Built to Spill

It's close enough to the anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent environmental catastrophe that a rupture or puncture of a 65-year-old underground pipeline running across Arkansas rings a familiar tune. That tune, of course, is Tough shit, Hopalong.

The photo you see at right is exactly what it appears to be:  a metric fuckton of paper towels spread out over the Pegasus pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas. It looks like a punchline, something from The Onion. Friends 'n' neighbors, it is not a fucking joke. It is real.

Imagine, just for a second, that that's your backyard, and that because that is technically not "oil" but tar sand bitumen, not only is it much more toxic to the environment to extract in the first place, and way more toxic to the environment it's spilled into than regular oil would have been, but a loophole exempting bitumen allows Exxon to not have to contribute to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. Yes, seriously. Oh, they'll spring for paper towels and pressure washers and private security thugs to thump anyone with a camera. Are they also going to buy new houses for these people, a new water table for them to draw from? This is a bit more complicated than rinsing off a few ducks.

Look. We all use some energy, we all have computers, most of us have TVs and appliances, most of us have cars. Anytime someone has the nerve to point out the indifference of the energy industry to the environmental havoc they wreak, there's always some blustery asshole to pop up and declaim the supposed hypocrisy.

Well, no. There's nothing hypocritical in pointing out that tar sand extraction is inherently destructive, that this shit has to be steamed and solvented out of the ground, and that its hyperviscosity requires it to be diluted just to move through a pipeline. It doesn't flow; it's not oil. It's tar.

More pernicious is the idea that propagating this toxic sludge, and the inherent corporate media blackouts and no-fly zones that have naturally followed it, are not only normal, but necessary to maintain the twin capitalist holy grails of Jobs and Energy Independence. The pipelines, including the proposed giant Keystone XL pipeline, are not to transport the oil or bitumen to your friendly neighborhood Gas 'n' Go so's you kin save five cents a gallon driving your Excursion to the post office by yourself. The pipelines all run to Texas, because that's the simplest way to get it to the refinery and thence to a tanker to export it to the highest bidder.

There are really two (at least) huge questions which deserve to be discussed and thought through with some intention and deliberation, before just writing off other people's lives and homes to The Cost of Doing Business. First is the energy question itself, and while we may need fossil fuels for a variety of things for the time being, the fact is that if we can provide billions of dollars per year in tax writeoffs for oil companies, then we can sure as hell push some money into innovating solar tech to where it's more viable and affordable.

That's how the infamous Solyndra found itself out of business -- not because it was a ripoff or a boondoggle or an elaborate Obammy embezzlement scheme, but because the Chinese gubmint, using this principle called "economy of scale" which also happens to be available to our gubmint, dumped billions of dollars into it, and the measly $600M loan Solyndra had could never keep up with that, not in a country where 20% of the GDP -- which includes operating costs for any large business -- is gone down the poopchute of the health-care racket.

The other question does not solely relate to the Pegasus spill, though Exxon's behavior since the disaster certainly exemplifies the behavior -- the propensity for corporations, when caught fucking up or doing something they know is illegal or disgusting, rather than taking care of the problem and moving forward, either push people around to get their way, or simply get their dogsbodies in Congress to make it illegal to observe and report the evil shit they do.

There's no rhetorical question or call to action this time around, no cri de coeur asking you if you want to live in a country like that. It's not a question -- you live in a country exactly like that.

Which brings us full circle to the bullshit debate over the Keystone XL. The answer is the same as for fracking -- if you're not willing to have it in your own backyard, then shut the fuck up about putting it in everyone else's. When Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns -- a flyover-country Republican, mind you -- is balking at putting the Keystone through his state because of the small fact that it sits over one of the world's largest aquifers, maybe that's a clue to the kids in the cheap seats that this is not a bunch of tree-humping granola-munchers telling the world to ride bicycles for the rest of their lives.

It's what has become an annual alarm, as we head into another year of extreme weather events and corporate screw-ups and coverups and such like, of a brutalized, exploited planet plotting its eventual revenge. All the pseudo-debates between oil-company shill-scientists won't change the fact that nature bats last, always.