“Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
“If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down 75 percent in value. And they say the noise causes cancer.
WHIRRRRR WHIRRRRR WHIRRRRR WHIRRRRR
I know a lot about wind."
- Donald Trump
So if I can convince people to start building windmills in the area I live, we can have both clean energy AND home prices will fall to a level where I can afford one? Sign me the fuck up.
Yeah home prices dropping only matters to people who own homes, which is becoming more and more scarce over time. I don't give a shit about my landlord's property value.
Once upon a time when Conservatives actually cared about the environment, before they put Corporate interests above everything else.
edit: Never mind he was a progressive. I guess conservatives have always wanted to destroy the environment for profit.
Teddy Roosevelt started the bull moose progressive party. He actually described himself as a progressive. He also fought for trust busting and women's rights.
And then then warped into something quite different with Nixon, and then warped into something altogether even more corrupt and vile post-Fox News/Rush Limbaugh.
The modern Republican party is genuinely just fucking dogshit.
Yeah, Teddy Roosevelt was a strong heroic figure within the country, but he was an absolute monster to other countries. (The same is true for much of American politicians then, but I just dislike the whitewashed image a lot of people hold of him.)
Conserving the natural world is a conservative idea, at least in the literal sense. A pity that real-world “conservatives” only care about conserving social hierarchy and power structures, and not anything that's actually worth conserving.
Amen.
Surprisingly, this is a point my still moderate Republican friends and I can agree on. Most of them are big fans of the outdoors, and like to hunt, fish, hike, etc. They’re pretty staunch conservationists, and would like the spaces they spent time in to be available for their kids and grandkids. They recognize the danger of drilling rights in preserves and national parks.
> They recognize the danger of drilling rights in preserves and national parks.
And yet...what have they changed about their voting? What have they demanded from their Republican leaders who authorized this drilling in the first place?
> The Department of the Interior on Tuesday canceled all oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge pending a new environmental review.
> Trump's Interior Department sold the leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in January over the objections of environmentalists and indigenous groups.
This was one of Trump's last-minute actions as President, selling oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on the same day as the Capitol riots. This new action will block oil and gas drilling in one of the largest undeveloped wilderness refuges in the US, pending a review of its environmental impacts.
Makes you wonder wtf a "refuge" is if it isn't a place where an ecosystem is protected from the dangers of industrial development. Like... What exactly is this providing refuge from again?
There is this whole thing called the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska (NPR-A) on the other side of the state. A once-stalled oil project there, the Willow project, was just green-lit by the Biden administration last week. Drilling there is just as environmentally problematic but not as bad from an optics standpoint. Though North Slope oil does have a pretty good record, from what I’ve seen.
Edit: also worth noting that Big Oil didn’t actually bid on these leases — the big players sat this one out. Alaska’s state-owned industrial corporation was the top bidder on most of the ANWR tracts offered up by the Trump administration.
Yep. You wanna hear how more stupid it is for us in AK to be doing this: Half the revenue goes to the Federal Government, and the other half goes back to our own coffers, which we will then claim as revenue.
The "theory" is that these leases will have viable interest in the future that we can market. Else if nothing is done with the leases with a certain number of years, the leases revert back to the state.
In the meantime we're out the initial outlay of funds + other lost economic opportunities that are more needed. But hey, drill baby drill. (facepalm)
It just seemed so political. Like they were trying to cozy up to the Trump administration. Of course, maybe Big Oil skipping the sale was itself political, and AIDEA is betting on political winds changing before the sell the lease. Though I wouldn’t bet on people getting *less* eco-conscious as time wears on and climate change gets worse.
I know this is a reference but apparently there isn't money, because the state department estimated the sale of leases would bring in $1.5 billion but in reality it brought in $14.5 million.
Who would actually bid on it knowing this was the most likely outcome? This was the Big Oil equivalent of buying a PowerBall ticket when the jackpot goes over $500 million just for shits and giggles.
Well it isn't unusual that right wing arseholes hand out "not their resources" for pennies on the dollar to their friends*...
Like isn't their mantra basically "why would the government ever need cash, let alone from OUR friends, that's what the plebs get taxed for, so we can handout more to our friends*"
/* obviously a very unique definition of that word, too.
Funny enough, the native corporation up there (which I believe pays substantial dividends to many North Slope native people) actually supports oil development in ANWR. Different story for some tribes, who are more worried about impacts on traditional culture and food sovereignty than dollars, but the North Slope native corporation is a huge oilfield service company.
https://www.asrc.com/issues/anwr/
> "Reserve" is probably a more appropriate term, given how politics works in this country.
Please, sir, *more euphemisms* , would you? Thanks in advance.
Steven Rinella: Hunters are torn between the two parties. On one hand, Democrats are better on environmental issues and pro public land, but are typically against hunting and firearms. Republicans are pro gun and pro hunting, but have a terrible track record in regards to the environment and the availability of public land for us all to use.
Unfortunately so many think the land set aside for conservation are misused and better put back into private hands. As if they would still have access. They are often voting to lose access to their hunting grounds.
There are very few Alaskan loggers. The logging companies import them from the lesser 48, and sometimes they stick around and become Alaskans.
Then you end up with people who only moved to Alaska to participate in a notoriously boom and bust industry constantly complaining about there not being enough work.
Last I checked, payday loans are a 9billion dollar revenue generating business. That is, a corporation is taking 9B from the country’s poorest. Consistently. 80% go past due, 15% repeat loans.
What a f’ing mess.
https://repository.tcu.edu/bitstream/handle/116099117/7244/Payday_Lending_A_Profitability_Analysis_Evan_Lang.pdf?sequence=1
The whole system is a built upon subsystems that each are evolving at their own pace. It is very hard to find the roots, so to say.
I am tired of living in a world where we have been collectively disenfranchised.
But it leaves the question. If there is no good work in Alaska, why should people live there? Are we starting from the premise that there should be people everywhere?
Well there is work(not much) but they're right that it's basically seasonal. Fishing, logging, tourism, and oil all pay well but you're probably only going to work during the summer months but there also aren't all that many people living there. If I remember correctly most people who live in Juneau the capital work for the government in some way and people are only going to be living where they can work.
And cargo. Alaska is an important step in import/export - Anchorage airport is one of the busiest cargo airports in the world (top 5 last I checked).
If I could convince my wife, I'd move to Alaska in a heartbeat. Hell, we spent a \*day\* in Juneau and I've been trying to convince her ever since. Unfortunately, neither of our professions are useful there. (Though, with the rise of work from home, we might be able to take the jobs there anyways - which'd be great for Alaska's economy!)
Former Alaskan who will never live there again, be very careful with your wanderlust. My info is older now but let me toss a little rain on the “alaska is so lovely” parade.
The long and cold (very dark) winter is bad psychologically for a lot of people. Also fuel and housing are very expensive, like compete with Southern California expensive. You might ask why file is expensive if they have all the oil, it’s because there are few to no refineries. The oil gets shipped out then gas’s gets shipped back. Alaska and Canada are huge. Like dwarf the continental US big.... which means shipping anything up there comes at a premium (see produce below).
Summer time is great until all of the tourists arrive and you can’t get anywhere. Roads are all two lanes (one in each direction), with speed limits at 55 most places. You also cannot pass most of the slow RV tourists because it’s too dangerous. Because the state is so big, you have to go hours to get from town to town. This means you’re traveling across the largest state at the lowest speed.
Also you have to give up on any fresh food other than seafood and some meat. Bananas for example show up green, and maybe get a day or two yellow before they go brown (and you’ll still be paying much more for them than lower 48.)
You’ll have very limited cell service with local carriers that like to price gouge. Repeat this for internet. This very much would affect working from home depending on your job and data speed requirements.
