API Front Group - Energy Citizens
I clicked on an ad titled Affordable Energy alongside some search results in Google. The page http://www.energycitizens.org/protectamerica/default.aspx was brought up, telling me to fill in the form and join Energy Citizens, or else a combination of imported energy and actions of Congress will cause me to lose my JOB. Uh oh.
That particular page displays no information about who Energy Citizens are, but shortening the URL to http://www.energycitizens.org and scrolling to the very bottom confirmed the obvious: Energy Citizens is supported by the American Petroleum Institute, or API. API is the face of the oil and gas industry in the U.S., and is responsible for their lobbying in Washington. API hired a marketing firm to create Energy Citizens, it is not the wonderful little grassroots organization sprouted by a few concerned citizens in America's Heartland that it appears to be. Yes, the pretty soft blue and green web site with cuddly serif fonts and pictures of blue-collar workers and liberal use of the J-word (jobs) may be quite convincing - convincing because that's what marketers (advertisers) are trained to do - convince us. It's a business ploy.
It warns of dangers (to API companies) posed by the dependence on imported fossil fuels while also threatening people like the oil workers shown on the site with their J-O-B-S if we decide to reduce carbon dioxide emissions (and therefore fossil fuel consumption)
API is advertising its product, for fear it will lose market share. Just like an ad for the latest As-Seen-On-TV gimmick, "YOU NEED THIS NOW OR ELSE!", and you must go digging for the fine print. Unfortunately energy is much more serious matter, and it is a bit disturbing that people are probably signing up for this group without even knowing what a joule is.
Gullible Nation
"Body Washes" are hyped-up bottles of soap water which have come to outsell solid bars of soap for washing among American male consumers. Recent ad campaigns for such products have proven wildly successful, despite the product containing little or no added benefit over solid bars of soap.
Transporting the heavy bottles requires more energy, their packaging produces more trash, they are more expensive, the bottles are voluminous and heavy to travel with, and their efficacy over bar soap is nil. Nonetheless, we fall for the marketing noise and apparently believe that if we use a certain brand of body wash that we will attract partners and will live the life of an overly-muscled guy with a towel around his waist, speaking in a deep voice as he slides between "masculine" articles such as hot tubs and motorcycles.
It might seem pitiful that I have even thought about something so petty as the personal hygiene supplies purchased by men, but in a world where we anger about the (perceived) economics of sustainability efforts, we are falling for something which is nothing more than marketing hype - something produced by a company simply for the purpose of making more money, not to provide an added utilitarian or aesthetic value to the consumer. We spend extra money and produce more needless trash just because we are gullible and believe whatever the TV tells us.
Some guys apparently like the smell of the washes, even though solid soaps are available with nice smells. I've found that the odor dissipates after no more than an hour following the shower, along with the odors of the similarly hyped-up body spray brands. Use 'em if you wish, but understand that they may not be all they are hyped up to be.
The bottled water industry is the other classic example, in which case many people are realizing that it is all marketing hype with no benefit barring maybe convenience.
The Me Generation
I have run across and interesting article titled The "Me" Generation?, and opinion piece from New York Times columnist Ross Douthat regarding the "Millennial" generation and what he perceives as a lack of empathy, with studies and writing of Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith backing this up.
Interestingly, people of this age group (of which I am a part) were noted as being apathetic about an economy based upon consumption and personal status being judged by one's consumption. In some cases it was noted that respondents were even confused when the "issue" of materialism and consumerism was brought up.
From experience, maybe Generation Y does not have enough time to care about such issues that "don't affect them". It's sad and all, but hey it's not affecting me! ...which I guess sums up the title of the opinion piece.
New article - Treating the Cause
I've written a new article based upon the Gulf Coast/Deepwater Horizon oil spill media attention and public opinion on the internet, which appears mostly to be on a witch hunt rather than asking questions such as Why did we NEED a "Deepwater Horizon"?
Invisible, odorless, and tasteless carbon dioxide building up in the atmosphere is not enough of an incentive to cause the average citizen, uh, consumer to think about how fast-paced throwaway society dependent upon so much high grade energy impacts themselves and the world around them. I hope that thick slimy oil coating and killing hundreds of miles of coastline - not faraway in Alaska, but in the Sun Belt - hopefully helps out a bit, if anything good is to come out of this spill.
Treating the cause rather than the symptom
BP stated, as of today, that they are seeking to raise $50 billion to pay for the cleanup costs. At $80 per barrel, that's equivalent to one month of U.S. oil consumption.
Oil Spill Finger Pointing masks the real issue
Rush Limbaugh has stated that environmental organizations such as Sierra Club should pick up the tab for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He feels that these organizations have pushed oil production further and further offshore into more dangerous territory, and therefore they are responsible for the accidents on these deep water platforms. A quite interesting and comedic perspective from one of America's top-rating radio entertainers!
While we can easily argue and place blame on BP and other parties involved with the platform itself, it is neither the oil industry or environmental groups who are ultimately at fault - it is we who decided to have a society so heavily based upon the high-grade, concentrated energy only oil can provide.
We are the culture which is too lazy to walk two blocks, considers the bus to be for low-lifes who can't afford cars, and cycling to be for greenie-hippies or health freaks. It may be possible to blame BP et. al. for deviating from a safety regulation or using a faulty piece of equipment, but in the end the consumers of petroleum must realize that the general problem goes much deeper than this.
As we have laid out our lifestyles to be completely dependent upon personal automobiles, becoming more dependent upon a finite resource all while increasing its consumption, we have failed to find an alternative to the oil industry's product. Nothing else on the planet can provide such large amounts of high-grade energy in such a convenient package, and it does not appear that a drop-in replacement will ever exist. Neither moonshine or fast-food fryer oil will save the car culture. Keeping it going requires going into deeper water and more hostile territory (such as the Arctic) as the "easy" oil reserves decline in production. This means higher oil prices and greater propensity for spills and other disasters.