re back in there drilling spilling and killing again, but we have learned a lot too.

We learned that BP and the Coast Guard burned a lot of sea turtles. We learned that we virtually wiped out important spawning grounds for two of the world’s most endangered species, the Whale Shark and Blue Fin Tuna. We learned porpoises in the area are now very prone to heart attacks. And we learned that BP is spending most of their energies fighting payouts they promised to folks affected by the Gusher. We also learned about 29,000 oil wells in the Gulf –all leaking- that belong to we know not whom. We don’t know whose they were, where the owners went, or what can or ever will be done about them. However, permission has already been granted to big oil to continue drilling new ones, likely to be abandoned, forgotten, and orphaned sometime in the future. And even all that is just the tip of water that once was the tip of an iceberg.

Oil also means endless war, and we’re bombing Iraq, again. And storms are getting worse. Lung capacity of inner city children is decreasing, and asthma increasing. Yet the misguided activists are fighting against fracking, at a time they should be fighting against oil. In case you’ve been on Mars for ten years, fracking is a technique that allows greedy oil companies show that their greed is even worse than you originally thought. They take dead, dying, or near-dead oil wells and force massive amounts of water, acid and unknown, unnamed chemicals into those wells in hopes more oil can be squeezed out.

Now, I’m not sticking up for this hideous practice, but I do know one thing- fracking is not what we should be focusing on. Simply put, there are no good ways to destroy the atmosphere. It is oil we must stop, not how it is procured from the bosom of Mother Earth.

Some geniuses like to tell you the Earth is too big to fail. “It’s a big planet” they say. But I like to think of the planet as an egg. You don’t get to use the yolk and you don’t get to use the egg whites. You only get to use the shell. That is the atmosphere, aka ‘Troposphere.’ It really is a small and fragile womb, embracing life and supporting all living systems of Earth.

What we are doing is taking carbon out of the ground where it has safely been sequestered for hundreds million years and pouring it into the atmosphere, a puzzling form of planetary self-ecocide.

Who, I wonder, was the bright bulb came up with that?

I don’t care how much cesium, terrorism, or water-intensive factory farms we may encounter; the continued use of oil will kill us just as surely as an all-out nuclear exchange. In fact, the oceans are already becoming acid. Think about it- should we be fighting on a million different fronts, or is the real emergency to wrest control of our military, government, and economy from the beast with horns like a goat? The Pentagon is BP’s #1 customer! It’s time to stop worshipping troops and dismantle the military instead. There is still time to save ourselves.

As of 2015, no car dealerships should be allowed to sell anything but all-electric cars, and all American rooftops should have solar panels. The world looks to the USA. And they will follow.

Joey Racano is an environmental activist and a CalCoastNews contributor.