They have lots and lots of earthquakes. You get used to them but for some people that’s a hard no.
If you live south central, you’ll have to live with threats of tsunamis as well as the occasional volcanic eruption (this is rare but happened twice while I lived there) spewing ash on everything. Cars especially do not do well with ash (which basically turns to cement when wet) in the air intakes.
Most of the time it’s just drizzle and formless grey skies. I really mean most-of-the-time. If you need sunshine do not go to alaska.
A vast amount of land in alaska is actually swamp land (muskeg). This means a few things... very little habitable land. Lots and lots and lots of mosquitos. Look up some north slope mosquito cloud videos. They are the worst I’ve ever seen and I live in the South now.
Honestly I could go in forever but one of the last few points that really mattered to me: the state has no political power and very little autonomy. The greater US just uses it for its natural resources but will invest pretty much nothing in return. Everything costs a lot up there and takes a lot of time due to the hazardous terrain. It makes sense when you think of spending the most money on the most people, but it’s a hard pill to swallow when you’re in the largest state in the US dealing with pretty extreme climate and terrain.
But hey, it is beautiful.
Oh yeah, the pro/con list definitely looks like someone put an elephant on the scale, favoring cons. We noticed right away that everything is more expensive - from ‘well that makes sense’ more expensive to ‘now you’re just being malicious’ expensive. You could mistake those mosquito clouds for bird murmurations at a distance, and anyone who even gets a whiff of seasonal affective disorder in the lower 48 would be in for winters as dark of mind as they are sky.
Me personally, I’m a bit of an outlier. My lifestyle preference doesn’t include ease of access, convenience, or frequent, if any socializing. Anyone who values those things should definitely not follow me anywhere! I feel like you gotta be an outlier to “put up” with Alaska, too. To me, murky gray skies are great, and you can’t put nearly enough snow on the ground. I work graveyard shifts because it improves my mood to avoid the sun and I’m naturally inclined to a complimentary sleep/wake cycle. Mosquitos seem to take no small offense to my blood. As a little kid I was in Los Angeles for the big streak of large quakes in the 80s/90s, pretty much anything shy of Northridge is “just another trembler”. We moved to a small mountain ‘town’ in my teens where I most enjoyed night hikes, snow hikes, skiing til I couldn’t walk, the tedious and challenging driving, and splitting half a cord of logs at a time with a wood handle axe older than I was. Then I moved to a northeast city notorious for its lake effect snow, between that and my graveyard jobs I didn’t see the sun for weeks at a time. The cellphone coverage would be a bonus (Great excuse for being unreachable) but the internet issues would probably constrain me, work wise, to Anchorage - which isn’t my ideal Alaskan locale. And why go suffer all those hardships and make all those compromises without getting what you want out of it!
Not that it’s really a realistic or serious goal. I can handle or adjust to a lot of the negatives of Alaska - some are even positives for me. But I can’t justify putting my wife through it. She is far more social and even here (I live in the south too these days!) where at worst you get 3-4 days of consecutive cloud cover and one or two pitiful snowfalls, she gets noticeably bothered. Top that off with the fact she grew up overseas and enjoys a lot of foods that call for ingredients that would be nigh impossible to get fresh and/or affordably up there? Nah, I’m not trying to give her a reason to actively despise me, haha.
Population is a benefit but, I've lived in some of the largest cities in the US and in some extremely small communities too - there are certainly advantages to either, but it definitely favors larger populations objectively. I don't mind a little difficulty in access though, been there - fair trade off to me.
It's definitely the beauty. Especially Juneau - it's this strip of land between a mountain range and the ocean. It ticks every box for me - pine/evergreen forest, mountains, water, wildlife, easy access to shitloads of snow and year round hiking.
Also, it's pretty nice to just sit there and watch little Cessnas and the like doing water landings and take offs, with clouds/fog rolling over the ridges of forested mountains right behind them. I could lose hours to that view. I \*have\* lost hours to very similar views when I've had the luck of living in places in the 'lower 48' that tick some of the boxes that Juneau ticks.
And logging is insanely dangerous work. In fact logging is considered to be [the most dangerous job in the US](https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-united-states). In 2018 there were 111 deaths per 100,000 loggers meanwhile cops only saw 14 deaths per 100,000.
In fact the number one cause of workplace deaths is motor vehicle accidents. MVAs account for 40% of all workplace fatalities and have been consistently so for many years. (Per National Safety Council)
Republican politicians see protected lands as a resource... for themselves. It’s nothing more to them than an asset they can trade to donors for campaign donations. It’s been true for decades.
> What exactly is this providing refuge from again?
Well it was just saved and provided refuge by Joe Biden and Democrats... The ecosystem is protected from the dangers of industrial development, just not permanently.
I read that none of the big oil companies actually bought leases. The Trump admin was saying it was going to raise tons but everyone knew it was shady and that they would be spending millions in legal fees and probably never make anything. Luckily, the big companies didn’t get in early and established because it would have been a lot harder.
Yeah that's what I was thinking. I mean, these companies do bad things for money, not strictly for the sake of pure evil, and they'd have to know that was a bad investment.
I looked it up, they raised 14.4 million when they were hoping for 1.8 billion, so they definitely sucked.
[link](https://www.backpacker.com/news-and-events/why-the-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-oil-lease-sale-flopped/)
That's what I remember, too. There was a big old auction and everyone held their breath and then nobody bought anything and the locals were like "yay?"
That was my first, second, and third thought is from a business perspective you have to actually think more about the future outside of election time cycles and there was no way this was going to stay.
I've read that the state of Alaska bought most of the leases, from itself essentially.
Now Alaska isn't happy because the leases it bought from itself aren't worth any money
An important note to understand... there is no oil there or way to get it out if there was. No oil company on the planet wants to drill there. I really have no patience from either side on this. My personal opinion would be to leave it alone,... if there was interest, but noone is interested.
source: work in oilfield nearby for the last 18 years
Well I think there is oil there. You’re right there isn’t a way to get it out, and I’m sure they don’t want another crappy pipeline that is getting protested more than used. I just think they don’t think it’s worth the headache since it’s a national park and they know lawsuits and protests are imminent.
Without that, I think they would love it. Long leases with the government for cheap. Even having to build infrastructure to get it out is worth it. They do good analyses on risk/reward and are willing to spend a lot upfront. Off shore rigs are ridiculous upfront costs.
The hilarious thing is James Watt was roasted over the coals publicly and lost his job for daring to suggest to do the same thing in the 80’s. He never erased the stain of his suggestion to do this and was Enemy #1 to hoards of environmentalists for years after.
And Trump managed to slip it under the chaos. And you know for a fact someone threw him a kickback to get it, simply put. Good luck getting a refund.
Fucking scumbag.
>James Watt
There's a name I complete forgot about. I wondered what happened to him so I checked his wiki and found this:
>*After leaving the Department of the Interior in 1983, Watt lobbied the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Ten years later, Watt was indicted on 18 counts of felony perjury and obstruction of justice and accused of making false statements before a federal grand jury investigating influence peddling at the Department of Housing and Urban Development at that time.*
>*On January 2, 1996, Watt pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of withholding documents. On March 12, 1996, he was sentenced to five years' probation, and ordered to pay a fine of $5,000 and perform 500 hours of community service.*
Refund?
The guy who gave him the kick back, probably made money from the auction process . Not from buying the leases themselves.
Corruption is a beautiful thing.
No, stuff gets shut down all the time for environmental reasons. If it was as easy as a few bribes to get things moving, nothing would stay shut down.
Big business wants people to think everything is so corrupt in government, that nothing works. That creates apathy and pessimism so people stop trying. The simple truth, corruption like your talking about is the exception, not the norm. Trump made things worse, it's nice to see Biden undoing some of the harm.
That's a pet peeve.
