Since I’m revisiting the BP spill disaster, you might assume from my title I’m talking about the President. I’m not. Rather, I’m talking about evangelicals in general and global warming skeptics in particular.
I’ve been debating global warming here for years because I believe that evangelicals have been manipulated by the energy companies and their political and ideological allies. The energy companies want two things. The first is less regulation and the second is to limit their exposure to legal liability. In the case of the latter, this has been done since the 70s when current global warming skeptics such as Richard Lindzen were hired to claim that cigarettes did not cause cancer. As a Brown and Williamson memo put it:
Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.
Energy companies such as BP latched onto this strategy. They also sought to promote offshore drilling in the last presidential campaign and gained the support of conservative evangelicals. I received a flier from the political arm of Focus on the Family concerning the Senate race in Colorado. In it they listed offshore oil drilling as a family-related issue!
Just before this blog was formed I was asked why I was not commenting on the so-called ClimateGate. My response then was since this was the result of a crime that it was inappropriate to make comments on it. Since then, official investigations have largely exonerated the participants and some are ongoing. What I find ironic is the accusations made then and how they apply to the current situation:
- The scientists manipulated research to make things fit their preconceived notions.
- The scientists blocked independent researchers from accessing their data.
First of all, BP and other oil companies created an illusion that oil was simply not running out in the U.S. and thus more oil production in environmentally sensitive areas would give us more “energy independence”.
Look at this ASA e-mail post from August 2004, entitled Funny Numbers and note from where the “funny numbers” came:
Looking at the 2004 BP Statistical Review of energy shows up lots of funny
numbers. Here are a couple I found interesting
With respect to tables listing “Proven Reserves” of Oil:
- of 53 geographical regions covered in the review, the proven reserves of 39
of them were exactly unchanged from the previous year. For example the US is
reported to have 30.7 billion barrels (Bbbl) of proven reserves at the end of
2002 and again at the end of 2003, this despite the fact that domestic
production amounted to 2.7 Bbbl during 2003. Similarly 10 out of 11 of the
Middle Eastern country’s reserves are unchanged from the previous year despite
production of some 8.25 Bbbl of oil in 2003 from these nations.- eight producing regions listed small declines in oil reserves; 6 listed
small increases in reserves; overall, according to the BP report, world proven
reserves of oil grew from 1146.3 Bbbl in 2002 to 1147.7 Bbbl in 2003; this
despite world production of more than 28 Bbbl of oil in 2003. Remarkably, most
nations, including the US, must be discovering new reserves at exactly the same
rate that we are producing oil.
And note this post by ASA member and oil industry expert Glenn Morton from February 2005:
“The Gulf of Mexico shelf has a serious problem–declining production that is not being arrested. Production from shelf wells has dropped from above 333 MMbbl and 4.8 tcf in 2000 to a projected 186 MMbbl and 2.5 tcf in 2004. The 244 MMbbl of produced oil in 2003 is down 27% from 2000. Oil production for 2004 is expected to drop 44% from 2000. Gas production in 2003 at 3.3 tcf is down 1.5 tcf, 31% off the 4.8 tcf produced in 2000.” James Dodson, Ted Dodson, Victor Schmidt, “GoM deep Shelf Incentive Fails to Overcome Decline,” Offshore, Jan 2005, p. 35
And the situation has not gotten any better since then. The EIA has noted that OCS production will only decrease gasoline prices by pennies a gallon in the 2020s. The oil industry has misrepresented the amount of so-called energy independence these risky wells will produce.
Second of all, that’s not the worst of it. BP low-balled the spill rate from the beginning. Why? Because it reduces their exposure in court. The same M.O. that was used in global warming denial was done by one of their executives on Anderson Cooper called the larger — read more and more accurate with every passing day — estimates “alarmist”. They also said estimates of the flow could not be done like what was claimed with respect to the computer models for global warming.
Furthermore, independent scientists have been blocked from measuring the flow or have access to injured wildlife. Employees and contractors of BP have been required to sign onerous non-disclosure agreements. Media cameras have been blocked from sensitive areas.
