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It seems to me that the challenge of rebuilding the American middle class: bringing back the jobs, ensuring good public education, health care and decent pensions is now to a great extent predicated on a very controversial “energy revolution”: the lowering the cost of energy by the method of hydraulic fracturing of gas and oil-bearing shale known as fracking.
Fracking Illustrated
Not only is this technique of breaking apart the shale with water mixed with chemicals supposed to lower the costs of energy for industry and reduce America’s dependence on imported gas and oil, thus producing more taxable income for social programs, but also to allow the United States to reduce its armed “footprint”, the billions of dollars in military resources with which we police the troubled areas of the world where much of the energy we now import comes from. The idea being that the money saved in this way would be the money used to pay off the national debt, while simultaneously guaranteeing entitlements, etc..
It may be just my fevered imagination, but since fracking appears to be extremely dangerous to both human health and the environment itself, we might be looking at a future train wreck between social democracy and green concerns.
Cross posted from: http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com
28 Comments
I’m forcibly reminded of Al Gore’s comment likening oil companies to junkies with arm veins wrecked from constant injections: instead of looking for ways to transition to a non-heroin future, they seek out fresh veins to abuse elsewhere on their bodies.
There is a way out that wouldn’t require turning over vast stretches of wilderness to solar or wind farms: http://www.solarroadways.com. For the money invested in one nuke plant, we could have had at least a few hundred miles installed already, providing tens of thousands of construction jobs.
Fracking is already doing serious harm. Profits will go to the predators, who will use the money to buy legislation to ensure that they pay minimal taxes, and to buy media to tell the people that “we’re still broke” and need to cut social programs.
Why you would claim that whatever taxes are collected would be used to fund social programs. I can’t imagine. There’s no faction among the elites or their enablers that doesn’t intend to cut entitlements. There’s no conflict. Fracking is a win for the predators, a potentially irretrievable loss for the rest of us.
Solar roadways are a real possibility that should be investigated. However, there is no evidence that we need to “turn over vast stretches of wilderness to solar or wind farms.” Other countries have proven solar and wind are very compatible with preserving wilderness areas. To claim they are not is just fossil fuel propaganda funded by our tax dollars in unjust and undeserved subsidies.
I’m not really arguing the merits of shale gas, I think it is horrible. What I am trying to point out, is (at this moment) the idea of rebuilding the middle class seems to be predicated on shale gas and that has me worried. I think that rebuilding the middle class and protecting entitlements is vital, but, as I say, shale gas is horrible.
Mr. Seaton, You are raising an extremely important question about the conflict between traditional liberal/social democratic goals and averting climate disaster. Althoug thelong term consequences will be fatal to civilization, fossil fuel is simply so efficient short-term that it is the foundation of our entire civilization. Like many others on the left, I like to imagine that alternative energy sources can be found but that is only a hope, and not borne out by years of actual wind, solar, tidal or geothermal power generation.
It is more likely , in my view, that any real effort to avert climate change will require a far lower material standard of living in which eveyrthing from meat to air travel is priced out of reach for most people. Even modern medical care, which is such a staple for liberals, is ultimately founded on a world civilization built on fossil fuel.
Fracking could certainly build up the US economy for a time, just as cheap coal and then cheap oil did in previous generations. There can be wealth over which liberals and conservatives can enact their traditional battles.
These battles, with which we have become so familiar, are based on giving voters what they want.They are not about asking voters to sacrifice. This is as true for liberals as for conservatives. They just appeal to the demands of different constituencies.
At the same time, working people are quite rational and know that the climate is changing. They are often far wiser in this than the so-called educated classes. If a political movement was not afraid to spell out the realities of climate change and the kind of real sacrifices involved in giving up almost all fossil fuel, working people could be convinced to follow a rational path.
The greatest obstacle to survival may not be the Koch-funded climate denialists as much as the good hearted liberals and social democrats who cannot grasp the extent to which all their dreams of equity rest on a fossil fuel economy.
And you are right about cheap domestic oil and gas from fracking fitting in perfectly with the traditional liberal opposition to a huge military and endless wars over foreign energy sources.
Take a look at this, the gas in Dakota rivals Chicago from outer space:
http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/7b378b56-68bf-11e2-8c20-00144feab49a.img
“It seems to me that the challenge of rebuilding the American middle class: … is now to a great extent predicated on. ..(1)lowering the cost of energy by …hydraulic fracturing of (2) gas and oil-bearing shale…”
(1)and(2)above are both highly speculative if not mythical. (1) Why would shipping huge quantities of gas and oil (products) to foreign buyers lower your energy cost? It should make someone enormous profits, but your price depends on what the market will bear. And (2) Rave notices about potential are the norm in resource extraction schemes. They may proove exaggerated even in actual yield, and certainly in benefit to local and longterm economics.
High rate of development, for sure.
= High rate or environmental degradation, for sure.
= High rate of middle class rebuilding? Maybe.
I’m not starting a polemic. What I see is the contradiction: I want the middle class to maintain and expand its entitlements, I want good jobs to return to America, at the same time I want clean air and clean water.
Who of any credibility is promoting this “idea of rebuilding the middle class [that] seems to be predicated on shale gas” of which you speak?
