GOPers Stuck on Oil: Principled or Just Stubborn?
Gallup has a pretty interesting poll out about what Americans consider a higher priority: environmental protection or energy production (e.g., drill, baby, drill). No surprise that since the disastrous BP oil spil in the Gulf, opinions have shifted markedly. In March the public favored energy exploration over environmental protection by 50-43 in March, and now in late May opinions have more than flipped, with environmental protection outpacing energy production by a 55-39 margin.
What is striking is that ALL of the shift has come in attitudes among Democrats and Independents, as the chart below shows. Both D’s and I’s shifted their attitudes 15 percent toward the environment. Yet Republicans in March 2010 favored energy over environment by a 62-30 margin, and after the spill the margin is….62-30, energy over environment.
So the exegetical possibilities here would seem to be:
A: Republicans are principled. (Semper idem, alleluia.)
B: Republicans are pig-headed stubborn. (Semper idem, wrong or right.)
C: Republicans don’t care about the environment because global-warming is a fraud, the media is playing Chicken Little, and Jesus is coming soon anyway.
D: Democrats (and Independents) are mushy-head liberals who go with the flow, so to speak.
E: Dems & Indies are tree-hugging idjits who put Nature above Human Rights (first of which is to drive a really big car).
F: Dems & Indies change their views to reflect changing realities. (Semper reformanda, alleluia.)
G: All of the above.
None of the above? Something I’ve forgotten? Your choice — or choices?
OR
Dems like to feel real good about protecting the environment while they drive to Whole Foods Market in their GMC Yukon to stock up on vegetarian dog food for the house sitter to use before they jet off to Cancun for vacation.
Hypocrisy. Excellent addition. Conservatives cannot be accused of that, at least on this issue.
I am a fan of Rod Dreher and the Crunchy Cons, personally.
Enjoy Mexico, Sean.
I wouldn’t put down the Right. It takes a special kind of courage to hold to one’s convictions when other people are suffering.
Sean’s comment reminds me of why I stopped being a member of the Sierra Club — I was sick of seeing 10-20 pages of advertisements every month for expensive kayaking/spelunking/mountaineering/canoeing/etc. vacations in exotic locations far across the globe, many of which were actually sponsored by the club itself. Don’t talk to me about global warming one minute while you’re selling tickets for a Himalayan river rafting trip the next.
It just bothers me that everyone waxes indignant over this while they enjoy the fruits of the very thing they are condemning. Reality check – without the oil and gas money that has been coming into coastal Louisiana and Mississippi for decades, there wouldn’t be a “way of life” that needed saving. It is that money that kept these communities prosperous – not shrimping.
Also, the other dirty secret that isn’t being talked about much is that the reason this spill is so horrible is because it is so deep. Why is that? Who is responsible for deciding to drill where you can’t stop a leak?
I keep wondering if the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives is a psychological one. Conservatives are by definition persons who are inclined to value the past. They seem to think that if the past “worked”, then sticking to the past will continue to “work”. They think they are pragmatists — if your lucky charm kept you safe before, it will keep you safe in the future. So grasp those old ways firmly!
Conservatives simply do not see the importance of trying to project the future, even when mounds of scientific studies show that their past behavior will lead to disaster. Conservatives have little appreciation for that new stuff called “science”, except for medicine, which they have noticed can sometimes save their lives.
Why else have the conservatives so stubbornly refused to accept what the most respected of the scientists world=wide have been telling us for several generations now — (and CNN dramatically bears out their claims) — burning fossil fuels is killing the Earth and man with it. Their defense against such knowledge is to put down the “egg=heads”, who, of course, never stop citing studies and making predictions. (But that’s a slightly more complicated story.)
Great ecological changes started happening in the Americas when the white men set foot on these shores. (The Iroquois had a maxim: Consider the impact down seven generations. John D. Rockefeller and his tribe paid no attention.) Only when catastrophes happens do conservatives even begin to be aware of ecological consequences. But the conservatives’ defense against natural catastrophe is to clasp their lucky charms and chant “Tree-hugger”, “tree-hugger” . . . as Louisiana washes into the sea, and with Louisiana goes the fish-nursery for the whole of the Gulf of Mexico.
OK, Sean Hannity, let’s consider just one of Mother Earth’s new problem. There’s something we might call “the New Weather”. What are you conservatives going to do about it? Buy some new charms? Invent some new chants? Or finally go for solar, wind, biofuels, whatever?
“It just bothers me that everyone waxes indignant over this while they enjoy the fruits of the very thing they are condemning. Reality check – without the oil and gas money that has been coming into coastal Louisiana and Mississippi for decades, there wouldn’t be a “way of life” that needed saving. It is that money that kept these communities prosperous – not shrimping.”
