Let’s say (and why not?) that you have a significant credit card debt that you can’t imagine repaying. You owe money for your new BMW, your student loan, your 5000 sq ft home, your viagra, and your dental work. Everything that your creditors could repossess they have come and taken away, and you haven’t paid your gardener or Juanita who does the upstairs in 3 months. You’ve been in debt before, but you’re starting to get worried about this debt because there are three large men with brass knuckes and ill-fitting suits on your porch. You would borrow more money to pay off the debt but you no one will loan you money because your credit rating is in the tank. Times are hard. All your friends are broke too, and you can’t even afford the miller lite you snagged to guzzle while shopping at safeway. What will you do? Stuck between this rock and that hard place, you come up with the fantastic idea to sell your children—and not just your children, but your children’s children. Of course it sounds extreme at first, but you’re washed up, and they’re the future, they’re your hottest commodity. Everybody wants them, and its not like you can’t still visit just because they’ll belong to somebody else.
Enter Governor Schwarzenegger.
California’s horrorific budget crisis is on all of our minds and every day we try to brave the news to see what bad idea has been adopted next. How happy I was to read the cheery headlines last night in the Washington Post that an 11th hour deal had been cut to garner funds by allowing off shore oil drilling in Santa Barbara. Remarkably the report said this had “the support of law makers and environmentalists”. Wow that must be some deal!
Madrone Audubon Society In a rare agreement with environmental groups, oil producer Plains Exploration & Production Co. (PXP) has proposed promptly expanding oil drilling off the coast of Santa Barbara, then shutting down four oil platforms and two onshore processing facilities in Santa Barbara by 2024. The company also agreed to donate $1.5 million to Santa Barbara County for new low-carbon bus technology and 4,000 acres of land for public use. The company would slant-drill into the state’s seafloor from a platform it operates in federal waters.
Actually my delight was slightly muted by the fact that minutes before the headline showed up on Google, I got an email from Audubon asking me to express my opposition to it. They have some crazy idea about shore birds and oil spills. You know of course 2009 isn’t just the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. It’s also the 40th anniversary of the monumental oil spill they had in Santa Barbara. At the time (before Valdes) it was the worse oil spill in the country. I couldn’t help being a little doubtful about the Post’s claim that environmentalists were behind this deal. Then I actually forced myself to read about it. This morning I wanted to avoid thinking about it altogether, and just post a pretty picture of a beaver, but when I saw the rosy glow coming off the LA Times and the SF Chronicle this morning, I couldn’t stand it anymore. The times article offers this compelling argument posed by the school of “some-guy-selling-surfboards-on-the-beach”.
But Reynolds Yater, who was dropping off one of his eponymous surfboards at The Beach House nearby, said Americans can’t complain about oil drilling and then buy surfboards and wetsuits. Waving his arm at the store’s wares, Yater pointed out that “all of this stuff is made out of oil, so it’s very hypocritical to be making this stuff and then not want it drilled on our beaches.”
What a thoughtful man. For even grander demonstrations of logic check out Deborah Saunders finger-painting portrait of the complex relationship between the environment and the economy in today’s SF Chronicle. (I can now testify that her standard of writing is entirely consistent and does lose any grandeur even when replying to a politely worded WTF email.) With such good friends of the environment poised at both ends of the coastline, who needs enemies?
For the record, the California Chronicle lists the following environmental organizations as opposed to the deal. If you want to contribute your opposition, go here.
Volleyball Assn. tournament.Audubon California-Environment Now-Vote the Coast-Environment California-Surfrider Foundation-National Resources Defense Council-Environmental Defense Fund-Sierra Club California -Planning and Conservation League -California Coastal Coalition-California Coastal Protection Network -Vote They Coast -Defenders of Wildlife -Amigos de Bolsa Chica -Beacon Foundation -Center for Biological Diversity -Coastwalk California -Committee for Green Foothills -Environmental Health Coalition-ECOSLO-Inland Empire Water Keeper-Endangered Habitat League -Humboldt Baykeeper-San Diego Baykeeper-Santa Monica Baykeeper-Ventura Coastkeeper-San Luis Obispo coastkeeper-Orange County Coastkeeper -League for Coastal Protection -Malibu Coastal Land -Wild Coast -Western Alliance for Nature-North Coast Environmental Center -Urban Wildlands -Western Action Network -Sea and Sage Audubon