But so what? Because of the low estimates there is now insufficient production capacity to remove the oil from the cap BP installed. This is why it’s important to have the best estimates. Even if the blowout could not have been avoided and this is the best mitigation that could be done, the bad estimates are causing oil to go into the Gulf that could have been avoided with sufficient production resources in place. The same holds true for the low-ball estimates of the global warming skeptics. The same people are telling us that anthropogenic global warming is under control and we can fix whatever problems are caused by it. Fool me once…
BP is doing the exact same thing that got all the people incensed about ClimateGate. Where’s the outrage? So far I’ve heard crickets.
Rich,
My own thoughts are that we should search our own souls and see where each of us has had a hand in this. Let’s not forget that we all want to keep our way of life the way it is — indeed, we expect and basically demand it. We all resent having to pay the price of drastic change. We’re used to a lot of things that more than half the people in the world will never even know. Hence, we all share in this sin. Granted, most of us don’t know what to do, let alone have the power to do anything about it.
We do need to see that justice is done. Maybe there is even a time for outrage. However, whereas outrage makes for great worldly dramas, such displays are rarely the work of a Godly people. That includes a large percentage of the outrage over “ClimateGate”, for which Christians too have shown just how much they take God seriously. We would all do more a lot more good if we just repent and humbly pray.
by Grace we proceed,
Wayne
Wayne, my point was not whether we get angry or not but to make sure that whatever anger we might have is correctly focused. A proper “outrage” should produce two things in this context:
1. A passion for the truth wherever it leads.
2. A willingness to sacrifice for the weak and the powerless.
From what I can tell BP is only marginally more negligent than its peers. There has been a decades-long effort to play on our selfishness and greed. The last eight Presidents have all called for us to move away from oil and we haven’t. In short, the “market” has failed us because we somehow think that it would produce moral behavior on the part of the energy companies or energy consumers. A price needs to be put on carbon and as Christians we should be willing to sacrifice even if all the promised “green collar” jobs don’t materialize.
Wayne said:
“My own thoughts are that we should search our own souls and see where each of us has had a hand in this. ”
Nobody else had a hand in BP’s mistake. It was their mistake, their incompetence.
Where’s the outrage from evangelical Christians? I think most evangelicals think Jesus is going to destroy the Earth, and re-create it anyway, so why bother caring about sustainability anyway?
When Jesus returns, don’t you think he’s going to cause a lot more damage in melting everything down? The existing Earth isn’t going to survive the coming re-creation. I think the following passage spells it out:
2 Peter 3:10-13 (New International Version)
10But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.[a]
11Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.[b]That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.
Bernie,
I find it incredible that most evangelicals would interpret II Peter 3 to imply that Christians should be indifferent to distress caused by man-made environmental disasters. How many evangelical Christians whose livelihoods have been destroyed by the oil spill have drawn such a conclusion? It seems to me that the attitude that would be considered Christian is that of I Corinthians 13:6.
Gordon Brown
Hi Gordon-
I Corinthians 13:6 doesn’t specifically talk about the future state of the Earth, as 2 Peter 3:10-13 does very explicitly.
The reaction by Dr. Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is exactly on point here of what I mean by righteous outrage. He was interviewed on NPR this morning.
“There’s really nothing conservative — and certainly nothing evangelical — about a laissez-faire view of a lack of government regulation,” Moore says, “because we, as Christians, believe in sin.”
“That means if people are sinful, if all of us are sinful, then all of us have to have accountability — and that includes corporations.” Moore says. “Simply trusting corporations to go about their business without polluting the water streams and without destroying ecosystems is really a naive and utopian view of human nature. It’s not a Christian view of human nature.”
On his blog, Moore has posted something of a call-to-arms for evangelical Christians to take action to protect the environment. The Gulf spill has the potential to be a defining moment for evangelicals, he says, much like Roe v. Wade activated the evangelical anti-abortion movement.
“Prior to Roe, most evangelicals really thought of those issues of life and protecting the unborn as being a Roman Catholic issue,” he says. “Somebody else’s issue. But then after Roe v. Wade, suddenly evangelicals saw what was at stake and became involved.”