“Wild over-simplification” describes this nicely.
And the reason they’re drilling in deep water is because the oil close to land has all been sucked out. You don’t think those smart oil men would spend half a billion dollars on one deep-water rig when a dinky little one would do, do you? Of course, BP wasn’t smart enough to install a back-up valve for $500,000. on this baby. Maybe they’re not so smart after all.
Question: if the USA passes legislation banning offshore oil drilling, how will that stop foreign corporations – such as BP and Mexico’s PEMEX monopoly – from drilling in international waters? If we ban all underwater drilling for our companies, that won’t make one whit of difference, ecologically, given that other countries will just move in. Right?
It’s like Kyoto and other Global Warming protocols. Regardless of the merits of the science, without China and India signing up – and they will not – no overall good can come from it, and a lot of bad in terms of economic impact on our own nation.
Mr. Flanagan –
Louisiana has always claimed that its boundaries extend 60-70 miles out into the Gulf, or something like that. It has something to do with Spanish law. (Louianaa was under Spanish rule for a time.) The same might be true of Florida, Texas and California, for all I know. And possibly Mexico and the other Latin American countries. Whether or not the old claim(s) has been accepted, I do not know. But that might have something to do with where and how drilling is permitted in the Gulf.
“Louisiana has always claimed that its boundaries extend 60-70 miles out into the Gulf, or something like that. It has something to do with Spanish law. (Louianaa was under Spanish rule for a time.)”
Doesn’t Louisiana have vestiges of Napoleonic Law, too?
Personally, I’m all for protecting the environment, until the price of gasoline exceeds $3/gallon.
To me the most interesting debate by far in politics and culture these days is what it means to be a conservative, and what conservatism really means. (Much more interesting than the whining about Obama from the left who says he hasn’t done everything they wanted, and RIGHT NOW!)
Among the many ideals much of modern-day conservatism seems to have lost, IMHO (fiscal responsibility, limited government, individual rights, etc) is that of environmentalism and moderation in consumption and wealth, in particular. (Where is Weber — or Calvin — when we need him?) The two go together, I think.
This is one of the few (only?) times I would cite Dick Cheney, I suspect, when he said way back in 2001:
“Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.”
It is a virtue, and one I am surprised conservatives don’t embrace more, though that is part of the debate on the right, such as it is. I also think conservation is in fact part of a policy, but not the whole answer. It can’t be.
Ann
The fundamental difference is not that conservative don’t project the future, it is that they lack the arrogance to think they can dictate it.
Progressives invariably think that they can fix any problem if they just think hard enough about it and get enough political and economic power to implement these great ideas. The other characteristic of progressives is that what matters is the intentions of these big ideas, not the consequences.
Environmentalism is full of such ideas. Take the endangered species act. Suppose you are a developer who has invested $2million buying land and you discover a nest of engangered flying kangaroo mice. Do you report that to the authorities and lose your investment or do you pour a gallon of kerosenes down the hole and light it? Has the ESA actually worked? Cash for clunkers anyone?
Right now, my own home of Massachusetts is trying to implement strict new lead paint protection and removal regs for exterior painting. Never mind that there’s no evidence to indicate a problem. Just suit up your painters in respiration masks and Tyvex suits. Who cares if they get sick from heat stroke or fall off ladders because they can’t see what they are doing – their lead levels will be normal at the autopsy.
One reason we drill so far to sea is that environmentalists were successful in the getting a ban on drilling on the continental shelf. Maybe that was a good idea or maybe it wasn’t, but you have to ask yourself if the thing would still be leaking if it was 300 ft and not 5000 ft deep.
The point is that all environmental issues are inherently a balancing of risks and benefits, but they are rarely addressed that way. We rant and rave about our toxic environment, but never accept that the plastics, chermicals, and petroleum are why we have full bellies, sleep in warm and dry homes, and aren’t routinely dropping dead at the age of 35.
Jim P. –
Louisiana’s Civil Code — concerning such basic things as contracts and personal matters like marriage and parenthood — is till a basic part of our legal system. Napoleon ordered a codification of French law, hence the name. But French law was in large part based on Spanish law. (I know a local law prof. who is expert in these matters, so I have heard a bit about this.) The Code was way ahead of its time in recognizing rights of women and children, and in those areas it has influenced other systems of American law. Compare community property laws. I don’t know how much if any the Spanish laws have affected the other former Spanish colonies.
