Drug company ads on TV — ads European countries don’t allow on television — are required to warn of possible dangerous side effects that could kill us.
We’d be somewhat safer and more aware of urgent policy choices we face if rail, oil and gas companies were required to warn about risks of extracting and transporting fossil fuels.
Even as more is known about the dangers of reliance on fossil fuels, big rail, oil and gas companies, driven by a priority on profits, are spending billions either ignoring or denying scientific evidence and painting a rosy picture about what they’re doing. Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the largest U.S. commercial rail company, runs a TV ad that features the phrase, “BNSF: the engine that connects us,” but makes no reference to its controversial cross-continental business hauling coal, oil and gas. On its website’s list of FAQs, there is no question about risks of coal dust blowing off its cars into residential neighborhoods, including here in Everett, or to possible derailments and tank car explosions, including of newer supposedly safer cars, as happened this year in North Dakota when a BNSF oil train derailed and several cars burst and their contents burned. While BNSF officials say they’re committed to safer transport of fossil fuels, they also lobby against regulations that might make the process less dangerous.
A BP TV ad emphasizes its concern for “safety, energy security and support for the American economy,” making the company sound like a philanthropic foundation. BP’s record tells a different story. Before the BP Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded, killing 11 workers and generating a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, workers expressed concerns about safety but feared reprisals if they pressed their concerns. When it comes to natural gas extraction and the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, like other big oil companies, BP touts “worker and community safety” as a high priority, but so far keeps many of its methods secret and reports very little publicly about how these measure up related to potential community and environmental risks. BP and other oil companies often lobby against fracking regulation.
Despite huge environmental and financial risks, Royal Dutch Shell is proceeding with its giant gamble to drill for oil in the Arctic. After legal challenges and a flotilla of kayaks failed to stop the project, two huge rigs, the Polar Pioneer and Noble Discover, plus thirty support vessels headed north to the Arctic. Shell is being permitted to push ahead even after a failed Arctic drilling operation in 2012, during which its oil rig Kuluk ran aground, an accident the U.S. Coast Guard blamed on Shell’s “inadequate assessment and management of risks.” Recently, The Wall Street Journal reported two new problems. Risks of drilling to sea life in the area, especially to walruses, have led to a federal restriction that likely will limit Shell to drilling only one well instead of two this summer. A crack in the hull of a support vessel has raised additional questions about Shell’s capacity to respond to a possible spill. Hopefully, it won’t take a terrible accident to force a halt to Shell’s gamble.
The risks and dangers of mining, dry-land and deep-water drilling, fracking and transporting fossil fuels, more fundamentally, need to be considered in the context of the climate change crisis. It’s not just what oil companies are not saying that threatens us and the global habitat, but what we already know with a very high degree of certainty based on the consensus of thousands of respected scientists, supported by a vast majority of civic and religious leaders, including Pope Francis. Here in the Pacific Northwest this year, the extremely low snowpack, lack of rain, and record number of 90 degree days should motivate us to read the report on Climate Change Assessment in the United States, 2014 (nca2014.globalchange.gov). Most scientists who study climate change believe that in order to avoid even more dangerous and potentially catastrophic increases in the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we should immediately adopt two goals: to keep as much of remaining fossil fuels in the ground as possible and urgently shift to reliance on renewable energy sources. While oil and gas companies could help us avoid environmental disaster and make this shift, so far there’s little evidence they will. New policies needed require urgent, public citizen action.
Ron Young is a resident of Everett. He and his family live less than three blocks from tracks regularly used by BNSF coal and oil trains.
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