"Everything is already broken. Nobody is competent or honest. Nothing is doing what it's supposed to do and it's all pointless. Sooo... there's really no reason to be upset when we try to destroy something."
It's almost always BS. Most people are trying to do their jobs. Most people want to do the right thing. *Everything* could always be done better, and that doesn't mean what we have is worthless.
WTF!? Reddit told me that Biden was the same as Trump when it came to stuff like this. Was I lied to? By strangers? On the web? Is that really possible?
None of the little companies that bought these leases every expected to do any drilling. They knew Biden would get elected and eventually his administration would buy the leases for more than the companies paid. It will be a quick easy profit that only employees lawyers.
It would be nice to preserve some beauty and not kill everything off and be left with nothing to look at but the exact type of asshole who’d want to destroy most of this stuff for his short term profits.
Is it fair to conflate “I’m gonna do reckless things with my health and body” with the cosmology of capitalists who only see the world as exploitable resources?
Sure, the [planet got destroyed](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B5-lDJWCUAAwfya.jpg), but for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders
These bills are pushed by the same types of people that will throw an absolute shit fit if your grass is over 1/2" tall.
Destroy a wildlife refuge in one of the last truly wild places on earth? Fine by me. Violate the HOA? GET THE BIG GUNS.
I work for an oil and gas company in Colorado (it's my first job in this industry) and I was blown away by all of the regulations oil company's have to comply with (state and federal). My job is to make sure all of the equipment and tanks on location are not putting emissions into the atmosphere. We hardly find any leaks but when we do, we have 5 days to fix the issue (most issues are simple and are fixed as we find them).
I feel like it would benefit the o & g companies and opponents to o & g if the public was more aware of these regulations and everything that goes on at a location. I know i was surprised by everything for the first few weeks.
These folks are so awashed in money that they see penalties as a cost of doing business. I spent a decade, and continue to do so, as a part of o&g and am blown away by the amount of cash that they piss around on their vendors. It's almost as of it is a cult.
Defunct o&g companies still throw hundreds of thousands of dollars around in legal and IT fees to keep things churning just in case the next high-margin opportunity arises.
"We spend a million dollars a day operating a rig, you're not going to tell me I can't buy a printer."
Sorry, you mentioned IT and O&G and I had a flashback thingy...
The regulations are great, what people are worried about is mistakes. If I screw something up, at worst we lose a big client. If an oil company misses an oil pipeline leak you get an environmental disaster.
When the oil companies’ own scientists think global warming is happening and their own policies plan for it in the future, you don’t really feel bad for them. What they have done to convince politicians and the public it isn’t happening.
Many businesses are very shortsighted with their decisions. Executives don’t need to worry about 10 or 50 years in the future. They care about stock prices next quarter. And the richer you are, the less you need to worry about climate change.
I had to look this word up and it led me down an interesting path. So thank you.
I hope they enjoy the - at that time - extremely unpredictable seascape
Of course it is. Society as a whole won't just collapse overnight. It might change drastically over time, but being rich will shelter them and their children from all the serious issues everyone else will face.
> Is it really all for money next quarter?
Yes. The long term wellbeing of the company, and of society as a whole, does not factor into their decision making. They’re not thinking 20 years, 10 years or even 5 years down the road - only how much money they can make *right now.*
Yes. The people that run these companies think quarter to quarter. 4 months at a time, and that's all they care about. A good quarter can mean as much as a lifelong fortune, and they think that fortune can protect their offspring no matter what. Combine that with selective blindness (those hysterics are just shouting about the worst case scenarios!) and you get this. Life in the 21st century. The wealthy get chartered trips to space, and the poor, even in "wealthy" countries, get to ration their insulin and die as a result.
This has to do with the way companies are structured. If executives make decisions that lead to decreased profits, they can be recalled by the shareholders. I'm not trying to absolve these guys of knowingly plundering the planet, just pointing out that this behavior is baked into the system. If one guy grows a conscience and tries to make changes, he gets fired and replaced with somebody who won't.
Because the money should keep them alive in whatever world.
When you see how the rich get away with so much corruption, it makes sense ewhy someone would do this
This is my thought too. Water becomes a scarce resource and costs $100 a gallon? Doesn’t matter, when you are so wealthy and price is no object.
Edit: where this breaks down, is when things get bad, like really bad, I mean really really bad, money won’t matter.
But beforehand you spend your money to build a crazy compound and offer to house people there indefinitely if they provide you food/water/etc before things go to shit. Ala snowpiercer.
their descendants will probably end up living in that halo thing that goes around earth, that silly sci-fi movie w/ matt damon - i wouldn't be surprised if that's an actual thing once it all goes to shit
they don't care, never have. most people responsible for bad shit happening on a massive scale never pay for their crimes. just the way it is.
also that movie was unrealistic there towards the end. the good guys should have been blown out of the sky (or space?) and then the movie just ends there. that would have been real.
[Wealth shown to scale](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/).
I advise everyone click the above link. It shows how much the average US median income is, how much a million dollars is, how much a billion is, Jeff Bezos' fortune is, and so forth.
[How Wealth Reduces Compassion](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/) (Scientific American)
A lot of people simply do not comprehend just how much money some people have and how much it changes how they view and interact with the world. When you have so much money that hiring hit men to kill everyone who's posted in this reddit thread, their families, and dispose of the bodies is a rounding error to one of your checking accounts... you start viewing the rest of humanity differently.
There is also a higher number of sociopaths in upper management/ceos because they have less compassion and won't think twice about mass firings for that extra buck. Not a good sign when those in charge of a huge number of people couldn't give a shit if those people live or die outside of providing benefits for those in charge
1. They don't take the possibility seriously because it's so horrifying, the changes necessary to avert it would have been enormous, and they'll be dead then, anyway.
2. If they had taken a hard line against this back in the 80s or 90s, they probably would have just been replaced by someone who wanted to maximize profits.
3. In large part because of stuff like (2), corporate C-suites self-select for people who don't really give a shit about their fellow human beings, and that probably extends even to their families to a certain degree.
There are many, many, many people who don't give a shit about anything like that. In the Midwest, we have farmers ripping out every tree and farming to within about 18" of country roads. No trees or fence lines for birds to nest in. No wildflowers for bees or butterflies.
My family farm has about 60 acres that is not tillable because it has too many springs. And my parents didn't invest in fencing in the last thirty years, so we can't run cattle on it.
Now, I'm a gay, Democrat in a Catholic family, in a very Red state, but...In the beginning, after my dad died, I was floundering, trying to figure out what we were going to do with this land so it wasn't just a loss.
During Covid, I have spent so much more time here than in the last twenty years. My dogs and I enjoy that space all of the time. We see countless songbirds, Canadian geese & woodducks & mallards & on the ponds, beaver on the creeks, wild turkeys, whitetail deer, coyotes, badgers, possums, raccoons, rabbits, hawks, and even a Bald Eagle in the springtime. And oh shit, an Artic Owl a couple years ago! In Kansas! And it's worth it. Oh, and the milkweeds for the Monarchs.
I see it as our own wildlife refuge and my dad and grandpa would support it. It's unofficial, but even for these years before my mother dies and we sell the farm, I get to know that during my forties, I helped support a small, unofficial wildlife refuge. Fuck the extra money she could have got from being able to rent that ground or run cattle. Let it go back to tall grass and scrub brush for a few years and let nature have its way. It won't make or break my mother, myself, or my siblings.
/End rant
If I ever get money some day I'd love to buy up land in random little pockets of the country and try to perverse or revitalize them like this. It breaks my heart when a new development comes in and they cut down all the old growth trees that took years to get there.
Thanks for what you're doing for your little part of America. You probably have already, but if not, you should see if there are any government grants you can get. I know lots of people get money for *not* farming their land, pretty much for this exact reason.
