Posted on 07/28/2008 5:59:33 AM PDT by Clive
One of these words is not like the others. But then again, T. Boone Pickens isn't like the others either. Today, Stephen Marche examines a typical quote from a delightfully atypical enviro-crusader
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The general rule, that everything before the but is bullshit, does not apply in the case of T. Boone Pickens, the ex-wildcatter and current hedge-fund manager from Texas. Pickens' is the latest, and perhaps strangest, voice calling for a radical change in America's relationship with the environment. He has decided to spend $58-million of his own money on an ad campaign to promote a new American energy policy -- one which would involve massive subsidies to himself as well huge gains for the clean energy industry. He believes that the United States can generate 22% of its energy from wind and solar power, which will free up 22% of natural gas reserves (much cleaner than crude and relatively plentiful in America) to service a newly engineered fleet of American cars which could run on natural gas, thereby freeing America from its dependence on foreign oil. Simple.
Pickens looks and talks like an oilman. His limpid and luxurious Texas drawl is not the shrill sound of the typical environmentalist. Aesthetically, though not politically, he is the opposite of Al Gore, who recently "challenged" the nation to produce 100% of its energy from renewable sources within 10 years, a goal which even his supporters described as "superstretched." Nonetheless, Gore and Pickens have little but good to say about each other, which is remarkable considering that Pickens was a major sponsor of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth smear campaign. He continues to support the Swift-Boaters, posting a standing offer of $1-million to anyone who can prove a single untruth in any of the nine anti-Kerry commercials he paid for. T. Boone Pickens is a fundamental Republican, and yet Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader, describes Pickens as "my political friend." The emphasis, one assumes, is on the word "political."
Pickens represents a new brand of environmentalism -- conservative but not pretending. He believes that the $700-billion the U. S. spends on foreign oil is a "national security crisis." Offshore drilling in Alaska is fine by him--one has the feeling that he wouldn't mind grinding up the caribou herds himself if their bodies contained any crude. He speaks the language of national, business and personal interest, not the language of organic wholeness, of harmony with nature, which has so dominated the environmental movement from its origins to today.
Pickens is new, and so important, because his vision of the future of the environment is not focused on life, or living things, but on money, his own and others. And the future of our money matters more to us than the future of life on the planet. This is one of the most disturbing lessons of our current situation, but it's also evident in every page of our history: our selfishness and greed are basic to us, older than original sin. In Genesis, God gives us "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the Earth" before he even gives us names. The cruelty and self-destruction we are willing to inflict for dominion fills our history, ancient and modern. So it should come as no surprise that environmentalism as a form of idealism has been ineffective -- Al Gore calls us to take up our duties towards the future in the same way the greatest generation took on the Great War. But we aren't great. We know that. We are hyper-conscious of the imminent collapses of the natural world and yet have altered our behaviour only in miniscule, practically irrelevant way. Pickens' big idea is to change the ethos of the environmentalist project: Let's do this not because we're good people but because we're good businessmen. That proposal has a shot.
I would never bet against T. Boone Pickens. Nor should you. He spent a little less than $6-million on the Swift Boat Veterans and he got his money's worth. He's spending $58-million on promoting his new plan, deliberately choosing not to fund either presidential candidate for the duration of their campaigns. Potentially, his advocacy is the beginning of a massive shift in public consciousness about the environment, a move away from its status as a left-wing issue. Subsumption into the mainstream could be either a huge step forward or a huge step back for the environmental movement. Pickens doesn't deny the existence of global warming, and his folksy but disdainful sneer for those who do deny it -- "I can see what's happening to the glaciers … It doesn't take a genius" -- will convince a certain portion of the American public more than any number of Nobel-Prize winning scientists at the United Nations ever could. More importantly, he believes that there are rational courses of action open to us involving capitalism and national interest, rather than utopian visions of whole countries or groups of countries deciding to do the right thing. That's the spiritual deal he is presenting to the environmental movement: They must sacrifice virtue for effectiveness. The speed with which they have taken him up on the offer shows how desperate they are, how precarious they believe the Earth's position to be. Even Al Gore tires of virtue eventually.
Will all gas stations be required to provide 3 blends of gasoline, plus diesel, plus E85, plus biodiesel, plus LNG, plus hydrogen, plus quick-charge plugs for the golf-cart?
