daveman
Diamond Member
Off the Wall
Mike - I took my family to see Top Gun the other night in Oklahoma City, and I was VERY disappointed to see you in an ad for the fossil fuel industry. I love Dirty Jobs and appreciate your scholarship program, but you should do your homework before associating yourself with organizations like the OERB. Our planet is in peril, and fossil fuels are the problem. America needs to get off oil and gas NOW!!! The UN said we have less than 12 years to avert an irreversible climate catastrophe â and that was three years ago! Please use your influence to help deliver that message before itâs too late.
Janice Calloway
Hi Janice
First, Iâm delighted to hear that I shared the big screen with Tom Cruise! The Scientology stuff gives me the creeps, but Top Gun 2 was a terrific movie, and a great way to spend a few hours out of the summer heat. I sure hope I didnât wreck it for you by espousing the virtues of energy independence.
Second, youâll be pleased to know that I have in fact done my homework on climate change. Iâve also considered the UNâs doomsday prediction, looked at their evidence, listened to experts on both sides of the debate, and concluded that the earth is probably not going to end in 2031. We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN. Obviously, I could be wrong. I donât have a crystal ball, but I do like this response from The Scientific American. We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN. From the article:
âDoomsday scenarios may generate clicks and sell advertisements, but they always fail to convey that science is nuanced. Arbitrary "time left to apocalypse" predictions are not evidence-based, and the real story of climate change doesn't fit neatly into brief bullet points competing for your attention in today's saturated media environment. Stoking panic and fear offers a false narrative that can overwhelm readers, leading to inaction and hopelessness. Earth isn't ending in 12 years. It didn't end at Y2K or when the Mayan calendar predicted the collapse of civilization in 2012. Earth, as a whole, will be okayâfor at least another few billion years.â
The Scientific American isnât saying thereâs nothing to worry about, and neither am I. We both believe the planet is warming, that the seas are rising, and that human activity is a contributing factor. For that reason, The Scientific American and I, along with everyone I know in the energy industry, is very supportive of the ongoing quest to find alternative ways to power America. Unfortunately, no alternative - except for nuclear - has so far demonstrated the potential to eventually replace fossil fuels, and right now, thereâs more resistance to nuclear than there is to coal, oil, and gas. Thatâs tragic, in my view. For more on that, please watch this excellent Ted Talk by an environmentalist named Michael Shellenberger. Why renewables canât save the planet | Michael Shellenberger | TEDxDanubia Hereâs the short version.
After years of championing wind and solar, Shellenberger came to believe that both were fundamentally unreliable. Seventy percent of the time, the sun doesnât shine, and the wind doesnât blow. He then concluded that weâd need to cover millions of acres of land with billions of solar panels and windmills to generate the energy America needs. In his words, âweâd have to destroy the environment to save the climate.â Shellenberger also determined that wind and solar were a disaster for wildlife. Wind turbines kill millions of birds and bats every year, many of which are either protected or endangered. Solar farms are also terrible for birds, many of which catch on fire when they fly over the panels and plummet to earth like flaming planes shot from the sky. In California, we call them âstreamers.â The desert tortoise has been decimated as well, and now, the disposal of countless toxic solar panels is becoming hugely problematic.
Shellenberger then goes on to make a very persuasive case for nuclear energy, which he argues is much cleaner, much safer, and far more reliable than any other alternative. France gets 90% of its electricity from nuclear power. We could, too. The question is, why donât we? Whatâs stopping us from vigorously pursuing the only viable alternative to fossil fuel? The answer I think, is fear. Ironically, the same kind of fear thatâs got many people convinced the planet will end in nine years. The same kind of fear that leads to false narratives, inaction and hopelessness. The same kind of fear that makes people forget that the earth is still spinning, and we all share the same atmosphere. Consider this:
Right now, there are three billion people on this planet who burn millions of tons of wood and dung, every single day. Thatâs how they cook their food and stay warm. Obviously, three billion people burning millions of tons of wood and dung puts an enormous amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. With respect, Janice, do you have a message for them? Have you told them to get off wood and dung âNOW!!!â If not, how come? If so, what did you tell them to burn instead of wood and dung?
