Nature Lost

I've been away for a couple of weeks. Not sure why, been busy I guess with other things, or making myself busy, who knows? I certainly have my doubts. Again I am being serious when my original intent here was to have fun and laugh a little bit in these tough times without becoming too serious. Sometimes though, I find it very hard to ignore what is going on around me. I am prouder to be an American these days, but still not like I remember when I was a kid. I am still ashamed too. We can be critical of ourselves without being considered the enemy.


Since Exxon completely ruined Valdez, Alaska in 1989, I've been rather intrigued if not absolutely disgusted by how it has played out since. After 20 years of court battles, Exxon appealed all the way to the Supreme Court to get their financial judgment reduced to a pittance by the time they finally paid out to the people of Valdez, whose livelihoods were destroyed along with the environment around them. Even today, oil still fouls the once pristine area, animals are not making comebacks, deeply impacting the lives that reside there. A few even died waiting for their restitution & will never get their fair share. However, if I remain silent I feel I am complicit. I get the guilt without the profit. Perhaps that makes this bitter horse pill easier to swallow?


If there was ever a bigger reason humans to find new means of energy and transportation, this is it. It's not like there's isn't any other reason(s) why we should do so. Of all of mankind's moral failings, Greed has brought us to the brink of economic breakdown. Something I never thought I would see in my lifetime. My parents lived through the Great Depression and I thought we learned our lesson about unabashed Greed/Capitalism and were protecting against it happening again. Am I threatened by two men marrying or by some faceless mega rich greedy bastard raping the system for all it's worth at the expense of my future?

Apparently morality is in the eye of the beholder.

Call me a socialist or whatever, but our economy works better when we do spread the wealth around. When Americans work and build our country is strong. History gives us many horrible examples of what happens when wealth is concentrated to a very few of the whole. To me, it is the height in immorality. Capitalism sans morals is worse than the most ravenous cancer or moral failing in my eye. I have no problems with having money or being rich and making as much as possible. But I cannot sell myself out, define who I am because I want another dollar in my pocket. I hate how we can have so little respect for others and the world around us in the quest for a fat bank account.

Greed by a few has so deeply hurt the many. This is not a game.

By the time Exxon settled with the people of Valdez, they averaged about $15,000 per person pay out after two decades of fighting in court. While their profits appear to be quite healthy. Here's 2007's numbers;

The company reported Friday that it beat its own record for the highest profits ever recorded by any company, with net income rising 3 percent to $40.6 billion, thanks to surging oil prices. The company’s sales, more than $404 billion, exceeded the gross domestic product of 120 countries. Exxon Mobil earned more than $1,287 of profit for every second of 2007.

The company also had its most profitable quarter ever. It said net income rose 14 percent, to $11.7 billion, or $2.13 a share, in the last three months of the year. The company handily beat analysts’ expectations of $1.95 a share, after missing targets in the last two quarters.

Like most oil companies, Exxon benefited from a near doubling of oil prices, as well as higher demand for gasoline last year. Crude oil prices rose from a low of around $50 a barrel in early 2007 to almost $100 by the end of the year — the biggest jump in oil prices in any one year.

“Exxon sets the gold standard for the industry,” said Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst at Oppenheimer & Company in New York.

And they set the gold standard??

It's time for another Tea Party.


Human kind is at odds with God's creation;

A rescue worker holds an oil-soaked victim of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

The Exxon Valdez is recalled as Alaska faces fresh environmental challenges
The 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez spill — 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound — coincides with the federal government again looking at leases for oil and gas exploration.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2008910699_edit24valdez.html

CRAIG FUJII / THE SEATTLE TIMES

TWENTY years after the Exxon Valdez dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound, the enduring lesson is about eternal vigilance. The consequences of letting up are real and expensive.

The anniversary is especially sensitive for Alaskan commercial fishing and environmental interests, as it coincides with the federal government looking at offshore drilling leases for Bristol Bay, and oil and gas potential at other remote locations. President George W. Bush lifted a ban on drilling in 2007.

Different measurements record the lasting damage of the 1989 spill. Two decades after the tanker struck Bligh Reef, the American Bird Conservancy reports several species of marine birds never recovered from the gloppy tsunami that flooded the sound.

The Seattle Times won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for its immediate and aggressive coverage of the oil spill and a series on oil-tanker safety. One early dispatch revealed a theme that would echo through nine months of reporting and subsequent years: "A decade of cutbacks in oil-spill workers, equipment and budgets has left the Alyeska Pipeline Co. with only a pale shadow of what was once a model cleanup program on Alaska's Prince William Sound, former company officials say."

In testimony scheduled for delivery before Congress on the anniversary, Dr. Jeffrey Short, Pacific Science Director for Oceana, an international marine conservation organization, offers a blunt reminder that only 8 percent of the crude oil was recovered, despite the eventual efforts of 11,000 cleanup workers and a cost of $2 billion.

As some fishery-rich areas of Alaska are once again looked at as a petroleum resource, the challenge is to consider the risks and the remedies available for what could happen. Among the primary lessons learned are the consequences of hubris, Short will tell a joint subcommittee session of the House Committee on Natural Resources.

Closer to home, the lessons learned play out in a permanent role for the Neah Bay rescue tug to protect Washington's outer coastline and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. For all the devastation wrought by the Exxon Valdez running aground 20 years ago, the wrenching lessons have a salutary effect.


Yes they do. Do we repeat our mistakes and never learn our lessons? Will the profit margin always be the bottom line when it comes to our decision making?

Ya know. I'd rather hug a tree. It provides me shade, a place to lean and read a book, high mountain beauty with a whisper in the wind. No cost, no interest. I'd rather be in a place where the trees far out number the people who'd rather cut them down for a quick buck. The tree has no agenda other than to stand solid in my presence.


"In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks"

John Muir