GOING "GREEN": How Big Oil and The Auto Industry have a bit too long...

People are becoming much more protective of the environment and many green movements have been initiated. However, Oil companies have been "going green" for much longer in another sense. It's no secret to most, Oil Companies are ruining the world as they line their pockets.

Recently in the news, we’ve been shown the horrific details of another massive oil spill---yet again. President Obama has committed himself to correcting the problem and assembling a meeting of the minds to stop the leaking. The only problem is he really isn’t correcting anything; he’s just putting a band-aid on a hemorrhaging wound that isn’t really doing a thing in the long run. The real problem that we keep avoiding and prolonging is our technological advancement that will pull us away from our deliberately sustained and pathetic dependence on oil, and toward a cleaner environment. We have a very crippling world wide predicament: We’re not moving forward with technological development that prove better for mankind and the environment, just to save big industries from losing their monetary grip around our throats.

It’s interesting and extremely frustrating that many times when something disastrous happens, the media steers us to focus on what its permitted to, often ignoring the real issues. For example, when the recession hit, very rarely was the Federal Reserve ever mentioned----but that’s another hub entirely. Regarding health and medical news, very rarely is the fact that mysteriously nothing is ever cured anymore mentioned, unlike the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and 50's. From polio to syphilis, everything got cured or a preventative vaccine. Now we’re suddenly in the age of HPV, Herpes, AIDS, Diabetes, irreversible Cancers and other seemingly “incurable” diseases, with nothing but drugs, drugs and more drugs and procedures to help us cope with these ailments----for life. Again, that’s also for another hub and I digress. Now with this oil spill, the news is running in different directions. BP, the British oil company that transported the barrels is being blamed for shoddy, hazardous practices. Of course conservatives that represent the party these days are trying to chain this around Obama’s ankle calling this "Obama’s ‘Katrina’" etc, etc. But the deeper issues are yet to be discussed.

First of all, we should have gravitated over to the prevalent use of the electric car decades ago. We’ve been flirting with a shift toward solar, nuclear, hydrogen, and wind power for years. In fact there are several documentaries like When Midnight Comes depicting this in the 1970’s. We had an energy crisis in the 1970’s and there were numerous plans drawn showing how we could be independent of oil by the year 2000. Here we are in 2010----and we’ve done nothing. Still in the same boat if not worse, we keep pushing it back to become the next generations initiative. Never believe for one second that it’s because we couldn’t convert or it was too soon. The truth would most likely infuriate you.

The electric car was the answer to a lot of environmental problems. Had it been on the market all this time, even more improvements and developments would’ve been implemented to make it even more efficient than the archaic gas guzzlers than it already was. Electric cars in the long run are much cheaper and we’d be liberated from the skyrocketing gas prices entirely. They’re quieter, cleaner, and less harmful to the environment. Electric cars are also more reliable and require less maintenance , no oil changes etc. And MOST importantly, it would greatly diminish our need for oil along with our ridiculous, costly battles for oil bases in the Middle East. Because of the oil industry however, electric cars and advancements steering us away from the use of oil and gas have been thwarted. The monetary gains of the Oil and Auto industry have deliberately stunted our conversion over to more efficient and technologically advanced solutions. Lobbyists for these industries secretly shoot these initiatives down in the dark. They're knowingly keeping us like The Flintstones when we could be coasting like The Jetsons. All research regarding electric cars has been blocked and buried---now here we are.

 We’ve been dependently using oil and gas, toxic to our environment, since the 1800’s and even back then, we developed the technology to not need it as much. The solutions for our independence from oil are in existence. There are far more efficient and cleaner options for power and fuel. Regardless, the Oil and Auto industries have suppressed our progress purposely to keep us pumping gas.  These industries, too consumed with their profits and too stubborn to change, never foresee or care about the inevitable consequences. Because of greed and subservience to big industries, we will most definitely pay in a multitude of ways for not doing what we should have done. These catastrophic oil spills are some of these consequences.

Just because the Auto industry is in the pocket of the Big Oil industries holding on to their profit, along with the weak, spineless, party controlled politicians that we allow to make decisions for us who are also in bed with these industries, we’re doomed to a life of more wars in the Middle East, outrageous and oppressive heat and gas prices, smog, air pollution that give us diseases, and the overall destruction of our environment. Everyone bought off by these industries has a partnership in the stunting of our technological advancement and the annihilation of the planet. It’s also pretty infuriating that anytime someone steps into a position of power they explain how you have to work in and with the system before you can change anything. Basically what they mean is they have to do what they're told. Just follow the money. That’s the problem with our unchecked capitalistic cult; When money overpowers science and technological, environmental and social advancement, we have a situation.

The common Joe is blinded from everything and we don’t realize how frequent oil spills and other human accidents that effect the environment are. We’re like irresponsible babies---if we don’t see it, we don’t worry about it. They only publicize the really big accidents like the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Make no mistake, there have been several oil spills on the coast of Lebanon and all throughout the Middle East, around the North East, Russia, and all over the world for years. You only hear about the ones you do because they're too big to sweep under the rug like the rest of them.

Among numerous horrible oil spills internationally, the Exxon Valdez oil spill that happened in March 1989 near the coast of Alaska was another very huge one that they had to publicize because it was beyond devastating. According to The SeaWorld Blog, by Guido Trombetta, the oil spill killed close to 250,000 sea birds, 4,000 sea otters, 250 bald eagles and 20 orcas. To this day, large amounts of oil still coat the Alaskan shores affecting wildlife. And here we are 20 years later having learned nothing, transporting oil in the exact same fashion, and needing oil more than we ever did.

Do not believe for one minute that there was no demand, or the electric cars didn't measure up to the gas guzzlers, or what have you. That's the BS rhetoric that they wanted us to believe. In 1996 the GM EV1 electric cars were released in California and began to hit the streets. They worked incredibly: They were fast, efficient, quiet and smooth. Suddenly however, they disappeared. The cars were taken off the road and all of them were destroyed. Some were disabled and sent to museums. It's disgustingly ironic; What they should've done to the gas guzzlers, they did to the electric cars. They got every last one of them off the road and had them destroyed. Why they were never prepared for mass production all over the country and the world is truly a mystery. Then again, it isn't a mystery. It makes perfect "cents" what happened.This was a reprehensible crime against science, the planet and humanity that we should never forgive or take lightly.

In the documentary Who Killed The Electric Car by Chris Paine, it shows how the California Air Resources Board mandated an act to reduce fumes and harmful emissions based on the eventual usage and popularity of the electric car and other zero-emission vehicles. However they eventually reversed the mandate after suits and pressure from automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, and the George W. Bush administration. Many of Bush's friends, family and associates including Dick Cheney are all former executives and board members of oil and auto companies. The EV1 electric car was eliminated from the GM Line in 1999.

It’s interesting how we still have troops dying in the Middle East, certain states like California have smog and air pollution issues that cause diseases, and Obama recently reintroduces the idea of offshore drilling just before barrels and barrels of oil explode and spill out into the Gulf of Mexico threatening marine life. If now isn’t time to think about our oil dependence I'm not sure when is.

There are a few pettions goin around to bring the electric car back and to end the oil spills and drilling like the ones on the care to make a difference site. The link is provided below. We're not stupid or completely powerless. We need to stop letting big industries force whatever they want on us. We don't use vynil records, cassette tapes, or sky pagers (beepers) anymore. The use of CD's mp3' players and cell phones are far more efficient and useful. In the same manner it's about time to leave the gas guzzlers a thing of the past.