You think $3 a gallon is intolerable? Wait till it hits $10, then $15. Your only choice will be which route to take as you walk to work, and you’d better believe it. Unless, of course, you support alternative energies which will cost a huge amount to finish developing, plus there will be the cost of the new infrastructure for delivering it. Take you head out of the sand. We have NO choice but to go green.
Mr. Gibson – can’t speak to your hypotheticals in terms of principles. Would add that, whether we like it or not, the US will need the oil contained in the deep gulf – that is the reality.
How we extract that deep gulf oil is a whole other question:
- obviously, there is little or poor government oversight in terms of regulations insuring public safety; environmental protection, etc.
- so, one could conceivedly acknowledge that we need to continue our efforts to extract deep gulf oil but under much stricter regulatory focus and with built in checks and balances
- examples – Canada only permits off shore drilling in which two wells are simultaneously drilled at the same time – one for production and one for safety back up; use of Blowout Preventors at a certain level of quality, security, and checks would be required for any drilling project; reguations around the quality of slurry & concrete used in the final stages of drilling/capping must have government oversight and approval; workflows and oversite between oil/gas corporations – drilling companies – other subsidiaries must be regulated by an outside, neutral board; the question of in shore/continential shelf drilling needs to be reconsidered?
Any way, you get my point!
It might be a lot of things but it is certainly SOP. We must continue to demand change.
“Question: if the USA passes legislation banning offshore oil drilling, how will that stop foreign corporations – such as BP and Mexico’s PEMEX monopoly – from drilling in international waters?”
It won’t. We will continue to drill.
This has all been seen before and is not even the largest Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
See Ixtoc I http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I_oil_spill
Until we are willing to get out of our cars and walk to work we will be drilling for oil and these things will happen.
“You think $3 a gallon is intolerable? Wait till it hits $10, then $15. Your only choice will be which route to take as you walk to work, and you’d better believe it. Unless, of course, you support alternative energies which will cost a huge amount to finish developing, plus there will be the cost of the new infrastructure for delivering it. Take you head out of the sand. We have NO choice but to go green.”
Hi, Ann, I own a bicycle, I am able to work from home if I wish, and my head is usually inside a mug of beer. But I wait with interested expectation for the country to “go green”, something I’ve been hearing about at least since the Carter years.
Well……let me add some other thoughts. If you back to the early 1900′s and looked at oil drilling spills, accidents, etc. on US land, you would basically see the same pattern of environmental waste, destruction, etc. That was also true on the continental shelf but Santa Barbara changed that – regulations tightened up and some large shelf areas were off limits.
The Valdez in 2989 changed the whole safety and envirnonmental landscape for big oil. Yet, there are still plenty of gaps in regulations; etc. e.g. recent BP Texas City explosion; and as you said….most other countries have even less regs in place.
This crisis should push the industry into the same regulation, environmental protection response for deep gulf as Valdez did. But, keep in mind….on a continuum, ExxonMobil is the safest oil company in the world….BP is at the other extreme and probably on par with national oil companies such as Chinese Petroleum, Nigeria, Mexico, Venzuela, etc.
When new regs go into place, deep gulf drilling will singniticantly increase in cost – safety, back ups, enviornment, etc. This, in turn, will increase the cost of gas – but, doubt we will walk to work.
“Personally, I’m all for protecting the environment, until the price of gasoline exceeds $3/gallon.”
It’s already beyond that out here on the Left Coast. I willingly pay it for my 4 year old hybrid’s use, and would pay more if the price increase would return the Humvees, SUV hogs, back to their garages where they belong.
Sean —
Like many conservatives you seem to have a deep-seated distrust of scientists. They contradict each other, you point out. But, in fact, disagreement is a strength of science: Science is self-correcting, and that’s why there are such arguments. Further, scientists know that there can be two different hypotheses which explain one phenomenon, and so they keep testing till they find out which hypothesis is the better explanation. True, there are some sloppy scientists, but generally they don’t publish without peer review
That’s more than you can say for business men who write projections of what their business activities will produce. No wonder we regularly have almost total failures of our economic systems. Self-criticism is not a valued commodity among CEOs nor in the business community generally.
It seems totally irrational to me to trust trust our very lives to scientists when it comes to medical science, but not trust scientists when it is a matter of accepting the world-wide consensuses reached in the ecological/earth sciences. There *are* some agreements among the ecologists and earth scientists — global warming is a fact, it threatens many ecosystems, one but perhaps not all of the causes are known, and we don’t know what if anything to do about it except reduce fossil fuel emissions. But conservatives are generally less than willing to pay the necessary costs to find out just what is causing these changes and then to take appropriate actions. But all that would require major changes, and change is bad (according to you guys. Better just to look in the other direction, to the past. “Don’t look. Don’t worry.”
