The BP Spill

The BP Spill

The BP Oil Spill is but the thief that got caught. Oil and other fossil fuels are filthy businesses and the constant seepage, spills, runoff, environmental stripping and small, unreported disasters are ongoing.

This BP Spill is a precursor for the drilling industry that is constantly going deeper, taking larger risks to extract the oil that is further from our more conventional grasps.

One wonders how much truth we are being told. Of course what is being heard is what most want to hear, and what the oil industry wants everyone to hear: that technology saved the day and that all is under control and always will be, as the news media commits to “case solved” and the plight of the fishing industry and the lives of the folks on the gulf gets left behind in their coverage.

Any why do we take such risks? And why do we wage aggressive war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and rattle “our” sabers at Iran? So that we can carelessly glide from destination to destination as our privileged imperial ownership caste where our only real job is to consume what each other own?

Oil is a precious resource and one that should be used wisely. Oil heats our homes, oil would be very useful in a humane agricultural system, oil products can cook our food, oil products can be used to generate electricity which, if prudently used, can add much to the quality of our lives. Oil products are used for the creation of durable goods and as feedstock for other valuable uses.

But, people of the USA squander over 15 million barrels a day of oil equivalent to fuel their mindless forays of consumption in personal automobiles. They know no other way. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We could rebuild our neighborhoods and reallocate goods and services accordingly so that the things that people need are available within walking distance of most. Such a program of building/rebuilding village/community/telecommuting centers could not only contribute to a worthwhile goal of reducing personal automobile usage by 80% in the next 20 to 40 years, thereby greatly extending the tail of post-peak fossil fuels for future generations, but would also greatly add to the communitarian, sedentary, quality of life for all.
We need to commit to this as a nation and commit to it right away.

In addition to improving our domestic quality of life, such a commitment and action plan would go a long way to easing geo-political tensions and allow “us” to cease aggressions with oil rich regions and ease the pressure to extract so much carbon fuels, so fast, thus alleviating the ongoing environmental damaging and greatly reducing the chances of large environmental disasters.

Of course, the momentum of the industrial society and currently accepted "growth" imperative will cause the oil industry to try to maximize oil revenues, therefore production and consumption, and thus environmental degradation and sooner long-term, sustaining fuel shortages. The only solution to this problem, that I can see, is the nationalization of the oil companies and their associated industries, with production scheduling co-ordinated with a full fledge demand side management plan.

Letter to "Funders for Sustainability"

Dana,

Just got finished watching "The Story of Stuff". Annie Leonard did an excellent job. Thank you for your contribution to the funding of this short film. I have made a small donation in support.

Apparently, the short is getting much viewership, hopefully it is not exclusively "preaching to the choir". Fundamental behavior change is essential to any hope that we have towards achieving sustainability in our communities and our world.

But awareness and behavior change of "consumers" is not enough. We must regain our humanity and we must radically alter our economic relations. Such will be extremely difficult because the Capitalist Growth Machine has centuries of momentum which has accelerated drastically in the last generation. The tragic growth pradigm of an economic system is one that eschews the reality of a finite planet, that eschews the teachings of ecology, that eschews the true needs of the majority of the people on the planet, and eschews environmental/public health and humanity towards people/workers and other living things.

We need a fundamental paradigm shift to an EcoSocialist Economy based on the principles of inclusion, equity, humanity, quality of life (in lieu of standard of living), sustainability, and peace. We need to radically rearrange the way resources are allocated to and within communities and among and within economic sectors. Such a "plan and implement economy" would have the neighborhood as a locus and work assiduously to develop and maintain inter-community, inter-regional, and world cooperation and unity. A strategy of ecological economic redevelopment would be employed and realized. In the United States a goal of walkable neighborhorhoods, reversing a century of sprawl, by reducing automobile usage by 80% in the next 20 to 40 years, rebuilding neighborhoods/town and village centers (or building the latter in many cases) and reallocating the production and distribution of goods and services so that almost all can get what they need within walking distance of their homes.

I have attached a paper entitles "Restructuring Our Financial System" which proposes an alternative to the current dominant paradigm. Please take a look at this.

I would greatly appreciate your feedback on this letter and the attachment. I would be very glad to share more of my work with you. I have a 25 page concise, comprehensive plan that you may want to look at. Please do not hesitate to request this, or to communicate with me on any issue or concern related to this communication.

I am not seeking funding, I am seeking exposure for my ideas. To whatever extent we can collaborate would be of great interest to me.

Thank you.

I hope to "hear" from you soon.


In Peace, Friendship, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin
Eugene, OR
(541) 343-3808

With Respect to "Transition United States" Website Initiative and "Movement"

Until we all recognize that none of this will succeed unless we explicitly call for the rapid mobiilization to a Socialist economy, the Transition United States website will probably remain little more than self-congratulory phony Liberal chit-chat and diversion.

We were hip and advocating all the "technical" aspects, being discussed now over thirty years ago (some of them like PVs, windpower, hydrogen, collectively known as "appropriate technology" are in reality a lot of false hope).

A lot of us knew, at the time, that it wouldn't happen under the oppressive ignorance of the Capitalist system, but some (I was young and naive), if not many, thought that we were heading calmly and slowly towards Socialism and peace and conservation and demand-side management and solar water heating and passive solar design and towards self-sufficiency in food, popular gardening, and REAL organic agriculture (not the lies in labeling Marketing ploys of unscrupulous Capitalists), and we thought we had a future.

Then came "the Reagan Revolution" and "supply-side economics". Reagan unleashed greed. It will probably prove to be the beginning of the final end to the Capitalist absurdity based on the total denial of a finite real planet of resources and the notion that it's OK to cut your brother's throat, if there's money in it. Many good lives were ruined both domestically and abroad, and Kissinger's "detente" turned out to be Reagan stabbing Gorbachev in the back.

US and associated Capitalists had a great transient boom. Now, here's the bust.

But, we remember.

I'd like to see a peaceful transition to an equitable, humane, sustainable planet with a quality of life for everyone, especially the progeny, but the gluttons of the USA, with their ignorant, individualistic (read selfishness), nationalist ("the remaining "Superpower" :-P) notion of Global Manifest Destiny raised hell and we are now going to pay for it. In their typical style they will try to damn everyone else, first.

Thanks USAers! Thanks Capitalists! Can anyone cue up George Harrison's song "Piggies"?