Sent: Monday, June 20, 2011 3:40 PM
Subject: [R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] America's Energy Ethos
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/11483/americas_energy_ethos_do_regardles
s_of_harm/
Do, Regardless of Harm
by David Sirota
In These Times (June 10 2011)
Laugh me off as the idealistic son of a physician (which I am), but I
still thought the doctor's ethos of "first do no harm" was a notion we
could all agree on. Even in this hyper-polarized Era of the Screaming
Red-Faced Partisan, I thought we would witness the recent Fukushima
reactor meltdown or footage of Americans setting their tap water on fire
and at least agree to stop pursuing energy policies that we know endanger
our health and safety - if not out of altruism, then out of self-interest.
How embarrassingly naive I was. That, or I momentarily forgot that this
isn't just any industrialized country - this is America circa 2011, a
haven of hubris that has become hostile to the "do no harm" principle.
This makes us different than, say, Japan and Germany when it comes to
nuclear power. Scarred by fallout, the former has canceled plans to build
fourteen new nuclear plants and has radically altered its energy agenda,
now moving to pursue solar rather than atomic energy. Likewise, according
to the Associated Press, the latter reacted to Japan's plight by "vot(ing)
in favor of a ban on nuclear power from 2022 onward".
By contrast, in the days after the Fukushima disaster, the Obama
administration not only reaffirmed its commitment to expanding nuclear
power, but, according to ProPublica, also continued the policy of
"routinely waiving fire rule violations at nearly half the nation's 104
commercial reactors, even though fire presents one of the chief hazards at
nuclear plants".
Additionally, the Associated Press reports that two congressional
lawmakers are now pushing the government to "back a new generation of
miniature nuclear reactors" that would be sited throughout the country.
Incredibly, these moves come even as a nuclear reactor in Washington State
just experienced a fire scare and even as a new study of US Geological
Survey data shows many of the nation's reactors sit near active fault
lines.
The same story is playing out in the quest to find natural gas. Over the
last few years, more evidence has surfaced that suggests drinking water
may be getting contaminated by fracking - a drilling technique that
involves injecting toxic chemicals into the earth. This evidence runs the
gamut from a new Duke University study into methane, to a New York Times
report on fracking wastewater being dumped into rivers, to Pennsylvania
gas companies acknowledging that fracking is contaminating drinking water,
to those now-famous YouTube videos of combustible tap water.
In response, South Africa last month halted a major natural gas project
and France's National Assembly voted to ban fracking outright. Both
countries' governments cited the "first do no harm" rationale, saying more
scientific research needs to be done before fracking can go forward.
Again, though, our own government has been going in the opposite direction.
Succeeding a Bush administration that exempted natural gas drilling from
the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Obama administration has refused to
forcefully back congressional legislation that would merely require gas
companies to disclose their fracking chemicals. At the same time,
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson is publicly
insisting that she is "not aware" of any proof that fracking has harmed
water supplies.
Meanwhile, the White House's one seeming tilt toward caution - its panel
to study fracking - ended up being a sham, as six of the administration's
seven appointments have direct ties to the energy industry.
It all adds up to a frightening divergence: As the world increasingly
embraces "do no harm", we're doubling down on "do, regardless of harm" -
and as most physicians will tell you, that kind of attitude often ends in
tragedy.
_____
David Sirota, an In These Times senior editor and syndicated columnist, is
a bestselling author whose book Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain
the World We Live In Now - Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything was
released in March of 2011. Sirota, whose previous books include The
Uprising (2009) and Hostile Takeover (2007), hosts the morning show on
AM760 in Denver. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com or follow him on Twitter
@davidsirota.
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