America is paying dearly for its corrupt plutocratic regime (think Cheney-Halliburton). A lot of people are happy to see America weakened and to see the White House confess its total incompetence to handle the problem. The thing is, America has being bringing mass death, injustice, and torture to many parts of the world for some 60 years, and judgment day has arrived. See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/opinion/26dowd.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/opinion/29herbert.html?ref=opinion
Ann
I trust scientists to do what scientists are supposed to do, I don’t trust them to develop economic and social policies.
Global warming is a great example – yes it exists, that is an empirical fact. What causes it? On that there is disagreement. Can it be reversed? How? Is it worth it? Is it even beneficial?
Joseph,
Your hatred of America fascinates me – interesting how in many places in the world and throughout most of history you would probably be jailed or killed for expressing such opinions. Yes, America is an awful beast,
I think that that interesting topic of conversation is being buried in the superficial and perennial discussion on the science of climate change. I don’t care if the climate is warming, cooling, getting wetter, dryer, windier, cloudier, sunnier, purple-er. The air is filled with smog, the water with heavy metals, the forests are now suburbs, you can’t climb any mountain left on earth without coming across other people’s garbage. Walk Vancouver’s shoreline and you find garbage washed ashore, hike the Rockies and you might as well take a stick with a nail at the end, even on the less travelled paths. After living in Asia, Africa and Europe, the rest of the world is even worse.
We need to clean up our act because I am sick of this beautiful world being treated like a dump.
Now we get back to calling me a Calvinist for being conservative. Sean is right that most environmentalists/liberals are hypocrites not prepared to change their lives to live according to their principles. David is right that the modern form of conservativism (especially what filters over the 49th parallel in the media) is not ideologically consistently conservative. I am trying (I feel like I am speaking to my confessor) to be a traditional conservative: concerned that the economy grows faster than the population in order to maintain stability expand wealth and alleviate suffering, that the values of Western civilization are not thrown out in the pursuit of individualism, concerned that ‘progress’ isn’t always mother nature’s ally, trying to detach myself from a mentality of materialism and focus on the higher things in life…are these the Four Noble Truths the conservatives have forgotten like modern Buddhists?
“Global warming is a great example – yes it exists, that is an empirical fact. What causes it? On that there is disagreement. Can it be reversed? How? Is it worth it? Is it even beneficial?”
Sean —
Now you’re asking the important questions. Some of them are scientific ones. So, are there any conservative organizations at all which are pushing for more research to find the answers? Or any conservative Congresspersons pushing for research? I can’t think of one. Correct me if I”m wrong.
And; that’s why I say the conservatives don’t trust science and/or have their heads in the sand. The animal icon for the Republican Party ought to be the ostrich.
“Sean is right that most environmentalists/liberals are hypocrites not prepared to change their lives to live according to their principles.”
Adam –
I have to agree that when it comes to changing our life styles, liberals can be as fool-hardy as conservatives. But some of us try to be rational. My Prius is 6 years old. I weatherized my house before the new tax breaks started to kick in. (Yes — weatherizing really works, and virtue is rewarded — my utility bills are around half what they were. Do it.)
But, like you, I think that not only the amount of trash we generate is disgraceful, but also what we do with it — put it in dumps for the next generations to worry about — is also patently unjust. Not to mention what we’ve done to the landscape. Me, I’m unabashed tree-hugger. Everyone should be. And did you know that studies have shown (yes, there goes the liberals again — “studies have shown”) that neighborhoods with greenery have less crime than those without it? Go plant a tree!!!
Ann, my experience shows (and studies too…maybe I’m a closet liberal) that the basic trend in liberalism is to have someone else look after it. Much like conservatives are more likely to donate to charity and volunteer, liberals (because of their ideology?) think it is the business of government to legislate social problems away. I can only assume the same applies to the environment though I have not seen any empirical data to support the environmental claim.
As a conservative I think it is the business of government to provide a framework in which business can thrive. But unlike many social welfare programs that perpetuate the problem of poverty, I believe that a truly conservative government will seriously consider protecting the environment through stringent environmental standards and liberal economic policy. Give business free reign in their sandbox but the moment things spill over, heads should roll. There is no reason BP should even still exist. As Chesterton said: The problem with capitalism isn’t that there are too many capitalists, but too few. But liberal bankruptcy laws perpetuate bad business management (with the intent on protecting workers and shareholders) and prohibit natural selection in business. Though I rarely agree with Bill O’Reilly, I remember him saying about bankers pillaging billions: We used to cut heads off for that (referring to the French Revolution). Maybe it is a good thing I live in a country without the death penalty and I am not a judge, otherwise there would be a lot of business executives walking around about a foot shorter than they were previously.