“This catastrophe in the Gulf could be that kind of defining moment.”
This just came across the AP wire:
DENVER — The Interior Department has fined BP America $5.2 million for allegedly submitting false reports about energy production on an Indian reservation in Colorado.
The Interior Department said Wednesday that the U.S. unit of BP PLC repeatedly misreported royalty rates for natural gas on Southern Ute Indian tribal lands. Interior spokesman Patrick Etchart said BP was not taking more natural gas than reported. Instead, BP at times reported erroneous royalty rates, or listed natural gas coming from the wrong wells, he said.
BP officials didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
Southern Ute auditors said they discovered incorrect reports in 2007 and reported them to BP, which blamed the misreporting on a computer glitch and promised to make changes. Etchart wasn’t sure how far back the errors went.
However, BP’s reporting errors continued after the audit pointed out the problems, leading to the fine.
“We are committed to collecting every dollar due from energy production that occurs on federal and American Indian lands, and accurate reporting is crucial to that effort,” said Michael R. Bromwich, head of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. The ongoing errors indicated the misreporting was “knowing or willful,” Bromwich said in a written statement.
RE:
“The ongoing errors indicated the misreporting was “knowing or willful,” Bromwich said in a written statement.”
I bet the “errors” were a financial benefit to BP…? Corporations have a good way of maximizing profits. If the error generates profit, it is easy to let it continue.
No outrage that I’ve seen against BP, but it continues unabated against climate scientists. The attacks are more against scientists in the U.S. and Australia and are typically timed when the issue is raised by conservative talk show hosts such as Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh.
“Professor Stephen Schneider, a climatologist based at Stanford University in California, whose name features in the UEA emails, says he has received “hundreds” of violently abusive emails since last November. The peak came in December during the Copenhagen climate change summit, he said, but the number has picked up again in recent days since he co-authored a scientific paper last month which showed that 97%-98% of climate scientists agree that mankind’s carbon emissions are causing global temperatures to increase.
Schneider described his attackers as “cowards” and said he had observed an “immediate, noticeable rise” in emails whenever climate scientists were attacked by prominent right-wing US commentators, such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.”
“Dr Kevin Trenberth, head of the climate analysis section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, said he has also been receiving similar emails since last November when a private email of his was released into the public domain in which he had said: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” Trenberth has gone on to repeatedly defend his email and explain its context, but says he has now sent a file of abusive emails totalling “19 pages of text at about 10pt font” to his university’s security officials. He said the response of the US police had been “pathetic”, but also blamed it on freedom-of-speech legislation.
“Professor Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University and leading proponent of the “Hockey Stick graph“, said his experiences of hate mail were “eerily similar” to those described by Schneider. “I’m not comfortable talking about the details, especially as some of these matters remain under police investigation,” he said. “What I can say is that the emails come in bursts, and do seem to be timed with high-profile attack pieces on talk radio and other fringe media outlets.”
Last month, Mann told ABC News in the US that the following message was typical of the emails he has been receiving: “Six feet under with the roots is where you should be. I was hoping I would see the news that you’d committed suicide. Do it, freak.” Another climate scientist, who wished to remain anonymous, said he had had a dead animal dumped on his doorstep and now travels with bodyguards.”
Richard’s post of June 27th, 2010. This is a very unusual occurrence in that Rich and I think alike on any subject. Companies, politicians and even ordinary citizens need regulations and laws to curb the grossest moral violations. Many if not most executives are focused on the next quarters results as that will have an immediate impact on their stock options. The long term does not seem to matter much. Even senior technical folks get dragged into this issue through stock ownership.
A couple of friends in the petrochemical business tell me that BP (and Exxon as best I recall) tend to operate in a manner that is below the standards of most of the other companies operating in North America. They and I are outraged by BP’s actions.
As a Conservative in Canada the commentators (Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh) you mention appear to be on the lunatic fringe and I for one totally ignore them. The Conservative party here supports health care and similar measures they fall somewhere between the US Republicans and the Democrats but no one supports the right to bare arms.
Now I will resume my vow of silence on the ASA blogs and avoid the climate change issue that is so divisive.
Dave