We Are a Dying Breed
Global warming is no joke, neither is our dwindling economy. Ironically, it seems to be followed by a less than impressive imagination for resourceful and commendable methods to undue our destruction to this place we call ‘Home’. We are a dying breed. Not a day goes by when one listens to the daily news and do not hear another headline crying out for our help. There are headlines of pollution, violence, destruction, forests burning down, glaciers melting, and more highways being built.
The Anchorage Daily News has been publishing several various articles on the proposition for a new pipeline in hopes to provide a new source of fuel energy to the United States. Not only would this pipeline provide new sources of employment for Alaskan’s, but would also benefit the country by providing a supply of fuel and decrease the United States need to outsource for critical fuel supplies. Therefore, the United States would be less dependent on other countries, and more stable in an economical disparity. In a recent speech by President Barack Obama, he claimed the proposal of a new pipeline throughout Alaska is a very promising idea.
Sounds promising, right? It turns out that President Obama is attending a conference in Ottawa, Canada next week with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. To my amazement, this idea for the pipeline is one of the topics that will be discussed at this conference. Prime Minister Harper wants to discuss the use of our gas and energy from the proposed pipeline to make gas out of a region in Canada called Tar Sands. Tar Sands is one of the largest hydrocarbon deposits in the world and has about 2/3 of all of the world’s oil reserves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands). However, the Tar Sands deposits are very crude mixtures of sand, water, clay, and a thick viscous oil material. This thick liquid oil is called “bitumen”. In order for the bitumen to be turned into something useable, such as gas and car oil, it has to go through a vigorous process of filtering and cleaning. This process would entail using our gas pipeline to provide the energy needed to run the machines to filter the tar sands. There is a massive amount of energy that would be used and wasted just to turn the bitumen into a useable product. Not to mention, most of the energy used to convert bitumen would be expelled into the atmosphere, increasing the rate of global warming. There have already been recorded claims that Tar sands is polluting water supplies to nearby local neighborhoods. According to the article’s I have read, four hundred million gallons a day of toxic material from tar sands is dumped into massive pools. These pools are leaking and polluting groundwater supplies and are causing mutations to some of the animals living off of that water. The repercussions of this sort of pollution could be tragic to humans living near tar sands.
Tar Sands pollution pools as seen from space by satellites broadcasting for Google Earth. (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/oil-sands-via-google-earth.php)
Nothing is being done to stop this pollution yet. In fact, the conference being held with Prime Minister Harper is primarily focused on whether or not the U.S. would use the pipeline in question to provide energy to the tar sands filtering process. The proposed pipeline would end right outside of Alberta, Canada, which is right next to where tar sand is located. In fact, the U.S. last year received most of its oil supply from Canada alone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands). The United States has policies and laws for companies creating large amounts of pollution to strictly adhere to. Some of these policies protect the oceans and limits the amount of pollutants and gas emissions into the air. Canada’s Prime Minister is quite aware of these laws. It is believed he is trying to pull a sneak move and tie the United States economical state and dire need for gas to allow for Canada to go around these laws and keep producing oil.
By instilling fear and need into the mindset of American’s, the Prime Minister could succeed in destroying our clean seas and air. He is quite aware of the United States’ policies being made in Washington D.C. and knows he would need to coincide and agree to our laws in order to use our pipeline to clean tar sands. The Prime Minister is trying to correlate the United States climate regulations to the need for Canada to keep producing oil for the American consumers. This link could be the death of any future promising laws for Canada in correspondence to American laws.
This kind of pollution can cause astronomical and dangerous aftermath to our environment. Pollution is a complete incongruity with a leaver lifestyle. Takers have led up to this process of quickly decaying and destroying ‘our’ world. It seems everyone wants this promise of “clean burning” and “low-carbon” gas from the new proposed gas pipeline. However, neither one of those would be a result of that pipeline. It would produce the opposite result, especially if we used that “clean burning” gas to help filter the bitumen, resulting in excess pollution and green house gasses.
The taker lifestyle is slowly taking its toll. Takers are starting to panic about not having the necessities to keep living the fast pace, SUV driving, non-recycling lifestyle. This panic seems to lead to more destruction. The gas pipeline is a perfect example of this. It is certain that the world’s supply of natural oil deposits will undeniably run out, and takers are just putting off the inevitable. Everything takers rely upon is rooted in power, gas, or money. With this gas and oil running out for our world, it is considerably more resourceful to stop this frenzy of digging for more oil, but rather find an alternative more conscientious method to power.
The United States and its populace spend incongruous amounts of money on a non renewable energy source, oil, every year. It is more logical to invest that money on something that will not run out, solar energy. By harvesting the energy from the sun with various methods, such as solar panels on homes, it is plausible to produce large quantities of energy. Costs for American Citizens, especially us Alaskan’s, are increasing to heat and run a household. It also emphasizes the taker lifestyle. Solar energy has been studied and researched and found to not be harmful to the atmosphere. I do believe it would be difficult for an economy and population to cease power supply altogether. The first step would be to decrease harmful power supply. Gas and oil is quite harmful to the world, causing global warming. A cessation in pollutants and increase in naturalistic methods such as solar energy would be sufficient in a first step to diminish the taker lifestyle.
