GranolaFag Weekly

Yesterday I posted about whether or not the consequences of the California wildfires had really be thought through. Could non-standard, non-industrial/corporate sources of warming be so easily overlooked? Could these be the “missing link” that could finally silence the climate change deniers?

Like I said, I’m not an “official” climate scientist (just a serious amateur) so I don’t have millions of dollars in lab equipment and balloons, but I am smart enough and I do have enough resources to notice that it has definitely been hotter lately.

Another idea I’ve been mulling around is the possibility that the mere act of drilling for oil is warming the planet. I know it seems silly at first, but when you really think about it starts to make sense:

1. We’re drilling holes hundreds of miles deep into the Earth’s crust. The crust is the part of the planet that shields us from the heat of the core and mantel. We’re basically putting holes in the insulation that prevents our planet from turning into a star.

2. We’re extracting the carbon-based oil that the dinosaurs put there billions of years ago. Carbon is toxic to humans and to our planet so what do we do with it? We put it in our cars and burn it so that it goes up into the atmosphere and back down into our lungs. GOOD PLAN, GENIUSES!

3. What is the number one indicator of global warming? Rising ocean temperatures. Where is the crust the thinnest? Under the oceans. Where do we drill most of our oil wells? Take a guess…

I guarantee you won’t ever hear a thing about this from the mainstream media. They’re all multinational corporations that care more about stock price than the environment. Luckily I’m not beholden to any special interests other than my cats.

From msnbc.com

Gulf Coast residents were on watch and oil companies evacuated hundreds of nonessential workers as forecasters said Thursday that a storm system now off Florida could strengthen as it moves west.

I love how the fact that another hurricane might not only kill thousands of innocent people, but it’s not a news story until THE OIL COMPANIES have to evacuate workers ( I have a question: If they’re not essential, why are the workers there in the first place?). God forbid the giant corporations should lose some of their billions of dollars in ill-gotten gains. It would be areal shame if their CEOs had to sell one of their vacation houses because of severe weather their own companies are largely responsible for in the first place.

We never had hurricanes like this before, how can anyone face the evidence (Hasn’t everyone seen An Inconvenient Truth by now?) and still insist that we’re not in trouble?  How can anyone delude themselves like that? I’m not talking about backwoods rednecks, either, there are tons of people out there that live in real cities and have access to real newspapers and the Internet (the NYT just quit charging for content)  yet still fall victim to the lunatics and corporation-sponsored disinformation? Some people just refuse to face the truth and it makes me pity them.

The National Hurricane Center was sending an aircraft into the system later Thursday to get more precise data. 

Good plan, Einstein.  Burning fossil fuels are  what got us into this mess in the first place and now you want to put even more of them directly into the hurricane??? Who is in charge of the National hurricane Center?  Probably one of W’s idiot rich Yale buddies who doesn’t know the first thing about science or weather. Maybe we should dump some plutonium in there, too!

In New Orleans, emergency preparedness officials urged residents to begin making evacuation plans in case the system develops into a tropical storm or worse.

“We want citizens to understand their personal responsibility of developing their own plan,” said Col. Terry Ebbert, the city’s homeland security director. He urged them to buy supplies and be ready to care for themselves.

Ha! Way to blame the victims and shift the burden to the poor people of New Orleans.  Isn’t that what they elected you to do, Col. Terry Ebbert? Now people are supposed to buy their own supplies and ride the storm out on their own? I bet if Halliburton sold buses there would be thousands of them ready to take the citizens to safety. Well, maybe not, since they’re black and, to quote my main man Kanye: George Bush doesn’t care about black people. He nailed it right there, anyone who doesn’t get it after that is a lost cause.

The weather system also led oil companies to fly nonessential workers off of offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, but only a small amount of production had been stopped so far.

Nice, the oil  company employees get first class treatment and a free flight home (except for the essential ones necessary to keep the blood money flowing) but the working class folks in New Orleans are left to fend for themselves with whatever supplies their food stamps will buy for them and their family. I am literally sick to my stomach thinking about it.

I like to end on a happy note,  but I don’t know if I can find a silver lining in this cloud of gasoline smoke. I’ll try, anyway:  If a few thousand MORE people get killed in this hurricane maybe this will be the wakeup call America needs and this whole disaster might have actually been worth it.