Red Light, Green Light:

[The following, written by Synthesis weekly columnist Julia Murphy, appeared in the Synthesis Weekly on Monday, June 16th, 2008. Julia can be reached at ninjatreehugger@gmail.com]


“Foregone Production” and Human Resources

“By being left in the ground, the resource would provide no value to society.”
I am reading an ICF International (consulting firm) document that was prepared for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. This phrase is used to illustrate the tragedy of “foregone production”, that is, when you leave something—natural gas, in this case–in the ground and don’t attempt to extract and sell it.
El Jefe sent me a short article from the website Americans for American Energy— “California Consumers to Take $4.5 Billion Hit From Proposed Colorado Energy Regs.” The ICF International study is the material that the article hinges on; Colorado Governor Bill Ritter updated the draft regulations for oil and gas mining in Colorado, after concerns voiced by hunters, homeowners, local governments, and of course those environmental groups. The usual whining: “Oh! You’re spoiling the air! You’re taking all the water! You’re harming public health!”

more after the jump.

Yes, the usual boo-hoo by people who can’t understand the unbearable sadness of “foregone production”—like the sad and pimply wallflower just waiting for a chance to be the Dancing Queen, sadness waiting to be made-over into joy. Production is the only way to transform that unbearable sadness, that vacuum, into happy dancing dollars, which will “stimulate the economy” and save us all. It’s the Manifest Destiny Two-Step, a-trickle down left and trickle down right, come on, you fuckin’ dummy, get your right foot right…
The AAE article goes on to say that the rules Gov. Ritter proposed will impair production because permits take longer, and will limit and increase costs on drilling new wells.
You know, I kind of take it for granted that nothing ever gets easier in my life. I guess that’s the fundamental difference between my sweet self, and those world-fuckers blowing off mountaintops to avoid “foregone production”.
For lo, though I walk through the valley of the hopelessly entangled red tape, I shall fear no bureaucrat. For mine is the penny-ante and the wee potatoes; nobody wants much of anything from me, and neither do I want (or expect) much from anyone else.
I would like (but don’t expect) for people to stop acting like it’s a personal affront to just leave a ‘resource’ where it’s at. A ‘resource’ is actually something whole and complete. A tree, a river, a mountaintop. ‘Resource’ implies something existing only in potential, something waiting to be used to become complete. Human Resources. Do you like those people? Ah, god. They make me want to punch myself in the neck. Did you ever have to endure the dreaded “you have so much potential” spiel as a surly teen? When, really, each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness. At least to Human Resources.
OK. Upshot: Pay more for energy. Um, were you not expecting this?
Did you notice the latest PG+E bill insert? They want us to save the world by giving them five dollars a month to develop alternative clean energy. I believe, PG+E, your restructuring needs to come from your own considerable ‘resources’. Last month, five dollars was an eighth of my bill. That’s my scale. I think you, PG+E, have a little more to work with.
And the thing that wearies me is that the AAE doesn’t get it. First, all their frothing at the mouth is based on more gas wells not being drilled. Nothing is being taken away. Nobody’s getting ripped off (that is, any more than they usually are, but who’s keeping count?).
And second, there IS a solution, by glory! It’s so crazy, it just might work!
Use less energy. Is that simple enough?
“Hurt our nation’s economy and weaken our national security…” the article gibbers on. How stunted in the brain pan are we? “The economy” doesn’t serve us, we serve it. We don’t determine interest rates. We don’t bargain for our rights as workers when we go to the temp agency and waive our right to a trial if we have a dispute over our treatment. “At-Will” employees—if you don’t like where you’re at, someone else will. As for national security, you, dear Government, took my tax money and spent it on getting my friends killed for some bullshit, and spent more of it doing secret shit I don’t even want to know about, tractor batteries and naked copper wires, and it could be for some brown person on the other side of the world or it could be for some brown person in Los Angeles—this is “security”?
I deserve the security I pay for.
It could be me.
We’re human “resources” to be put into “production” in the same way that water, timber, and natural gas are. That means used up. That means exploited.
If we do it to the world, why should we expect a different fate?

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