Iâd also love your thoughts on China and India. Those two countries alone burn over 14 million tons of coal every single day. Theyâve announced plans to build thousands of new coal-fired plants over the next thirty years - and not the clean-burning kind of coal weâve developed over here. Bloomberg - Are you a robot? Have you advised them to get off coal âNOW!!!â If not, how come? If so, what did you tell them to burn instead of coal?
It seems to me that CO2 levels around the world could be dramatically reduced if the billions of people currently relying on wood, dung, and coal were able to transition to natural gas. But thatâs not what youâre proposing, Janice. In fact, youâre proposing the opposite. You want America to abandon oil and natural gas before we put a viable alternative in place, even as billions of people the world over double down on much dirtier sources of energy. With respect, how does that make sense? I understand youâre worried about the future â I am, too. The future is uncertain. But I donât need a crystal ball to tell you what will happen today, if America takes your advice. In short, our entire economy will collapse, along with our military, our healthcare system, our transportation grid, and our food supply. Millions will freeze to death. Millions more will die in the heat. Many more will starve.
Thatâs not a doomsday prediction, thatâs just a fact. Every single aspect of modern life depends on easy access to affordable, abundant energy, and wind and solar are not ready for primetime. Salena Zito: Half-built Pa. solar farm shows renewables arenât ready for prime time Likewise, most of the products we rely on today are made from the petroleum you despise â the device youâre using right now, the clothes youâre wearing, the tires on your car, and the roads you drive it on. Including the road that brought you to that that (air-conditioned) theater where you sat in comfort, and looked on as Tom Cruise saved the world, (with a little help from jet fuel.)
Point is, Janice, we canât just flip a switch. It doesnât matter how many caps and exclamation points you employ, or how many doomsday predictions you quote. Abandoning oil and gas today wonât save the planet; it will merely return us to the Stone Age. In the same way we canât sacrifice the environment to save the climate, we canât destroy the present to save the future. We must adapt, as we always have, and I believe thereâs reason for hope. Iâve seen some incredible production breakthroughs in the last few years that arenât getting the attention they deserve. Things like carbon recapture technology, which has the potential to bring energy companies to net zero carbon emissions in just a few years. Low Carbon Solutions: Joe Blommaert Q&A | Energy Factor
Long-term, I still think the best hope for the most people is nuclear, and I hope we follow Franceâs example. But in the short-term, I see no better alternative than natural gas. What I donât see, is one good reason to purchase the energy we need from a foreign county. Thereâs something fundamentally immoral about applauding the cancellation of pipelines, buying the fuel we need from places like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Russia, and then paying to have it shipped across the ocean. We have all the energy we need right under our feet â along with a much better, much safer, much cleaner way to extract it. Which is a long way of saying, thatâs why you saw me sharing the big screen with Tom Cruise.
The Oklahoma Energy Resource Board is a nonprofit, educational foundation founded thirty years ago by royalty holders in the Oklahoma oil and natural gas industry. Their primary goal is to help Oklahomans understand their stateâs unique contribution to our nationâs energy security. Initially, I was attracted to their workforce development message. In Oklahoma, the energy industry employs over 85,000 people, with an average salary over $136,000 a year. Thatâs over twice the state average, and right now, the industry is hiring in a big, big way. I wanted to help draw attention to those jobs. But the more we talked, the more I came to appreciate their advocacy around the topic of energy independence.
Today, the OERB is pushing back against the common but misguided belief that oil and natural gas are our enemy, and theyâre doing so in a way that I find respectful, courteous, educational, and most of all, persuasive. The message you saw was one of several that feature unscripted conversations between me and dozens of Oklahomans about the many ways oil and natural gas have positively impacted their lives. You can see more at OERB.com. Or, you can return to another (air-conditioned) theater next summer, where I'm liable to pop up during the previews of Mission Impossible, just before Tom Cruise saves the world again. (With a little help from oil and natural gas.)
Either way, Janice, Iâll see you around!
Mike
-----
My commentary:
Mike's a very good communicator. Very relatable. Good at poking holes in things that need holes poked in them. And he's an amazing champion for working men and women.
