Well, I finally got out and saw Al’s movie. What can I say? It should be required that every kid in the country see it and then send a copy home with them so they can make their parents watch it. As a film it is very well done, including autobiography that actually has a context for his interest in climate change. The presentation is visually stunning and I’ve never seen complex information conveyed so clearly. Nothing like a lecture at all.
I don’t know what happened to Al Gore but this is probably the best campaign spot ever made. He is confident, sensitive, humorous, and above all, real and passionate. This guy should run for President again so we can rectify the terrible mistake made in 2000.
More posts coming related to this topic- the film is terrifying and entertaining and thought-provoking. You don’t get that combo very often.

The other day on NPR, I heard the first serious discussion of storing food and water in case of a breakdown in services or the need to stay in the house in the event of an outbreak of an infectious disease. These potential outbreaks are another indicator of climate change.
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Exxon Mobil announced record earnings increases yesterday of 36% over the same quarter last year. Let’s look at this both from a global perspective and a personal one. We are in a regional war which would not be taking place were the region not oil-rich. This isn’t a theory- we’re alledgedly fighting terrorism which is funded by oil money. Remember 19 of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudis.

Oil is a commodity which means its price is driven by market conditions rather than brand quality or added value. Therefore, all things being equal, if light sweet crude rises a penny a gallon, then gas should rise exactly the same amount and oil company profits should remain steady. If they don’t and gas rises proportionately higher than an increase in the underlying cost then we are seeing additional mark-ups added, hence higher profits. If your local station does it, it’s called goudging; if ExoonMobil does it, its called profits. I call it profiteering.

Profiteering, which is illegal, is taking advantage of wartime or disaster conditions and scarcity to make higher than normal profits on a product. Our 2600 dead soldiers and the thousands of maimed and wounded soldiers and the innocent civilians dead in the middle east are the source of these profit opportunities. It is malignant. If these oil companies are willing to increase profits based on the misfortune of others then we certainly can’t expect them to care a whit about climate change, regardless of what their ad campaigns say.

Now to the personal:

Coincidentally, I filled my tank this morning at an Exxon Mobil. I paid $3.18 a gallon and the fill-up was $46. (four cylinder Honda Accord). This is about twice what I paid a year ago. These increases have decreased my ability to buy other stuff by about $45 a month or $540 a year. This loss of discretionary income takes that money out of the rest of the economy including local businesses and global businesses and puts it into burnt fuel and oil company profits. Their obscene profiteering is literally coming out of everyone else’s pockets.

And what is our government doing? Absolutely nothing.

Some MIT researchers posted an important announcement regarding the debate on whether the increasing intensity of hurricanes is caused by global warming. Their position is that this argument is distracting us from a much more immediate problem: The continued rapid expansion of building in coastal areas. Whether we caused the hurricane intensity is not as important as the fact that we’re continuing to build homes and condos in places where that intensity will cause destruction.

It’s the lemming effect. Even though we know its dangerous, we take the gamble so we can enjoy being by the water. The problem is that the people whose waterfront homes are destroyed by hurricanes expect the government to rebuild them, at everyone’s expense. This gets debated but no one ever suggests that maybe we should ban all building within a certain distance from the shorelines. My suggestion would be that it be based on altitude above sea level, since we all know you need to go to the high ground in a flood.

Of course there’s no chance this is going to happen. Washington, DC itself is built on a swamp that is close to sea level and essentially a part of the Chesapeake bay basin. This spring we saw floods on the Mall closing government buildings and public transportation throughout the capitol. Yet we heard no warnings in congress or elsewhere that we should consider the consequences of building our capitol in such a vulnerable spot.

So, while I salute the MIT geniuses for their effort, realistically I doubt anyone is going to pay attention- its just too nice out there by the beach.