Maybe I’m a Teddy Roosevelt conservative.
And for the record, I am 28 so I think I might be in the generation that gets to deal with previous generations’ messes. But my 1997 VW diesel golf gets better milage than many hybrids, my hobbies are hunting, hiking and sailing (all sustainable) and I walk to work every day. Most of my ‘liberal’ and environmentalist friends are nothing but arm-chair environmentalists in practice.
“Give business free reign in their sandbox but the moment things spill over, heads should roll”
Adam –
Yes, but recent experience has shown that conservatives are unwilling to regulate. I’m thinking of both the the currently most conspicuous oil business, the financial industries and Wall St. Why should this be so? If the conservatives were *really* conservatives they’d do what you say.
I fear that the old fashioned kind of conservative is gone. I used to admire some things about the old GOP, but no more. At least they used to watch the budget, but since Reagan they’ve spent at a greater and faster rate than the Democrats. The country is directed by coalitions of interests groups, and the ones with the most money to start with win the pot o’ gold. This has resulted in a shrinking middle class and deeper poverty of education for both the middle class and the poor. But a democracy simply cannot flourish without a citizenry that can do critical thinking. God knows where it will end.
I blame the Supreme Court. It regularly supports business, specifically justifying their decisions by appeal to the fantasy that corporations are persons.
“This is one of the few (only?) times I would cite Dick Cheney…”
It cannot be the only time. Certainly you cite the Vice President as the intellectual father of the Liberal Catholic doctrine of preemptive self-defense which girds your policy of the intentional assassination of Muslim civilians.
Very nice, MAT. It seems they kicked you out of the middle school playground or the local bar? Don’t feel you have to bring your elevated sense of argumentation here as a last, or first, resort.
“t seems they kicked you out of the middle school playground or the local bar? Don’t feel you have to bring your elevated sense of argumentation here as a last, or first, resort.”
The office actually. Anyway, it was not an argument. It was a question. Your sense of self-aware irony however is noted.
Sean Hannaway, whataboutery is the last recourse of those without a case for the defense. Yes, America is an awful beast — in the millions it has killed from the air, in unoffending Laos for example, and in the torture it has patronized in many places. This history cannot be erased.
Now I hear the President is considering using a “small” A-bomb to explode near the leaking oil well in hopes that will seal the thing for good. Wow –
As for Conservatives not trimming their sails in light of this drilling disaster, I am not surprised. We are simply trying to be realistic and trying to stay rational.
I am a moderate-to-conservative guy, and the fact is that – whether anyone likes it or not – even after we stop this leak and clean up the mess (which will take years at best), we will need to drill for oil for a long time to come.
I do not understand why so many folks think that foreigners should do our drilling for us; that they should take the ecological risks on our behalf, and then that the they (Arabs and other foreigners) should keep the price of oil low in order that we Americans stay comfortable. Why is our ecology more precious that the ecolocy in Arabia or Russia or Venezuela?
I would like to have a hybrid-drive or some other type of electric car, but the fact is that I have bills to pay and so until I can buy a hybrid-electric car for the same as my Hyundai 4-door cost, I – along with most people – will keep buying gas burning cars. Also, I do not want a government designed electric “folks-wagon”; government should tend to matters it does best, and that list does not include engineering and designing cars.
And so after we wrap up this mess, the question on the table will be: How to drill for oil in a safe and clean manner, and stll allow the oild companies room to make a profit?
Maybe we should consider allowing oil companies to drill in shallower waters, or even on land. That way if someone makes a misteks – we humans always seem to keep doing that btw – if the oil well was in shallower water or on-shore, the leak would be easier to fix.
That – to me – sounds reasonable enough.
Moving the oil well to shallower water or onto land certainly sounds more reasonable than detonating atomic bombs under the sea.
Ken –
What makes you think there is a lot of oil near land or under the soil? Louisiana is about played out. That’s why they drill so far off-shore and so deep. Maybe that’s not as true for the other states. But face this fact: there is less oil — period — than most Americans assume. That means if we want to continue to have electricity to light our houses and to run all sorts of things we’ve got to sacrifice and pay taxes to develop new sources of energy. The R&D required is massive, and the private companies can’t afford the whole bill. So one way or another you and I are going to have to start paying for it even before it’s available.
Oh, you hear that, do you, Ken? Did you also hear that the notion was immediately dismissed by the Energy Dept.? Wow.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/us/03nuke.html