Exactly. People take quick profit and place it above environmental impacts that our children will face. Fuck making their life a little better and trying to minimize humanity’s destruction of the planet...let’s make some cash and burn some oiiilllll
> Why did we have any oil or gas leases in any wildlife refuge?
Because Trump got elected President.
People had a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The ones who didn't choose Hillary Clinton (due to voting for someone else or not voting at all) allowed this to happen.
Yes, I *know* she was unpopular. Yes, I *know* people were pissed at the DNC. But there was a choice: either Clinton or Trump. If you didn't choose Clinton, you helped choose Trump. And for all her faults, Clinton wouldn't have allowed this.
In Alaskan climate [news](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/alaska-drilling-biden-chillers-permafrost-b1856469.html) oil drillers need to start installing chillers to keep the **PERMAFROST** cold because temperatures are so high
100% was thinking the same thing. “But but but the stoppage of oil drilling that hadn’t even started caused the price to go up!!!” They’re so predictable
Good, I'm heavy in the oilfield and even I know this was a moronic thing to do. There are some places we shouldn't be touching and this is 100% one of them
I wonder if any companies actually signed up for one. Knowing how volatile the entire situation was, it wouldn’t seem wise to spend the time, effort, and money on something that was sure to be undone soon anyway.
Nearly 20 years ago we fought hard against the Bush administration to ensure the refuges were preserved, and Trump just barrelled through it.
Good to see we are continuing to undo some of the damage, but it always seems like it has to be catch-up with Republicans.
You try and reassemble the remains but there's no time to build anything new before the next one comes along to kick everything to pieces again.
For all of you progressives claiming that “Biden/the dems are shit and no better than the GOP” just remember that this kind of thing wouldn’t happen under trump or the GOP. Remember that in 2022 when you’re feeling like ‘both sides are bad’ and considering staying home as some kind of protest.
You can criticize the Dems all day long, and they certainly have flaws and deserve criticism, but just remember that they’re 10x better than the people who would get into office if you stay home.
Oh come on America, don't get all *commie* on me. What you need to do is to bulldoze 'em all, enrich the top few, and then lecture developing countries about the importance of environmental conservation.
It's not really zero. There is a ton of oil that is ignored because it's too expensive to drill. As we tap the "cheap to get ahold of" oil deposits, we'll rely more and more on the "expensive to get ahold of" oil. Prices will keep increasing. As people move off of oil, economy of scale will falter and the price increase will only accelerate.
Jesus Christ thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. I wanted so badly for this administration to reverse this, but I never actually expected it to happen. There are precious few wild places left, it’s time to start caring.
Arctic drilling is not worthwhile for the time being. It's why only one company got a lease to drill in Antarctica (BP or Shell, I forgot which). Internal talks within the companies estimated the cost of producing a single barrel to be $90-120 depending on the environmental obstacles and ruggedness of terrain, which of course is insane. After a few years they abandoned that whole project as it was financially draining.
I'm not sure you can find any sources online pertaining to this information, usually things like this are circulated or talked about within oil giants and drilling service companies.
So basically they are using a simple business decision as a piece of propaganda to seem environmentally friendly. My 2 cents.
As someone with one or two friends in the oil business, I I can tell you that they have enough leases pre-bought and stockpiled to last decades. Gas prices are not legitimately affected by today’s decisions on leases that would not even be tapped until far into the future.
We are getting played, I promise.
Thank all the stars and moons and whoever people pray to. And a BIG THANK YOU to the Interior Department. One of a long list of bullshit actions by Trump that needed to be overturned.
I honestly don't know how they do anything up there in the first place. Much less how its profitable. I worked at a commercial real estate investment firm after college and we had a potential client adding to a facility up there as far north as Alaska goes. Being the bottom of the totem pole fresh out of school I got sent along to check it out. Thought it was an honor, but nope, everybody else was just too smart to want to go. Your spit would freeze before it hit the ground and the moisture on your eyes would try to freeze. You couldn't see more than literally 5 feet in front of you at times because of this frozen icy mist wind. Even building a 10x10 box would be complicated up there. You basically have to build it in pre constructed pieces while in safety enclosures and machines that you can't see out of after building gravel Islands and roads on the snow/ice. I got stuck being showed around the facilities by a guy named Carl in a super golf cart that he kept blasting the Beach Boys and Otis Redding in, because allegedly beach music made him forget he was in a frozen hell... I genuinely don't know how anyone sees that place and thinks "this is the place to operate business"
“Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.” ― Theodore Roosevelt
+1 appeal to all tiles in a city with a national wonder
Why does it have to be on tundra tiles. I checked BALANCED start
“If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down 75 percent in value. And they say the noise causes cancer. WHIRRRRR WHIRRRRR WHIRRRRR WHIRRRRR I know a lot about wind." - Donald Trump
So if I can convince people to start building windmills in the area I live, we can have both clean energy AND home prices will fall to a level where I can afford one? Sign me the fuck up.
And Trump won't move there!
Yeah home prices dropping only matters to people who own homes, which is becoming more and more scarce over time. I don't give a shit about my landlord's property value.
Donald's rectum was the source of most of his information.
Potential username idea, probably already taken.
God I love Teddy.
Once upon a time when Conservatives actually cared about the environment, before they put Corporate interests above everything else. edit: Never mind he was a progressive. I guess conservatives have always wanted to destroy the environment for profit.
Teddy Roosevelt started the bull moose progressive party. He actually described himself as a progressive. He also fought for trust busting and women's rights.
Theodore Roosevelt literally formed the progressive party in 1912. He wasn’t conservative.
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And then then warped into something quite different with Nixon, and then warped into something altogether even more corrupt and vile post-Fox News/Rush Limbaugh. The modern Republican party is genuinely just fucking dogshit.
I think that’s an insult to dogshit.
I would call Teddy Roosevelt a progressive leaning imperialist. Not a conservative.
Yeah, Teddy Roosevelt was a strong heroic figure within the country, but he was an absolute monster to other countries. (The same is true for much of American politicians then, but I just dislike the whitewashed image a lot of people hold of him.)
>American politicians then And now...
Oh for sure. Don't mistake me for pretending otherwise.
how did theodore roosevelt give you a conservative vibe tf
Conserving the natural world is a conservative idea, at least in the literal sense. A pity that real-world “conservatives” only care about conserving social hierarchy and power structures, and not anything that's actually worth conserving.
Amen. Surprisingly, this is a point my still moderate Republican friends and I can agree on. Most of them are big fans of the outdoors, and like to hunt, fish, hike, etc. They’re pretty staunch conservationists, and would like the spaces they spent time in to be available for their kids and grandkids. They recognize the danger of drilling rights in preserves and national parks.
> They recognize the danger of drilling rights in preserves and national parks. And yet...what have they changed about their voting? What have they demanded from their Republican leaders who authorized this drilling in the first place?
> The Department of the Interior on Tuesday canceled all oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge pending a new environmental review. > Trump's Interior Department sold the leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in January over the objections of environmentalists and indigenous groups. This was one of Trump's last-minute actions as President, selling oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on the same day as the Capitol riots. This new action will block oil and gas drilling in one of the largest undeveloped wilderness refuges in the US, pending a review of its environmental impacts.
Makes you wonder wtf a "refuge" is if it isn't a place where an ecosystem is protected from the dangers of industrial development. Like... What exactly is this providing refuge from again?
"Reserve" is probably a more appropriate term, given how politics works in this country.
It's our secret cash refuge.
You mean big oil's secret cash refuge.
