Oil...It's good for you!
I've come to two conclusions in the last several minutes. The first is that I use the phrase "Things that make you go, 'Wha???'" far too often due to the stupidity that I either hear about from friends or read in the media. The second, and most likely the more important of the two, is the fact that people who care only about themselves very commonly feel the need to convince the rest of the world that, even though whatever they are trying to do is quite obviously selfish, they are actually, in some way we don't quite understand for some reason, trying to save the world. Or, to simplify things, by getting everything they want they will somehow be the hero of Earth. I think I'm going to call this the "Jesus Complex"...

The most recent incident of the Jesus Complex that I have read about involves a team of individuals who, through the most convoluted logic I can even begin to imagine, are attempting to convince congress not to do what common sense entails and, instead, continue with the destruction of Earth and country.

This time, I am sad to say, I do not have the joy of disproving everything the religious right stands for or berating an entire political party (although the republicans are certain to get in on this as soon as possible). No, today we go up against the third of what I consider to be the "Great disappointments of the modern age"...The Oil Tycoons.

For those not in the know when it comes to alternative energy sources and oil (something I very closely watch due to my unabashed support of alternate energy) a new bill was proposed in congress not that long ago commonly referred to as the Kerry-Lieberman proposal. This proposal would instigate a cap of CO2 emissions for all American companies, effectively placing a limit on how much C02 pollution they can produce and charging them rather large fines for going over the limit. You may be thinking "Well that sounds like a good thing, what could the problem be?"

The problem is a particular company called "CO2 is Green" which has started a radical ad campaign aimed at the wavering Senators (mostly in Washington State for some reason) in an attempt to get the bill at least modified, if not shot down altogether. It's right about here where I punch corporate big-wigs with an inability to know what good is when they see it.

There reasoning, in some areas, can at least sound good if not thought about too deeply. However, in other areas, their reasoning is about as effective as screaming "Pasta!" at an incoming army then hurtling corn at them for no known reason.

These reasons start easily enough. By putting a cap on pollution, you will be decreasing the number of jobs available. This is, in all likelihood, true. By reducing the amount of acceptable pollution a company can produce, that company will likely be forced to lay-off employees because, as I am equally certain, they will refuse for some time to alter their pollution levels thus giving them immense fines to deal with. However, I feel that this will also force forward the push for "clean energy" sources thus creating thousands of new jobs for those displaced from "dirty energy" and pollution greedy, multi-million dollar corporations. So, is it really such a bad thing that we give big companies a spanking in the short term in the hopes of actually getting a long term solution? I think no, but so many people in this country are so used to instant gratification, so used to just getting their way when they yell loud enough, that I'm rather certain there will be an inordinately large number of greedy, self-righteous twats who believe that, since this could effect them badly for the time being, it must obviously be evil. Fuck the future, I want my ice cream now...

The next argument put forward by "CO2 is Green" is that this bill will make no difference (aside from hurting companies and the families that work for them)...Um, hello! Am I the only person in the world who actually managed to pass a science class? I'm consistently surprised (I know I shouldn't be but I am) by the amount of voluntary ignorance that this country manages to show off on a daily basis. We have known for over a decade of the detrimental effects of releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (the two largest being carbon dioxide, CO2, and simple water vapor, H2O) we have consistently measured this detrimental effect, yet people continue to say that we don't know anything. It strikes me in much the same way that overly-religious individuals refuse to accept scientific facts because they contradict religion, only here people refuse to accept it because it contradicts them being able to buy the most expensive cake tomorrow...Exactly how much stupid is allowed to accumulate in a single location before it becomes a black hole?

Moving on from the "point two that shouldn't exist" we hit what is most likely the most ignorant arguing point of all time, point 3: CO2 is good for us!

Using an isolated study on tomatoes, "CO2 is Green" attempts to prove that constantly increasing the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is actually a good thing, the complete opposite of what those "liberal, hippy, extremist scientists want you to believe." The study, in all simplicity, states that when tomato plants are exposed to higher than normal levels of CO2, the plants produce more fruit and higher quality fruit. To that I respond very simply with this,

Water is a good thing, but you can still drown...

While it is true that increasing the amount of CO2 a plant is exposed to will, to a degree, make the plant thrive, if you exceed that point the plant will suffocate despite the fact that it breathes CO2 (rather like how humans on pure oxygen become high and then pass out unless they are already short on oxygen such as the elderly). Beyond that, this experiment (which consequently was only meant to test how plants grow under different air compositions, not to prove any sort of ecological point) does not take into account the fact that, if that much CO2 were actually in the air the temperature of the Earth would increased to such a degree that it would be rather startling if the tomatoes could grow at all. With this in mind, I must wonder who decided to come up with the catch phrase of: "If you love tomatoes, you'll love global warming!"

Quite possibly the most idiotic of all talking points being used right now is the "They're picking on us because of the oil spill" argument. To this I have two things to say. First, the oil spill happened months after the planning for this bill had begun, something that can be proven using congressional paperwork dated for well before the oil spill. Beyond that, I feel that I must point out that even if this hadn't been planned from the start, it would be rather stupid for us NOT to use the oil spill as a reason to find other sources of energy. What kind of crazy does it take to believe that you can make fun of your enemies all the time but they can only make fun of you when there is nothing to make fun of. We're not going to stop just because you made a huge mistake and want some time to sweep it all back under the rug before you get back to telling us how wrong we are.

All in all, what I see here is a bunch of people, all of whom were or are major players in oil companies, attempting to maintain their current lifestyles by lying to the rest of the world and hoping that no one notices because they've wrapped the whole selfish package in a thinly veiled layer of "save the world". Here's to hoping that congress is more intelligent than a bunch of selfish big-wigs...but I doubt it, because most of congress is or was at some point in their lives, big-wigs as well...

This is Tyrror from TehPainfulTruth and sometimes...the truth hurts...