Wind and nuke are find for stationary power needs, but which alternative energy will become as ubiquitous as the corner gas station for transportation? Will my employer allow (or be required to provide) plug-in power for my electric car? Again, there is no oil shortage, just a self-imposed oil embargo. Even in the short-to-medium range time frame, oil is here for a while.
Whoops, $1 million was just his single largest donation to them, looks like he sent them at least $2 million.
Well, not much point in reading this tripe beyond this line. Yeah, a completely accurate, factually unassailable presentation of the truth about Kerry's service in Vietnam is a "smear".
Whatever, liberal butt-wipe.
Ole T may have been an oil man all his life but wikipedia sez he’s developing the world’s largest wind farm in west Texas.
You are so right. T. Boone is an oilman and continues to be. He wants the U.S. to use every source of domestic energy that is available to us.
In an interview on FNC a week or so ago he was basically asked if he was giving up on oil and he said NO! He wants to drill everywhere for oil and natural gas. He is just expanding his business with his wind energy business. Is this not what the liberal Dem congress critters want when they say the oil companies are not investing in alternative energy sources. He is proving them wrong. At the end of the interview he was asked who he would vote for, I expected he would say non of your business but he said without reservation - McCain!
I mean the truth hurts deeply.
Comment:
First of all T. Boone was not spouting Democrat talking points but is pointing out that even with a massive drilling program we cannot defeat the future of a world with little oil.
Many of us old oil field trash have been saying for years we need more drilling but also a responsible program to build up all forms of nuclear, solar, wind and coal.
I might remind all of you T. Boone haters that he is one of the biggest contributors to conservative causes.
Or maybe that is the reason so many are trashing him because he is conservative?
BTW he is also one of Americas top philanthropic individuals giving lots of money (over 500,000,000) to causes such as children's homes, hospitals and universities.
Pickens seems to think that drilling for subsidy money at Congress is a better idea than drilling for oil in America.
I’m not at all impressed.
Boone Pickens is running for President?
I know nothing about TBP and his politics and am not anti TBP but when I hear the same exact words out his mouth that I hear out of Harry Reid and Pelosi (we can't drill our way out of this) I am very suspicious. Unfortunate choice of words on the part of TBP.
BTW I am related (by marriage) to old oil field trash as well as current oil field trash so I have a little bit of knowledge there.
Nothing real about it, he's out to scam the public for tax subsidies!
He is in favor of more nukes. He is for the all of the above approach.
And yes he is in the wind business now. Imagine a guy who doesn’t say hey government go do something for me, but a guy who actually puts his own money up. And a lot of it I might add.
Please re-read my comment. I was referring to the writer, not Boone. I totally supported and was personally involved in the Swift Boat campaign myself. Boone is a great American, period.
My apologies. I misread youR comment. Hopefully others reading my misguided posts can at least learn of Boone's support.
Good, glad to hear that.
The ones that are shrinking or the ones that are growing?
If this were true it would be great. If wind farms are the energy producers of the future than good luck with his 10 billion dollar wind farm. I hope it is successful. No TV adds required, just produce the electricity at reasonable rates and utilities will buy it. This, however, is not the case with Pickens. His big PR campaign is to get the government to subsidize, with taxpayers money, his new venture in wind power. He's at the trough like every other "business". His goal is what it has been his entire life, profits for T. Boone. Nothing wrong with this but there is no altruism involved in this latest grab for taxpayer money.
What Pickens is--a business man. He's spending $58 million but it is an advertising campaign for his new energy company--windpower.
Nobody ever addresses what we are supposed to use for fuel until our cars are built to run on "whatever" replacement for gasoline or what they are going to do with the millions of gasoline powered cars.
None of it will happen in my lifetime--or T. Boone Pickens'.
BYW, he is also buying as many water rights as he can.
If his future is patterned by his past, he will continue to give away millions of $$$.
Recently Roy Huffington, another oil and gas billionaire, died at the age of 90...in Venice. When he wasn't traveling he still worked. When asked by a reporter why he still worked he said, "To make more money to give away." He gave hundreds of millions to various programs in the Medical Center in Houston. I think he funded the Interferon program at M.D. Anderson.
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