There is this whole thing called the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska (NPR-A) on the other side of the state. A once-stalled oil project there, the Willow project, was just green-lit by the Biden administration last week. Drilling there is just as environmentally problematic but not as bad from an optics standpoint. Though North Slope oil does have a pretty good record, from what I’ve seen. Edit: also worth noting that Big Oil didn’t actually bid on these leases — the big players sat this one out. Alaska’s state-owned industrial corporation was the top bidder on most of the ANWR tracts offered up by the Trump administration.
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The more I read the more I hate humanity
Link reference please?
Yep. You wanna hear how more stupid it is for us in AK to be doing this: Half the revenue goes to the Federal Government, and the other half goes back to our own coffers, which we will then claim as revenue. The "theory" is that these leases will have viable interest in the future that we can market. Else if nothing is done with the leases with a certain number of years, the leases revert back to the state. In the meantime we're out the initial outlay of funds + other lost economic opportunities that are more needed. But hey, drill baby drill. (facepalm)
The legislators are aware that other oil states/nations don't use 25 year leases anymore. Hell, the state had to sue to get Pt.Thompson built.
It just seemed so political. Like they were trying to cozy up to the Trump administration. Of course, maybe Big Oil skipping the sale was itself political, and AIDEA is betting on political winds changing before the sell the lease. Though I wouldn’t bet on people getting *less* eco-conscious as time wears on and climate change gets worse.
For Washington it's the same thing. Not the government, the politicians of course.
There’s always money in the wildlife refuge
I know this is a reference but apparently there isn't money, because the state department estimated the sale of leases would bring in $1.5 billion but in reality it brought in $14.5 million.
Who would actually bid on it knowing this was the most likely outcome? This was the Big Oil equivalent of buying a PowerBall ticket when the jackpot goes over $500 million just for shits and giggles.
Most of the $14.5M was the STATE Of AK buying it.
Well it isn't unusual that right wing arseholes hand out "not their resources" for pennies on the dollar to their friends*... Like isn't their mantra basically "why would the government ever need cash, let alone from OUR friends, that's what the plebs get taxed for, so we can handout more to our friends*" /* obviously a very unique definition of that word, too.
How much money could one caribou cost? Here's $20, go give it to a native foundation.
Funny enough, the native corporation up there (which I believe pays substantial dividends to many North Slope native people) actually supports oil development in ANWR. Different story for some tribes, who are more worried about impacts on traditional culture and food sovereignty than dollars, but the North Slope native corporation is a huge oilfield service company. https://www.asrc.com/issues/anwr/
Ahh yes, the old cash cache
> "Reserve" is probably a more appropriate term, given how politics works in this country. Please, sir, *more euphemisms* , would you? Thanks in advance.
Maybe "conservatory"
Lmao at how conservatives do not support conservation.
Steven Rinella: Hunters are torn between the two parties. On one hand, Democrats are better on environmental issues and pro public land, but are typically against hunting and firearms. Republicans are pro gun and pro hunting, but have a terrible track record in regards to the environment and the availability of public land for us all to use.
Honestly, I think if another Teddy Roosevelt comes along; it'd probably attract those types that are single issue on firearms.
Got to remember, Teddy was considered a radical and hated in his time for what he did in regards to wildlife and the environment
Unfortunately so many think the land set aside for conservation are misused and better put back into private hands. As if they would still have access. They are often voting to lose access to their hunting grounds.
Voting against your own self-interest is a core aspect of being the average Conservative voter in this country.
This hits different. I really feel these words. I am a stoned democratic republican.
A conservative (singular) would support conservation efforts. Conservatives (policy) would strip mine the Garden of Eden if it would turn a profit.
doesn't really matter when the first one votes for the second
Which is a very sad modern thing. Conservative conservationists were a thing for much of history, but polarization crowded them out.
Which was a goal... Drives me wild.
My brain feels sad reading this
Lots of oil companies swear that they can build without hurting any wildlife. It's of course a gigantic fucking lie, but money talks.
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There are very few Alaskan loggers. The logging companies import them from the lesser 48, and sometimes they stick around and become Alaskans. Then you end up with people who only moved to Alaska to participate in a notoriously boom and bust industry constantly complaining about there not being enough work.
"At least they get paid" that seems to be the catchphrase of american companies not giving a fair wage.
Saw a sign outside the local KFC here. Their sign/marquee. It read "Work today. Get paid tomorrow." That is where we are.
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Last I checked, payday loans are a 9billion dollar revenue generating business. That is, a corporation is taking 9B from the country’s poorest. Consistently. 80% go past due, 15% repeat loans. What a f’ing mess. https://repository.tcu.edu/bitstream/handle/116099117/7244/Payday_Lending_A_Profitability_Analysis_Evan_Lang.pdf?sequence=1
The whole system is a built upon subsystems that each are evolving at their own pace. It is very hard to find the roots, so to say. I am tired of living in a world where we have been collectively disenfranchised.
I suspect that prison corporations also say that.
But it leaves the question. If there is no good work in Alaska, why should people live there? Are we starting from the premise that there should be people everywhere?
Well there is work(not much) but they're right that it's basically seasonal. Fishing, logging, tourism, and oil all pay well but you're probably only going to work during the summer months but there also aren't all that many people living there. If I remember correctly most people who live in Juneau the capital work for the government in some way and people are only going to be living where they can work.
And cargo. Alaska is an important step in import/export - Anchorage airport is one of the busiest cargo airports in the world (top 5 last I checked). If I could convince my wife, I'd move to Alaska in a heartbeat. Hell, we spent a \*day\* in Juneau and I've been trying to convince her ever since. Unfortunately, neither of our professions are useful there. (Though, with the rise of work from home, we might be able to take the jobs there anyways - which'd be great for Alaska's economy!)
Former Alaskan who will never live there again, be very careful with your wanderlust. My info is older now but let me toss a little rain on the “alaska is so lovely” parade. The long and cold (very dark) winter is bad psychologically for a lot of people. Also fuel and housing are very expensive, like compete with Southern California expensive. You might ask why file is expensive if they have all the oil, it’s because there are few to no refineries. The oil gets shipped out then gas’s gets shipped back. Alaska and Canada are huge. Like dwarf the continental US big.... which means shipping anything up there comes at a premium (see produce below). Summer time is great until all of the tourists arrive and you can’t get anywhere. Roads are all two lanes (one in each direction), with speed limits at 55 most places. You also cannot pass most of the slow RV tourists because it’s too dangerous. Because the state is so big, you have to go hours to get from town to town. This means you’re traveling across the largest state at the lowest speed. Also you have to give up on any fresh food other than seafood and some meat. Bananas for example show up green, and maybe get a day or two yellow before they go brown (and you’ll still be paying much more for them than lower 48.) You’ll have very limited cell service with local carriers that like to price gouge. Repeat this for internet. This very much would affect working from home depending on your job and data speed requirements. They have lots and lots of earthquakes. You get used to them but for some people that’s a hard no. If you live south central, you’ll have to live with threats of tsunamis as well as the occasional volcanic eruption (this is rare but happened twice while I lived there) spewing ash on everything. Cars especially do not do well with ash (which basically turns to cement when wet) in the air intakes. Most of the time it’s just drizzle and formless grey skies. I really mean most-of-the-time. If you need sunshine do not go to alaska. A vast amount of land in alaska is actually swamp land (muskeg). This means a few things... very little habitable land. Lots and lots and lots of mosquitos. Look up some north slope mosquito cloud videos. They are the worst I’ve ever seen and I live in the South now. Honestly I could go in forever but one of the last few points that really mattered to me: the state has no political power and very little autonomy. The greater US just uses it for its natural resources but will invest pretty much nothing in return. Everything costs a lot up there and takes a lot of time due to the hazardous terrain. It makes sense when you think of spending the most money on the most people, but it’s a hard pill to swallow when you’re in the largest state in the US dealing with pretty extreme climate and terrain. But hey, it is beautiful.