All of the funding and money coming from our tax dollars to build things such as highways for cars to drive and pollute the air could be used for something more productive. It is destructive to our land, our air, and our world to be investing on something that destroys it. This money could be used for a better more resourceful means to production of solar panels. Alaska sees large quantities of sunlight in the summer days. Sunlight that is just “there” so to speak. Nobody notices it because it is always around. However, that could be the taker lifestyle’s biggest problem. They look for the wrong resources, the wrong answers. Or maybe, they just cannot see the right ones, they are overlooked. As Daniel Quinn commented in Ishmael how locals do not notice the tourist attractions in their hometown because those attractions are always there. Sunlight is always there, but this is beneficial. Oil will not always be there. It’s time to start investing our money in a more permanent solution.
Additionally, vehicles contribute largely to pollution. It is not an uncommon sight to see people driving the highway commuting to and from work all by themselves in a gas guzzling SUV. There are better means to commuting that that method. Public transportation or light rails would be quite a bit more beneficial and less harmful to the environment. Down in the lower contiguous United States, many big cities depend on public transportation and light rails. Seattle, for instance, has a light rail that travels several different destinations downtown. However, it is not quite the right route to take in an Ishmaelian sense. In a true leaver culture, walking, or bicycles would be much more proactive to protecting Mother Nature. A decrease and eventually halt in gas and oil power is the main objective humans need to start considering.
Transportation by electric cars or perhaps even solar power cars would be the epitome of reduction in pollution from gas and oil power. By getting the word out publicly and promoting things such as solar power and electric cars, more people may see its importance in diminishing harmful green house gasses. Not to mention, electric cars are not very prevalent at dealerships. If the community starts embracing and advertising for more electric/solar power cars, the population at large may start to want to buy them. Our society values things that are seen and advertised as wonderful, such as brand name big wig SUV’s and brands such as Bentley and Mercedes. We rate things that other more important people, such as celebrities, have. If rich famous people have these wonderful expensive vehicles, then by our standards, they must be worth buying. If car companies could incorporate and advertisement plan to get the idea and concept of the importance of such solar/electric powered vehicles, many more individuals would be willing to buy them. Additionally, more charging stations in more locations for such cars would need to be proposed. Availability is important. The more available the cars are, and the more available resources are to make it easy to own an electric car, the more people will purchase them.
Many concerns could be raised about the shifting of pollution from gas to power plants to produce electricity to run these cars. However, research has found that electric cars who function on electricity primarily from hydro sources are 98.9%-99 cleaner than corresponding gas powered internal combustion vehicles (Fuhs, 2009). That would result in a huge decrease in pollution to the world.
Households use large quantities in gas and electric for power. Although the ideal circumstances to fix this problem would to live in log built households and use wood fires for energy. This is not very realistic in today’s society. Perhaps a better means to decrease the use of harmful gas would be to capture wind energy with the use of wind power and water power. Wind and water have the ability to produce large magnitudes of energy. If that energy can be harvested and captured with the use of wind mills and dams, the world would be a cleaner place. Hydro power (water) has been used for years to supply the power when milling grain, harvesting logs for construction purposes and even in making fabric. Waterwheels are usually the mechanical device that is used to harvest the power from the flow of water. It is a great alternative method with little to no pollution produced (Kemp, 2005).
The taker lifestyle values growth. More highways, more sky scrapers, and in order to do that, more gas power is needed. The world was not meant to keep growing and keep producing mass quantities of asphalt for highways. Conditions where growth is unstoppable result in destruction. Our society values success of businesses on how big they are, or how many people go to that business from products. Growth, by itself, is valued in our society. This is not logical due to the fact that our world does not have the capacity to keep growing infinitely.
The taker lifestyle is a lifestyle in wich humans are meant to take over and be the rulers. It is obvious that we are not made to rule the world and contain a selfishness that is just concerned about how humans can run the show. Ultimately, there are other creatures on this planet, creatures that whether we like it or not, provide for us. We must respect Mother Culture if we want to last in the long run. Leavers lived on this earth for thousands of years in harmony with the world and other inhabitants. Destruction was not even thought about when the leavers co-existed with the world.
Although the gas pipeline is not built yet, there are better investments for our money that would provide adequate energy in different methods. The pipeline is a temporary fix by using non renewable energy sources for an energy issue that will keep coming up. It is much wiser to invest our money in energy from sources such as the sun, hydroelectricity, wind, and solar energy. Those resources are infinite in this world. However, it may not follow completely in touch with the taker lifestyle. Today’s inhabitants would have a more likely success rate at using those renewable energy sources listed above than going back to walking and horse and buggy.
It is imperative that the word from the civilians of this country and Canada are put out there and politicians who ultimately make the law are aware of alternative methods to energy. If the pipeline was built, those recourses would inevitable run out too, one day. Not to mention the amount of hazardous material that would be put into water systems and the air if that pipeline was used to filter bitumen for Canada. We cannot let the Prime Minister get away with going around United States policies.
Works Cited
1.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands.
2.) Fuhs, Allen E. Hybrid vehicles and the future of personal transportation. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2009.
3.) Kemp, William H. The Renewable Energy Handbook: A Guide to Rural Independence, Off-Grid and Sustainable Living. Tamworth, Ontario: Aztec Press, 2005
4.) Price, Matt.” Alaskan’s should look at Where Their Natural Gas May Go.” Anchorage Daily News. 12, February, 2009.
5.) Wizelious, Tore. Developing Wind Power Projects: Theory and Practice. London: Earthscan, 2007.
