Faith-Based Policies

I'm no lawyer, but generally I approve of having some sort of standard of evidence. Which is why it's so funny to see the oil industry shills with their backs up against the wall.

Fact: global warming is happening right now, and humans are responsible for it. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report spells it out as starkly as such a document can. In an ironic bit of metaphor, global warming is an effect that will only snowball - the more heat gets trapped, the more the forces that trap heat speed up. There's really no denying that this is a huge problem that only we are responsible for. There's also no denying that we will have to wait until 2009, when a less evil president assumes office, in order to get started on implementing the policies we so desperately and urgently need.

As if this weren't enough reason to for the oil industry to worry, peak oil is also starting to rear its ugly head. Production at some of the largest, most productive oil fields in the world (including the crown jewel fields of Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Alaska) has started to decline despite increased drilling. We may soon see an irreversible worldwide decline in production.

So what is the oil industry response? Via their front group, the American Petroleum Institute, it appears to be make-believe. As observed in this diary on DailyKos, the industry shills are telling us that proven reserves aren't what matter - we should be looking at un-proven reserves. In other words, let's make our policy based on faith. In oil companies. Yep, that's probably superior to evidence.

It's truly astonishing that they have now taken up methods that not even Police Detective Riley would use. Per Jack Handey:

Police Detective Riley was a no-nonsense kind of guy. Before, he really loved nonsense, and would use it a lot in his murder investigations. But he found that most people didn't appreciate it, especially the family of the victim.

Now, granted that whoever was speaking for the API was probably a PR guy, which would make him the spinmeister for a spin group. Hardly someone you should trust. But clearly the American Petroleum Industry trusts this guy, so somebody is actually embracing nonsense as a methodology for science and policy.

Fortunately, supporting this kind of statement actually does seem to finally be eroding the credibility of the oil industry. And with Obama and McCain jointly sponsoring global warming legislation, it looks like 2009 may be the beginning of the end for the oil industry. I therefore issue the API, the industry at large, Bush, and that whole gang this challenge, by way of Homer Simpson:

You couldn't fool your own mother on the foolingest day of your life with an electrified fooling machine!