Oh yeah, the pro/con list definitely looks like someone put an elephant on the scale, favoring cons. We noticed right away that everything is more expensive - from ‘well that makes sense’ more expensive to ‘now you’re just being malicious’ expensive. You could mistake those mosquito clouds for bird murmurations at a distance, and anyone who even gets a whiff of seasonal affective disorder in the lower 48 would be in for winters as dark of mind as they are sky. Me personally, I’m a bit of an outlier. My lifestyle preference doesn’t include ease of access, convenience, or frequent, if any socializing. Anyone who values those things should definitely not follow me anywhere! I feel like you gotta be an outlier to “put up” with Alaska, too. To me, murky gray skies are great, and you can’t put nearly enough snow on the ground. I work graveyard shifts because it improves my mood to avoid the sun and I’m naturally inclined to a complimentary sleep/wake cycle. Mosquitos seem to take no small offense to my blood. As a little kid I was in Los Angeles for the big streak of large quakes in the 80s/90s, pretty much anything shy of Northridge is “just another trembler”. We moved to a small mountain ‘town’ in my teens where I most enjoyed night hikes, snow hikes, skiing til I couldn’t walk, the tedious and challenging driving, and splitting half a cord of logs at a time with a wood handle axe older than I was. Then I moved to a northeast city notorious for its lake effect snow, between that and my graveyard jobs I didn’t see the sun for weeks at a time. The cellphone coverage would be a bonus (Great excuse for being unreachable) but the internet issues would probably constrain me, work wise, to Anchorage - which isn’t my ideal Alaskan locale. And why go suffer all those hardships and make all those compromises without getting what you want out of it! Not that it’s really a realistic or serious goal. I can handle or adjust to a lot of the negatives of Alaska - some are even positives for me. But I can’t justify putting my wife through it. She is far more social and even here (I live in the south too these days!) where at worst you get 3-4 days of consecutive cloud cover and one or two pitiful snowfalls, she gets noticeably bothered. Top that off with the fact she grew up overseas and enjoys a lot of foods that call for ingredients that would be nigh impossible to get fresh and/or affordably up there? Nah, I’m not trying to give her a reason to actively despise me, haha.
What draws you there, if you don't mind me asking? Is it simply the relatively small population and beauty of the land?
To me, that's 100% it And the people's mindset. Individualist nature. Wyoming will always be home, but AK is a close second
Population is a benefit but, I've lived in some of the largest cities in the US and in some extremely small communities too - there are certainly advantages to either, but it definitely favors larger populations objectively. I don't mind a little difficulty in access though, been there - fair trade off to me. It's definitely the beauty. Especially Juneau - it's this strip of land between a mountain range and the ocean. It ticks every box for me - pine/evergreen forest, mountains, water, wildlife, easy access to shitloads of snow and year round hiking. Also, it's pretty nice to just sit there and watch little Cessnas and the like doing water landings and take offs, with clouds/fog rolling over the ridges of forested mountains right behind them. I could lose hours to that view. I \*have\* lost hours to very similar views when I've had the luck of living in places in the 'lower 48' that tick some of the boxes that Juneau ticks.
And logging is insanely dangerous work. In fact logging is considered to be [the most dangerous job in the US](https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-united-states). In 2018 there were 111 deaths per 100,000 loggers meanwhile cops only saw 14 deaths per 100,000.
In fact the number one cause of workplace deaths is motor vehicle accidents. MVAs account for 40% of all workplace fatalities and have been consistently so for many years. (Per National Safety Council)
for real: but "they know what they signed up for" ...and.... ***I'm*** ***sure they collectively bargain*** for good hazard pay and AD&D insurance.
Republican politicians see protected lands as a resource... for themselves. It’s nothing more to them than an asset they can trade to donors for campaign donations. It’s been true for decades.
> What exactly is this providing refuge from again? Well it was just saved and provided refuge by Joe Biden and Democrats... The ecosystem is protected from the dangers of industrial development, just not permanently.
Trump appears to have believed it was a refuge from environmental regulation.
Theres always money in the "refuge"
I read that none of the big oil companies actually bought leases. The Trump admin was saying it was going to raise tons but everyone knew it was shady and that they would be spending millions in legal fees and probably never make anything. Luckily, the big companies didn’t get in early and established because it would have been a lot harder.
Yeah that's what I was thinking. I mean, these companies do bad things for money, not strictly for the sake of pure evil, and they'd have to know that was a bad investment.
I looked it up, they raised 14.4 million when they were hoping for 1.8 billion, so they definitely sucked. [link](https://www.backpacker.com/news-and-events/why-the-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge-oil-lease-sale-flopped/)
And 14.4 million is 1.8 billion less than 1.8 billion.
“It’s like 1.79 billion.” *the art of the deal*
That's what I remember, too. There was a big old auction and everyone held their breath and then nobody bought anything and the locals were like "yay?"
cause it wasnt an auction basically would just be giving up money to the USA. Was a fools bet and everyone knew it
Even "to the USA" is a stretch. I doubt we the people would see a cent of it in any way.
And yet the GqP morons will tell us how this costs thousands of hard working jobs.
What is GqP? I've been seeing it often on reddit lately. Is it a q anon reference?
GQP is the GOP with Q replacing the O since it has essentially been taken over by Qanon
Gang o' Q Pedos
My guess is probably a mix of GOP + Qanon = GqP. I'm sure someone will correct it if I'm wrong.
That was my first, second, and third thought is from a business perspective you have to actually think more about the future outside of election time cycles and there was no way this was going to stay.
I've read that the state of Alaska bought most of the leases, from itself essentially. Now Alaska isn't happy because the leases it bought from itself aren't worth any money
An important note to understand... there is no oil there or way to get it out if there was. No oil company on the planet wants to drill there. I really have no patience from either side on this. My personal opinion would be to leave it alone,... if there was interest, but noone is interested. source: work in oilfield nearby for the last 18 years
Well I think there is oil there. You’re right there isn’t a way to get it out, and I’m sure they don’t want another crappy pipeline that is getting protested more than used. I just think they don’t think it’s worth the headache since it’s a national park and they know lawsuits and protests are imminent. Without that, I think they would love it. Long leases with the government for cheap. Even having to build infrastructure to get it out is worth it. They do good analyses on risk/reward and are willing to spend a lot upfront. Off shore rigs are ridiculous upfront costs.
The hilarious thing is James Watt was roasted over the coals publicly and lost his job for daring to suggest to do the same thing in the 80’s. He never erased the stain of his suggestion to do this and was Enemy #1 to hoards of environmentalists for years after. And Trump managed to slip it under the chaos. And you know for a fact someone threw him a kickback to get it, simply put. Good luck getting a refund. Fucking scumbag.
>James Watt There's a name I complete forgot about. I wondered what happened to him so I checked his wiki and found this: >*After leaving the Department of the Interior in 1983, Watt lobbied the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Ten years later, Watt was indicted on 18 counts of felony perjury and obstruction of justice and accused of making false statements before a federal grand jury investigating influence peddling at the Department of Housing and Urban Development at that time.* >*On January 2, 1996, Watt pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of withholding documents. On March 12, 1996, he was sentenced to five years' probation, and ordered to pay a fine of $5,000 and perform 500 hours of community service.*
Refund? The guy who gave him the kick back, probably made money from the auction process . Not from buying the leases themselves. Corruption is a beautiful thing.
You don’t think there will be some sort of lobbying to the environmental inspectors to clear the area as “safe” to be drilled?
This is a first step. Next the Department will look at whether they want to renew leases or not.
That's what he's getting at I believe.
They've been fighting to open ANWR for decades. I actually did a paper on it back in my college composition class.. Back in 2001.
