False Hope: Fossil Fuel Fantasies

Fantasies about political power are hard to break. People want to believe that activism led by Wall Street stooges, funded by Wall Street derivatives, and promoted by Wall Street media is revolutionary. Where do they get such ideas?

If you want to stop the environmental destruction from mining Tar Sands bitumen, Powder River Basin coal, and Bakken Shale oil, you stop fossil fuel export. You don’t do XL protests at the White House, organize fossil fuel divestment on college campuses, or hold a climate change march in New York.

These ineffective strategies are great for making Wall Street titans like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates even more obscenely wealthy, but they do nothing for improving the environment. Yet, because activism is based on feeling good — as opposed to doing good — Americans are routinely led by Wall Street’s pied pipers into endless (and meaningless) “movements.”

Making Americans feel good about losing strategies is the main objective of Wall Street-funded NGO pooh-bahs. Keeping Americans distracted with pointless projects dissipates the energies of well-intentioned youth, creating cynicism and hopelessness over time. Meanwhile, Wall Street titans make money from fossil fuel pollution, hand over fist.

There are many ways to achieve energy independence, energy conservation, and energy security. None of them are supported by Wall Street.

* See Moolah Boodle Lucre Simoleons, A Culture of Imbeciles, Capitalizing on Fear, Crude Zones: Exporting Fossil Fuels in the Pacific Northwest, Wasted Energy: Fossil Fuel Divestment, Northwest Indians Oppose Transport and Export of Fossil Fuels, and White Power on the Salish Sea: The Wall Street/Tea Party Convergence

Fossil Fuel Frauds

The corporate behemoths behind the fossil fuel export bonanza, proposed for terminals on the Salish Sea, combine a rare breadth of hubris with a colossal depth of deviousness. Given their plans to turn the San Juan Islands into a fossil fuel corridor, congesting Rosario Strait and the Special Operating Area of Boundary Pass with thousand-foot-long colliers and tankers, the track record of these behemoths is worth considering. As SSA Marine, Peabody Coal and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF) made news by corrupting elections in fall 2013, they are particularly worth singling out.

Having decimated Appalachia and Black Mesa, the name Peabody is synonymous with ecological devastation and environmental racism. Settling a lawsuit last year for illegally bulldozing a registered Native American archeological site at Cherry Point, SSA Marine is little better. BNSF is largely responsible for the inadequate safety standards for oil tanker cars now exploding on our country’s railroads.

Since BNSF is a major player in promoting export of Tar Sands and Bakken Shale crude from refineries and terminals in Washington State, the fact that BNSF has consistently put profits before public safety should make communities along BNSF rail lines concerned. As Sightline reports, exploding oil trains are due largely to BNSF lobbying against enhanced rail tanker safety laws.