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We Can't Plug the Leak, But We Can Plug Our Ears

By Paul Chesser on 7.12.10 @ 11:59AM

We've got the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, but the environmentalists can't get any traction in support of more regulation and reduction of energy use, according to The Washington Post this morning.

Environmentalists say they're trying to turn public outrage over oil-smeared pelicans into action against more abstract things, such as oil dependence and climate change. But historians say they're facing a political moment deadened by a bad economy, suspicious politics and lingering doubts after a scandal over climate scientists' e-mails.

The difference between now and the awakenings that followed past disasters is as stark as "on versus off," said Anthony Leiserowitz, a researcher at Yale University who tracks public opinion on climate change.

"People's outrage is focused on BP," Leiserowitz said. The spill "hasn't been automatically connected to some sense that there's something more fundamental wrong with our relationship with the natural world," he said.

The story of 2010 is not that nothing happened after the BP spill, or after the coal-mine explosion that killed 29 in West Virginia on April 5. It's that much of the reaction has focused on preventing accidents -- on tighter scrutiny of rigs and mines -- rather than broader changes in the use of oil and coal.

In other words, while the general public finds it reasonable and necessary to continue to access and use fossil fuels -- and therefore find it reasonable and necessary to figure out how to do so safely -- the environmental extremists want to dramatically alter how we use energy. That means raising costs of oil, coal and natural gas so that renewables look like a bargain by comparison.

The truth is, the environoiacs have lost whatever credibility they had after years of false alarms about things like overpopulation, global cooling, and nuclear disaster. Climategate revealed the latest scare tactic, but the Post underplayed it as a reason for the lack of post-gusher eco-passion:

Leiserowitz said there may be distrust of climate science among a small group after the "Climate-gate" scandal last year, in which stolen e-mails seemed to show climate scientists talking about problems in their data. Those scientists have been repeatedly cleared of academic misconduct, including in a report released Wednesday.

Despite what the formerly mainstream media wants you to believe, the Climategate scientists have not been exonerated (if you care about public opinion, at least). Their critics were not consulted (for the most part) and reviews were Wite-Out jobs designed to protect the reputations of their institutions. The investigators like Muir Russell and Geoffrey Boulton were not independent, but chosen from among the Governmental Scientific Academia complex, just like their peer-reviewing pals of the original IPCC climate "studies."

The environmental pressure groups got used to coddling and catering to their every outcry. It's getting old.

topics:
Global Warming, Oil, Environmentalism, Climate Change, Climategate

View all comments (6) | Leave a comment

ACynic| 7.12.10 @ 12:20PM

If Obama was a republican, you can bet the MSM would be showing dead oil covered birds and fish 24/7 and clamoring for a ban on oil drilling.
This - a ban on oil drilling - of course would really sink the economy and reduce BOs chances of re-election.
.This is why the MSM is mostly silent.
Any idiot can see this.

Purple Lips| 7.12.10 @ 1:13PM

Watching out Progressive Masters twist in the winds while our society implodes would be quite fascinating if thier actions were not so dangerous.

Just the other day the Wa Post featured a column by one of their staff writers (I refuse to call them journalists) wrote a most absurd column decrying the evils of A/C (air conditioning) during a period when the Beltway Kingdom was undergoing a most unpleasent heatwave. Said writer wrote scads of words praising the benefits of the non A/C world (afternoon siestas, slower paced life styles, and yes the benefits of inhaling fresh breezes in the afternoon heat). Yet, in no way shape of form did our intrepid writer ever admit to writing his piece, say from the Lincoln Memorial, or any of the many parks that surround the city of bureaucrats and would-be gauleiters. One could be quite sure he wrote his absurd column from the air conditioned comforts of the Post's office, a cafe or his cool comfortable abode.

Therefore, one must really take with a grain-of-salt what our public propogandists write.

Rampart Ranger| 7.12.10 @ 1:53PM

The enviros have badly damaged their own reputation with the response to the oil spill. The estuaries and bayous are being polluted largely due to their roadblocks and red tape.......and people are catching on that they are mostly made up of self-righteous and incompetent posers.

Rebecca| 7.13.10 @ 12:57AM

It could be incompetence by design--the enviro-nazis wouldn't care if a few birds died if it furthered their cause. Heartless bastards.

Jim Hlavac| 7.12.10 @ 5:59PM

The Post writes: "... against more abstract things, such as oil dependence and climate change."

We're all for climate change; the seasons are beautiful, and flying south for the winter is always available.

We're not against oil dependence; well against foreign dependence, true. That's "drill, baby, drill," I believe, right here.

But we're surely not against any economical, practical and effective way to reduce our use of oil, or the price of energy, or the amount we use, or any other energy factor that makes sense.

But press people can't seem to come up with any except to either return to the pre-industrial era, spending willy nilly on things that don't work and cost too much, or producing daily paper wads I throw into the fireplace on cold nights.