Dean Baker has a post up right now:
There may be those among the
compradorsself-identified liberal elites who delude themselves that fracking (whether they admit that it’s environmentally horrible or not) will lead to less militarism, more money for social programs, or allowing them to hold on to some measure of their lifestyle, but the fracker-predators and the government they own have, to my knowledge, neither delusions nor practical proposals to that effect.What they are talking about (as I understand it) is that gas is going to be so cheap that in many cases it will be cheaper to manufacture in the USA than in China. In Europe they are already worrying a great deal about losing their competitive edge to the USA in this respect. Personally I think that fracking is horrible, at the same time it would be nice to see people stop walking dogs and flipping burgers and go back to factories with unions etc.
I am talking about being conflicted, not arguing a point.
Isn’t that what these ..uhumm..liberals were saying with the fall of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall ?
It’s the same old song…
Not really. They are talking about putting energy costs back about where they were in the 1960s when oil was less than ten bucks a barrel, the USA produced all it needed and was a tiny percentage of manufacturing costs
I don’t think people really have thought all this out. The idea of bringing the cost of energy down and being self sufficient again is so attractive that people may not understand the trade offs well enough. It puts progressives in a tight box and makes ecological concerns look “elitist”. A working class person who has had to leave industry and work in services wouldn’t worry very much about the air and the water. This is an issue that may split the progressive base.
They never do. The point I was trying to make however, was these same “leftists” were all in a tither about the “peace dividend”, conveniently forgetting that it was the cold war and spending that went along with it that payed for their cheapy college education and gave them their cushy jobs.
Seems they buy their rose colored glasses from the same optometrist as those on the right.
That’s picture is of flaring (burning) the natural gas that comes with mining oil shale. So, the fracking is seeking to drill for natural gas in New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia and additional fields in Texas at the same time that an immense amount of natural gas is being burned in North Dakota.
Raiding nature’s savings account.
“We?” Senor Seaton, you are in Spain. I highly doubt you pay American income taxes that help finance our overseas imperial wars. Don’t diss yourself, man.
Regardless, you make a good point. Liberals, by my definition, anyway, who stand to financially benefit from fracking will back it whole hog. All the while bemoaning that it’s a necessary evil or some such rot.
It’s interesting that Republican Governor John Kasich of Ohio has proposed legislation that at least requires the gas companies to hire more Ohioans than anyone else in Ohio, and wants to levy a 10% state tax on the gas extracted, much to the horror of the Chamber of Commerce and the Tea Party. Not to mention Big Oil. His biggest supporters in the state legislature are Democrats.
Go figure.
You bring up a great point, though. All’s fair in love, war, and political internet sites. Rec’d, by the Odd Gods.
He maybe an idiot, be he’s no fool.
It’s just a flesh wound! Come back, you coward!
Kind of insane (isn’t it?) that people of the central US are thinking to cash in on Gas by destroying the structural integrity of the place where they live.
They don’t know that about structural integrity. Neither do you. Yes, a series of small earthquakes in Pennsylvania was linked to a fracking well, but it’s just the one. The science is not in yet. Geologists don’t know what widespread fracking will, or will not, cause.
I’m not advocating all-out fracking for cheap gas. But it’s going to happen. Obama certainly won’t lift a finger to stop it, and won’t propose financing any real scientific studies on the problem. People in this part of country are so desperate for jobs, or at least potential jobs, that they’ll go for it even though most of them have serious doubts about the consequences.
We’re playing with fire here, quite literally. In some locales, such as the Cleveland Metroparks, the NIMBY syndrome will at least slow down the process. And people away from the metro areas will turn against it if they don’t see more local jobs created pronto; hence Governor Kasich’s proposal to require that at least half the jobs created hire Ohio workers. Keen politician, that Kasich fellow. Don’t underestimate him just because he has an R after his name.
The experiment, in one form or the other, will continue, whether you or I like it or not.
No polemics, Senor Seaton? Where’s your sense of fun? Bourgeois respectability is SO dull. You want to see good jobs return to America AND maintain clean air and water?
There are alternatives, you know. Like wind power, even if the windmills are bird guillotines. I’m willing to sacrifice a few hundred thousand birds.
I understand your conflict, but I do not know what you mean by “middle class.” Could you please define this phrase? I’m not being sarcastic here, but until I know what you mean by the term I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Definitions are important.
I like both wind and conventional solar, but I won’t deny that there have been and still are problems with implementing either on large scales. One of the most pressing problems for wind power in the past was bird strike; that has changed with the spending of more time and care on avoid major flyways, but could become serious again as wind farms grow in number. Currently, the two biggest problems with wind turbines are noise and the danger of ice throw; measures to minimize both are in the works. Still, cattle can graze underneath wind towers, something not possible under most solar arrays I’ve seen.
The beauty of the Solar Roadway is that there would be no need to rip up any extra land for it. Replacing the already-extant asphalt with rough-textured, translucent and self-heating panels would provide the US with three times as much energy as it has ever used at one time.
That was one of the unintended consequences of fracking the Bakken and other places: Lots and lots and LOTS of natural gas got freed up and even with much of it being burned at the mine/well hole, enough of it still gets to market to keep the price of natural gas quite low, low enough to make T. Boone Pickens grit his teeth.
The low price of natural gas in the US, particularly contrasted with the rising cost of it in Asia, is a contributing factor to the slowing of the manufacturing exodus from the US.
Dear l’homme étoile, have you met your final conundrum? Guns or butter, war or peace, jobs or health? All are pwoggie headaches. No cure yet, mon petit bourgeois tourmentés?
The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of bourgeois stupidity.
– Gustave Flaubert
Ouch. I salute your rhetorical scalpel-wielding skill.
This has been great fun, thank you all for coming.