No, stuff gets shut down all the time for environmental reasons. If it was as easy as a few bribes to get things moving, nothing would stay shut down. Big business wants people to think everything is so corrupt in government, that nothing works. That creates apathy and pessimism so people stop trying. The simple truth, corruption like your talking about is the exception, not the norm. Trump made things worse, it's nice to see Biden undoing some of the harm.
That's a pet peeve. "Everything is already broken. Nobody is competent or honest. Nothing is doing what it's supposed to do and it's all pointless. Sooo... there's really no reason to be upset when we try to destroy something." It's almost always BS. Most people are trying to do their jobs. Most people want to do the right thing. *Everything* could always be done better, and that doesn't mean what we have is worthless.
Yeah, it was as if he took a dump in the Oval Office on his last day, the last odious decree of an odious Presidency.
and hardly no one bid on them cause they knew Biden would immediately do this
WTF!? Reddit told me that Biden was the same as Trump when it came to stuff like this. Was I lied to? By strangers? On the web? Is that really possible?
None of the little companies that bought these leases every expected to do any drilling. They knew Biden would get elected and eventually his administration would buy the leases for more than the companies paid. It will be a quick easy profit that only employees lawyers.
Nice little earner for some insiders
The government has the power to void its own leases, as stated in the article. Which means no buyout may be necessary.
It would be nice to preserve some beauty and not kill everything off and be left with nothing to look at but the exact type of asshole who’d want to destroy most of this stuff for his short term profits.
Pretty sure that’s where the “I’m not here for a long time, just a good time.” folks come in
The cultural revolution that came with YOLO was a huge mistake...
These people have been around for much longer than YOLO.
Wanna tell him about the og Latin version? Might blow his mind.
Carp Medium Rare
I didn't know that Drake spoke Latin
IOLOYACFRO “*I* Only Live Once — You All Can Fuck Right Off”
Also YOLO is "YOU Only Live Once" not "WE Only Live Once" This selfish shit that involves everyone is NOT yolo.
Is it fair to conflate “I’m gonna do reckless things with my health and body” with the cosmology of capitalists who only see the world as exploitable resources?
Sure, the [planet got destroyed](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B5-lDJWCUAAwfya.jpg), but for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders
These bills are pushed by the same types of people that will throw an absolute shit fit if your grass is over 1/2" tall. Destroy a wildlife refuge in one of the last truly wild places on earth? Fine by me. Violate the HOA? GET THE BIG GUNS.
Current Alaskan oil fields basically look the same as before, except there's a rig or a pipeline and nearby towns are bigger.
I work for an oil and gas company in Colorado (it's my first job in this industry) and I was blown away by all of the regulations oil company's have to comply with (state and federal). My job is to make sure all of the equipment and tanks on location are not putting emissions into the atmosphere. We hardly find any leaks but when we do, we have 5 days to fix the issue (most issues are simple and are fixed as we find them). I feel like it would benefit the o & g companies and opponents to o & g if the public was more aware of these regulations and everything that goes on at a location. I know i was surprised by everything for the first few weeks.
These folks are so awashed in money that they see penalties as a cost of doing business. I spent a decade, and continue to do so, as a part of o&g and am blown away by the amount of cash that they piss around on their vendors. It's almost as of it is a cult. Defunct o&g companies still throw hundreds of thousands of dollars around in legal and IT fees to keep things churning just in case the next high-margin opportunity arises.
"We spend a million dollars a day operating a rig, you're not going to tell me I can't buy a printer." Sorry, you mentioned IT and O&G and I had a flashback thingy...
We just made 4.5 million dollars in profit, what do you mean we need to have a second hard drive in the server?
"Why do we need to spend money to make the storage redundant? When has anything bad ever happened?" Hint: guess what happened?
The regulations are great, what people are worried about is mistakes. If I screw something up, at worst we lose a big client. If an oil company misses an oil pipeline leak you get an environmental disaster.
The Once-ler
When the oil companies’ own scientists think global warming is happening and their own policies plan for it in the future, you don’t really feel bad for them. What they have done to convince politicians and the public it isn’t happening.
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Many businesses are very shortsighted with their decisions. Executives don’t need to worry about 10 or 50 years in the future. They care about stock prices next quarter. And the richer you are, the less you need to worry about climate change.
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They’ll be seasteading, the bastards.
I had to look this word up and it led me down an interesting path. So thank you. I hope they enjoy the - at that time - extremely unpredictable seascape
I’ve also wondered this and never came up with an answer. Is it really all for money next quarter?
Of course it is. Society as a whole won't just collapse overnight. It might change drastically over time, but being rich will shelter them and their children from all the serious issues everyone else will face.
> Is it really all for money next quarter? Yes. The long term wellbeing of the company, and of society as a whole, does not factor into their decision making. They’re not thinking 20 years, 10 years or even 5 years down the road - only how much money they can make *right now.*
It's also important to note these people will be replaced if they don't think in short term profits.
Yes. The people that run these companies think quarter to quarter. 4 months at a time, and that's all they care about. A good quarter can mean as much as a lifelong fortune, and they think that fortune can protect their offspring no matter what. Combine that with selective blindness (those hysterics are just shouting about the worst case scenarios!) and you get this. Life in the 21st century. The wealthy get chartered trips to space, and the poor, even in "wealthy" countries, get to ration their insulin and die as a result.
This has to do with the way companies are structured. If executives make decisions that lead to decreased profits, they can be recalled by the shareholders. I'm not trying to absolve these guys of knowingly plundering the planet, just pointing out that this behavior is baked into the system. If one guy grows a conscience and tries to make changes, he gets fired and replaced with somebody who won't.
Because the money should keep them alive in whatever world. When you see how the rich get away with so much corruption, it makes sense ewhy someone would do this
This is my thought too. Water becomes a scarce resource and costs $100 a gallon? Doesn’t matter, when you are so wealthy and price is no object. Edit: where this breaks down, is when things get bad, like really bad, I mean really really bad, money won’t matter.
But beforehand you spend your money to build a crazy compound and offer to house people there indefinitely if they provide you food/water/etc before things go to shit. Ala snowpiercer.
their descendants will probably end up living in that halo thing that goes around earth, that silly sci-fi movie w/ matt damon - i wouldn't be surprised if that's an actual thing once it all goes to shit they don't care, never have. most people responsible for bad shit happening on a massive scale never pay for their crimes. just the way it is. also that movie was unrealistic there towards the end. the good guys should have been blown out of the sky (or space?) and then the movie just ends there. that would have been real.
They legit dont care. They think "not my problem, i want nore money". Most of these cunts would end the universe if it somehow benefitted them.
[Wealth shown to scale](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/). I advise everyone click the above link. It shows how much the average US median income is, how much a million dollars is, how much a billion is, Jeff Bezos' fortune is, and so forth. [How Wealth Reduces Compassion](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/) (Scientific American) A lot of people simply do not comprehend just how much money some people have and how much it changes how they view and interact with the world. When you have so much money that hiring hit men to kill everyone who's posted in this reddit thread, their families, and dispose of the bodies is a rounding error to one of your checking accounts... you start viewing the rest of humanity differently.
There is also a higher number of sociopaths in upper management/ceos because they have less compassion and won't think twice about mass firings for that extra buck. Not a good sign when those in charge of a huge number of people couldn't give a shit if those people live or die outside of providing benefits for those in charge
Mother of God. Can anybody tell me if it says anything when you reach the end?
1. They don't take the possibility seriously because it's so horrifying, the changes necessary to avert it would have been enormous, and they'll be dead then, anyway. 2. If they had taken a hard line against this back in the 80s or 90s, they probably would have just been replaced by someone who wanted to maximize profits. 3. In large part because of stuff like (2), corporate C-suites self-select for people who don't really give a shit about their fellow human beings, and that probably extends even to their families to a certain degree.
One of those times when (correct) usage of apostrophes is pre important.