Mike - I took my family to see Top Gun the other night in Oklahoma City, and I was VERY disappointed to see you in an ad for the fossil fuel industry. I love Dirty Jobs and appreciate your scholarship program, but you should do your homework before associating yourself with organizations like the OERB. Our planet is in peril, and fossil fuels are the problem. America needs to get off oil and gas NOW!!! The UN said we have less than 12 years to avert an irreversible climate catastrophe â and that was three years ago! Please use your influence to help deliver that message before itâs too late.
Janice Calloway
Hi Janice
First, Iâm delighted to hear that I shared the big screen with Tom Cruise! The Scientology stuff gives me the creeps, but Top Gun 2 was a terrific movie, and a great way to spend a few hours out of the summer heat. I sure hope I didnât wreck it for you by espousing the virtues of energy independence.
Second, youâll be pleased to know that I have in fact done my homework on climate change. Iâve also considered the UNâs doomsday prediction, looked at their evidence, listened to experts on both sides of the debate, and concluded that the earth is probably not going to end in 2031. We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN. Obviously, I could be wrong. I donât have a crystal ball, but I do like this response from The Scientific American. We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN. From the article:
âDoomsday scenarios may generate clicks and sell advertisements, but they always fail to convey that science is nuanced. Arbitrary "time left to apocalypse" predictions are not evidence-based, and the real story of climate change doesn't fit neatly into brief bullet points competing for your attention in today's saturated media environment. Stoking panic and fear offers a false narrative that can overwhelm readers, leading to inaction and hopelessness. Earth isn't ending in 12 years. It didn't end at Y2K or when the Mayan calendar predicted the collapse of civilization in 2012. Earth, as a whole, will be okayâfor at least another few billion years.â
The Scientific American isnât saying thereâs nothing to worry about, and neither am I. We both believe the planet is warming, that the seas are rising, and that human activity is a contributing factor. For that reason, The Scientific American and I, along with everyone I know in the energy industry, is very supportive of the ongoing quest to find alternative ways to power America. Unfortunately, no alternative - except for nuclear - has so far demonstrated the potential to eventually replace fossil fuels, and right now, thereâs more resistance to nuclear than there is to coal, oil, and gas. Thatâs tragic, in my view. For more on that, please watch this excellent Ted Talk by an environmentalist named Michael Shellenberger. Why renewables canât save the planet | Michael Shellenberger | TEDxDanubia Hereâs the short version.
After years of championing wind and solar, Shellenberger came to believe that both were fundamentally unreliable. Seventy percent of the time, the sun doesnât shine, and the wind doesnât blow. He then concluded that weâd need to cover millions of acres of land with billions of solar panels and windmills to generate the energy America needs. In his words, âweâd have to destroy the environment to save the climate.â Shellenberger also determined that wind and solar were a disaster for wildlife. Wind turbines kill millions of birds and bats every year, many of which are either protected or endangered. Solar farms are also terrible for birds, many of which catch on fire when they fly over the panels and plummet to earth like flaming planes shot from the sky. In California, we call them âstreamers.â The desert tortoise has been decimated as well, and now, the disposal of countless toxic solar panels is becoming hugely problematic.
Shellenberger then goes on to make a very persuasive case for nuclear energy, which he argues is much cleaner, much safer, and far more reliable than any other alternative. France gets 90% of its electricity from nuclear power. We could, too. The question is, why donât we? Whatâs stopping us from vigorously pursuing the only viable alternative to fossil fuel? The answer I think, is fear. Ironically, the same kind of fear thatâs got many people convinced the planet will end in nine years. The same kind of fear that leads to false narratives, inaction and hopelessness. The same kind of fear that makes people forget that the earth is still spinning, and we all share the same atmosphere. Consider this:
Right now, there are three billion people on this planet who burn millions of tons of wood and dung, every single day. Thatâs how they cook their food and stay warm. Obviously, three billion people burning millions of tons of wood and dung puts an enormous amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. With respect, Janice, do you have a message for them? Have you told them to get off wood and dung âNOW!!!â If not, how come? If so, what did you tell them to burn instead of wood and dung?
