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« Responding to Climate Change
Excerpt from In Search of Environmental Excellence:
Moving Beyond Blame
by Bruce Piasecki and Peter Asmus
CHAPTER 3
A Global Greenhouse: Framing the Debate
Page 5 of 14
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The sensible response to the challenge is clear. To avoid the losses, America must get off its petrochemical treadmill.6 This means less oil, less coal, less waste.
Perhaps one of the most dramatic symbols of human arrogance toward the world's resources and a modern nation's need for energy security is Exxon's Epcot Pavilion in Orlando, Florida. A favorite tourist attraction for millions of people all over the world, Exxon's impressive display actually damns the human race.
Tourists are channeled into carriages "driven through time," starting with panoramic views of our favorite family dinosaurs. To add authenticity, visitors are informed that the smell of the prehistoric swamp that pervades the setting is a petrochemical developed by Exxon and manufactured exclusively for this special effect. The plants and dinosaurs, over time, decayed into the oil and coal that are the resources Exxon now utilizes.
As the visitors are shuffled along, they see a tiger — the corporate icon of Exxon — spinning the world by its paw. The subliminal message of the show, The Universe of Energy, is that through its clever capture of fossil fuels, Exxon has placed itself above the world. The cynical message of the program is underlined by the firm's breezy appropriation of nonpetrochemical-based fuels. The millions of tourists who view the slick presentation are told that they have been conveyed through this history of hydrocarbons by solar-powered carriages. Ironically, Exxon was the first oil company to abandon solar research in 1982.
Exxon has captured the history of the world as seen through a hydrocarbon lens, a narrow view that needs to be reexamined. Recent estimates show that global warming will not be stabilized until the year 2050, and that even this stabilization will require a fifty-percent reduction in current fossil fuel use.
A more familiar reminder of what we can no longer afford is Exxon's Valdez oil spill off the once-pristine Alaskan coast. This event dramatizes the blind trust in nature which still guides energy policies. Whether or not Joe Hazelwood, captain of the Valdez, was drunk when his ship crashed into Bligh Reef is not the real issue. The real issue is affordability.
On Friday, March 24, 1989, only four minutes after midnight, the Exxon Valdez, having strayed a mile and a half off course, ground its solid bottom over jagged rocks, and ripped multiple holes in its hull. Over 11 million gallons of crude hit the scenic Prince William Sound, just below Valdez, Alaska. This event continues to exact a toll from all of us. Twenty thousand birds — from thirty different species — were lost, including many of the once-familiar yellow-billed loons, which turned nightmarishly black. At least seven hundred Pacific sea otters and dozens of bald eagles also perished. Some wildlife biologists claim the actual fatality numbers may be five times higher. To say that ninety percent of the Kenai Fjords National Park Shoreland has been hit is only to recite a number; the true cost can only be appreciated when one sees the damage along the 240-mile coastline.
Captain Joseph Hazelwood's career has been marked by a stubborn streak which echoes the world's faith in fossil fuels. In his college yearbook he inscribed the motto: "It can't happen to me." This statement sums up the blind trust in nature that has governed the oil industry for far too long. The firm's simple arrogance, however disarming, is not new.
During the peak of the oil crisis in 1979, when Exxon posted the largest quarterly profit margin in corporate history — a 248-percent increase — Walter Kaufman, then president of Exxon, visited Cornell University. One individual in the crowd of demonstrators asked Kaufman, "What do you think about the fact that my grandmother in the Bronx can't afford your oil prices?" Kaufman responded: "I see no correlation between what I decide in the corporate boardroom and the fate of your grandmother."
Kaufman was wrong. Global warming shows that corporate decisions are inescapably intertwined with the fate of relatives, of neighboring nations, and of the global greenhouse we all share.7
The United States has played the major role in building the greenhouse effect. The reason is indisputable: we consume one-fourth of the world's energy. "People born in the U.S. between now and the year 2000 will give off more carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels than everyone born in the same time period in Latin America and Africa," notes Michael Totten, an aide to Representative Claudine Schneider. In a sense, our extravagant use of energy requires the tragedy of such events as the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
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Footnotes
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Getting off the petrochemical treadmill means a sustained and concentrated effort — a process of withdrawal, not a drunk man's dive. The change will not happen overnight. As California's efforts show, the trick is increasing the use of alternatives to fossil fuels. The state was once dependent upon fossil fuels for about eighty percent of its energy needs, but that percentage has almost been sliced in half, as safer substitutes have been found for about a third of the state's energy needs.
For more specific and technically detailed information about California and other states' efforts, see "State Energy Policies and Global Warming," by Peter Asmus and Bruce Piasecki, California Policy Choices (vol. 5) (Sacramento, Calif.: University of Southern California School of Public Administration, 1989). [« back]
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Despite our characterization of Exxon and other multi-national oil companies as preoccupied with a fossil-fuel future, the world's biggest oil company — Royal Dutch Shell — is a model of long-range planning, with a growing emphasis on incorporating environmental concerns into the picture. Royal Dutch Shell was the first to push unleaded gas and is experimenting with greater use of less polluting natural gas.
Unlike many of the oil companies who abandoned solar development in the 1980s, Mobil is still aggressively researching the use of photovoltaics for future utility use. At present, the firm produces the largest, most powerful flat-plate module in the world. Despite its finely honed green image, however, environmentalists have criticized the company for its involvement with an aluminum smelter and bauxite mine in the Amazon rain forest. [« back]