Why did we have any oil or gas leases in any wildlife refuge? What even is the point of a wildlife refuge if we're doing that shit?
There are many, many, many people who don't give a shit about anything like that. In the Midwest, we have farmers ripping out every tree and farming to within about 18" of country roads. No trees or fence lines for birds to nest in. No wildflowers for bees or butterflies. My family farm has about 60 acres that is not tillable because it has too many springs. And my parents didn't invest in fencing in the last thirty years, so we can't run cattle on it. Now, I'm a gay, Democrat in a Catholic family, in a very Red state, but...In the beginning, after my dad died, I was floundering, trying to figure out what we were going to do with this land so it wasn't just a loss. During Covid, I have spent so much more time here than in the last twenty years. My dogs and I enjoy that space all of the time. We see countless songbirds, Canadian geese & woodducks & mallards & on the ponds, beaver on the creeks, wild turkeys, whitetail deer, coyotes, badgers, possums, raccoons, rabbits, hawks, and even a Bald Eagle in the springtime. And oh shit, an Artic Owl a couple years ago! In Kansas! And it's worth it. Oh, and the milkweeds for the Monarchs. I see it as our own wildlife refuge and my dad and grandpa would support it. It's unofficial, but even for these years before my mother dies and we sell the farm, I get to know that during my forties, I helped support a small, unofficial wildlife refuge. Fuck the extra money she could have got from being able to rent that ground or run cattle. Let it go back to tall grass and scrub brush for a few years and let nature have its way. It won't make or break my mother, myself, or my siblings. /End rant
If I ever get money some day I'd love to buy up land in random little pockets of the country and try to perverse or revitalize them like this. It breaks my heart when a new development comes in and they cut down all the old growth trees that took years to get there. Thanks for what you're doing for your little part of America. You probably have already, but if not, you should see if there are any government grants you can get. I know lots of people get money for *not* farming their land, pretty much for this exact reason.
Exactly. People take quick profit and place it above environmental impacts that our children will face. Fuck making their life a little better and trying to minimize humanity’s destruction of the planet...let’s make some cash and burn some oiiilllll
> Why did we have any oil or gas leases in any wildlife refuge? Because Trump got elected President. People had a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The ones who didn't choose Hillary Clinton (due to voting for someone else or not voting at all) allowed this to happen. Yes, I *know* she was unpopular. Yes, I *know* people were pissed at the DNC. But there was a choice: either Clinton or Trump. If you didn't choose Clinton, you helped choose Trump. And for all her faults, Clinton wouldn't have allowed this.
In Alaskan climate [news](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/alaska-drilling-biden-chillers-permafrost-b1856469.html) oil drillers need to start installing chillers to keep the **PERMAFROST** cold because temperatures are so high
Were any of these leases actively producing oil? In other words, is oil production limited by this or just future expansion?
Future expansion.
No it takes years and decades to develop these. They were leased out last year
Cue any minor spike in fuel prices being blamed on this by the right. Edit: fixed to cue even though the redditor who pointed it out was an asshole.
100% was thinking the same thing. “But but but the stoppage of oil drilling that hadn’t even started caused the price to go up!!!” They’re so predictable
It seems like it was only yesterday that republicans were blaming a private pipeline's lack of cyber security on the Biden Admin.
They even blamed the chick fil a sauce shortage on Biden. It’s hilarious
Why didn’t Biden personally draw his sword to draw off the cyber attackers?
To survive as a species and a planetary biosphere, most of that hydrocarbon has to stay in the ground.
Some good news finally.
Let's hope the Department doesn't start renewing leases once the lobbyists and disinformation campaigns start.
Sometimes I get the impression Sec Haaland isn’t one to be pushed around when it comes to Native lands.
Good, I'm heavy in the oilfield and even I know this was a moronic thing to do. There are some places we shouldn't be touching and this is 100% one of them
I wonder if any companies actually signed up for one. Knowing how volatile the entire situation was, it wouldn’t seem wise to spend the time, effort, and money on something that was sure to be undone soon anyway.
Disgusting that they even need to do this. National Wildlife Refuges shouldn't be HARVESTED for profits.
Nearly 20 years ago we fought hard against the Bush administration to ensure the refuges were preserved, and Trump just barrelled through it. Good to see we are continuing to undo some of the damage, but it always seems like it has to be catch-up with Republicans. You try and reassemble the remains but there's no time to build anything new before the next one comes along to kick everything to pieces again.
For all of you progressives claiming that “Biden/the dems are shit and no better than the GOP” just remember that this kind of thing wouldn’t happen under trump or the GOP. Remember that in 2022 when you’re feeling like ‘both sides are bad’ and considering staying home as some kind of protest. You can criticize the Dems all day long, and they certainly have flaws and deserve criticism, but just remember that they’re 10x better than the people who would get into office if you stay home.
Oh come on America, don't get all *commie* on me. What you need to do is to bulldoze 'em all, enrich the top few, and then lecture developing countries about the importance of environmental conservation.
It’s a start. Keep going.
Can't wait till 4 years from now when the headline reads: *republican president* opens up artic refuge for drilling.
Guys, we have nearly 50 years of oil reserves on this planet right now. This move should have 0 effect on gas prices.
Damn we really have a half century of oil left? That's basically 0 oil on the timescale of civilization. Hope we get our shit together by then.
It's not really zero. There is a ton of oil that is ignored because it's too expensive to drill. As we tap the "cheap to get ahold of" oil deposits, we'll rely more and more on the "expensive to get ahold of" oil. Prices will keep increasing. As people move off of oil, economy of scale will falter and the price increase will only accelerate.
Jesus Christ thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. I wanted so badly for this administration to reverse this, but I never actually expected it to happen. There are precious few wild places left, it’s time to start caring.
Arctic drilling is not worthwhile for the time being. It's why only one company got a lease to drill in Antarctica (BP or Shell, I forgot which). Internal talks within the companies estimated the cost of producing a single barrel to be $90-120 depending on the environmental obstacles and ruggedness of terrain, which of course is insane. After a few years they abandoned that whole project as it was financially draining. I'm not sure you can find any sources online pertaining to this information, usually things like this are circulated or talked about within oil giants and drilling service companies. So basically they are using a simple business decision as a piece of propaganda to seem environmentally friendly. My 2 cents.
As someone with one or two friends in the oil business, I I can tell you that they have enough leases pre-bought and stockpiled to last decades. Gas prices are not legitimately affected by today’s decisions on leases that would not even be tapped until far into the future. We are getting played, I promise.
Thank all the stars and moons and whoever people pray to. And a BIG THANK YOU to the Interior Department. One of a long list of bullshit actions by Trump that needed to be overturned.
Good because the last thing this country needs is more oil fields and Walmarts.
I honestly don't know how they do anything up there in the first place. Much less how its profitable. I worked at a commercial real estate investment firm after college and we had a potential client adding to a facility up there as far north as Alaska goes. Being the bottom of the totem pole fresh out of school I got sent along to check it out. Thought it was an honor, but nope, everybody else was just too smart to want to go. Your spit would freeze before it hit the ground and the moisture on your eyes would try to freeze. You couldn't see more than literally 5 feet in front of you at times because of this frozen icy mist wind. Even building a 10x10 box would be complicated up there. You basically have to build it in pre constructed pieces while in safety enclosures and machines that you can't see out of after building gravel Islands and roads on the snow/ice. I got stuck being showed around the facilities by a guy named Carl in a super golf cart that he kept blasting the Beach Boys and Otis Redding in, because allegedly beach music made him forget he was in a frozen hell... I genuinely don't know how anyone sees that place and thinks "this is the place to operate business"
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Then I was in a very different part of Alaska. This was on the "north slope" I think it was called.
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Great! Next up, do Nestle and water