Iâd also love your thoughts on China and India. Those two countries alone burn over 14 million tons of coal every single day. Theyâve announced plans to build thousands of new coal-fired plants over the next thirty years - and not the clean-burning kind of coal weâve developed over here. Bloomberg - Are you a robot? Have you advised them to get off coal âNOW!!!â If not, how come? If so, what did you tell them to burn instead of coal?
It seems to me that CO2 levels around the world could be dramatically reduced if the billions of people currently relying on wood, dung, and coal were able to transition to natural gas. But thatâs not what youâre proposing, Janice. In fact, youâre proposing the opposite. You want America to abandon oil and natural gas before we put a viable alternative in place, even as billions of people the world over double down on much dirtier sources of energy. With respect, how does that make sense? I understand youâre worried about the future â I am, too. The future is uncertain. But I donât need a crystal ball to tell you what will happen today, if America takes your advice. In short, our entire economy will collapse, along with our military, our healthcare system, our transportation grid, and our food supply. Millions will freeze to death. Millions more will die in the heat. Many more will starve.
Thatâs not a doomsday prediction, thatâs just a fact. Every single aspect of modern life depends on easy access to affordable, abundant energy, and wind and solar are not ready for primetime. Salena Zito: Half-built Pa. solar farm shows renewables arenât ready for prime time Likewise, most of the products we rely on today are made from the petroleum you despise â the device youâre using right now, the clothes youâre wearing, the tires on your car, and the roads you drive it on. Including the road that brought you to that that (air-conditioned) theater where you sat in comfort, and looked on as Tom Cruise saved the world, (with a little help from jet fuel.)
Point is, Janice, we canât just flip a switch. It doesnât matter how many caps and exclamation points you employ, or how many doomsday predictions you quote. Abandoning oil and gas today wonât save the planet; it will merely return us to the Stone Age. In the same way we canât sacrifice the environment to save the climate, we canât destroy the present to save the future. We must adapt, as we always have, and I believe thereâs reason for hope. Iâve seen some incredible production breakthroughs in the last few years that arenât getting the attention they deserve. Things like carbon recapture technology, which has the potential to bring energy companies to net zero carbon emissions in just a few years. Low Carbon Solutions: Joe Blommaert Q&A | Energy Factor
Long-term, I still think the best hope for the most people is nuclear, and I hope we follow Franceâs example. But in the short-term, I see no better alternative than natural gas. What I donât see, is one good reason to purchase the energy we need from a foreign county. Thereâs something fundamentally immoral about applauding the cancellation of pipelines, buying the fuel we need from places like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Russia, and then paying to have it shipped across the ocean. We have all the energy we need right under our feet â along with a much better, much safer, much cleaner way to extract it. Which is a long way of saying, thatâs why you saw me sharing the big screen with Tom Cruise.
The Oklahoma Energy Resource Board is a nonprofit, educational foundation founded thirty years ago by royalty holders in the Oklahoma oil and natural gas industry. Their primary goal is to help Oklahomans understand their stateâs unique contribution to our nationâs energy security. Initially, I was attracted to their workforce development message. In Oklahoma, the energy industry employs over 85,000 people, with an average salary over $136,000 a year. Thatâs over twice the state average, and right now, the industry is hiring in a big, big way. I wanted to help draw attention to those jobs. But the more we talked, the more I came to appreciate their advocacy around the topic of energy independence.
Today, the OERB is pushing back against the common but misguided belief that oil and natural gas are our enemy, and theyâre doing so in a way that I find respectful, courteous, educational, and most of all, persuasive. The message you saw was one of several that feature unscripted conversations between me and dozens of Oklahomans about the many ways oil and natural gas have positively impacted their lives. You can see more at OERB.com. Or, you can return to another (air-conditioned) theater next summer, where I'm liable to pop up during the previews of Mission Impossible, just before Tom Cruise saves the world again. (With a little help from oil and natural gas.)
Either way, Janice, Iâll see you around!
Mike
-----
My commentary:
Mike's a very good communicator. Very relatable. Good at poking holes in things that need holes poked in them. And he's an amazing champion for working men and women.
So, you might as well kiss your ass goodbye, because it took us 150 years to get to this point and it will likely take another 150 years to slowly wheedle ourselves OFF of fossil fuels (mostly) by gradually replacing current technology with greener technology as it gradually becomes practical and affordable.
