I appreciated the pro-industrialism in last Friday's edition of TIA Daily:
I also think that we need to return to a more old-fashioned attitude toward industrial accidents. Today, they are considered utterly unacceptable catastrophes for one reason: a large segment of the culture does not accept that it is legitimate for heavy industry to exist at all and has a particular animus toward industries that generate power—including oil and coal. So they exploit every accident to promote their pre-existing agenda of shutting down all oil exploration. But if we accept that the Industrial Revolution is a good thing—that it has roughly doubled the average lifespan and vastly increased our quality of life—then we accept that the oil industry has to exist and that occasional accidents are just part of the cost of living.
With continuous 24-hour headline news coverage of this supposedly "unprecedented" disaster—in fact, it was preceded by the 10-month-long, 140 million-gallon Ixtoc 1 blowout off the gulf coast of Mexico in 1979—Rob Tracinski and Sarah Palin are among a tiny minority of American commentators who have voiced the opinion that industrial development is essential for civilization. Unfortunately Sarah Palin and almost all conservatives agree 100% with conservationism—the pre-New-Left version of environmentalism. They say that energy development as a "dirty" business—a necessary evil—that produces "dirty" messes. But we must endure the ugly mess if we are to enjoy the benefits of living a civilized existence.
Of all of the hundreds of commentaries written about the BP oil spill, I can't recall one single editorial that endorses oil drilling as good.
It is good for oil company stock holders. Good for industrial producers. Good for automobile and truck drivers. Good for people who travel by ship, railroad, or aircraft. Good for people who don't want to be limited to living out their whole lives without ever traveling farther than 100 miles from the village in which they were born.
Oil is good for people who buy products that are shipped to them from out of town. Good for producers who buy parts and supplies that are shipped in from out of town. Good for the specialization of industrial production that is made possible by mass shipment of parts and materials. Good for the geometrical growth of world-wide industrial productivity made possible by the specialization of production and trade.
Oil is good for farmers who use machines to plant and reap and store and dry and ship and process all of the food we eat. Good for farmers who use fertilizer and other agri-chemicals made from oil to boost the productivity of the land. Good for anyone who doesn't enjoy enduring bouts of malnutrition and starvation—and the occasional famine.
Oil is good for people who don't want to endure freezing indoor temperatures in the winter. Good for all producers and end users of lubricants, paints, plastics and other petro-chemical-based products. (Half of the volume of a barrel of crude oil ends up going to make fertilizers and plastics.)
Oil is good for powering all of the ships, trucks, aircraft, helicopters, communications equipment and base electrical systems, and all of the fighting vehicles that the US military use for our national defense. (Ask yourself why it was that when the US Army Air Force decided to destroy the entire nation of Germany in 1944—why was it that they bombed the oil refineries? Why was it that they bombed all modes of transportation to limit shipment between factories of unfinished industrial products?)
Oil drilling isn't a "dirty" business. It isn't a necessary evil. It is good. It is a life-giving good. It is an unqualified good.
The problems of an occasional industrial accident in which fewer than a dozen men are killed fades to nothing in comparison with the great comfort and prosperity and scope of life—including the operation of the mechanized agriculture and industrial production upon which the bare survival of the vast majority of the 6.5 billion human beings currently living on this earth depends.
1 comments:
1. Oil is good 2. The benefits of oil to our society is good 3. Unavoidable accidents do occur in a risky endeavor ... but the 11 men who died were not soldiers ... someone on that vessel may have been aware of shortcuts being taken but unwilling to speak out, the engineers, designers and or managers may not have fulfilled completely their fiduciary duty to prevent the loss of a $600,000,000 platform, BP executives may even now be developing strategies to limit compensation to other property holders impacted by their negligence.
Demonizing BP may be a flaw of the environmentalist but the fact is this company has a very poor track record by any objective standard. From manipulation of the geopolitical situation in Iran a generation ago to the Texas City explosion costing 25 lives. BP's actions are of an entity that has no respect for individual human rights, not the ones employed by them or the property rights of their neighbors. The manipulation of government by the oil industry to put a cap on liabilities flies in the face of morality ... accept fully the risks or get out of the business.
The idea that for our comfort and the advantages of cheap fuel we give up the right to life as employees in a BP facility or our property as neighbors is absurd to the point of criminality. I applaud the President's moving forward with a criminal investigation even as I disagree with the law's that are in place under which they will probably be charged. Agree or disagree with the reasoning behind a particular piece of legislation, we are a nation under the rule of law. BP operates knowing this and should be held accountable under those laws.
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