Call me naïve, but I find it frustrating when people lie.
I didn’t post on Friday, because the House of Representatives had gotten me all angsty. (Though not to be outdone by my almost blog post, Tom Friedman this week was just about as mad as I’ve ever seen a columnist.)
I understand that I have different beliefs and values than a lot of people. I think that most of the time, these are healthy disagreements to have. But, in my Bambi-esque innocence, I thought we were all operating, more or less, with the same facts.
Yeah, I know.
A number of Congressmen on Friday advocated for increased offshore, claiming, as Sen. McCain did, that “not even Hurricane Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston.”
Below is a picture taken by satellites of the oil spills in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.
Tell me that you think the benefits outweigh the risks. Tell me that you believe that increasing oil production will help more people than a resulting oil spill will hurt. BUT DON’T SAY THINGS THAT ARE UNTRUE. The American people aren’t stupid. They want to have an honest discussion about our future. Finding common ground when people approach issues from different ideological places is hard enough. Let’s not compound it by eliminating the circumstances that would facilitate these important conversations.
The media is not doing enough to fulfill their responsibility to present the public with the facts. They report conflicting claims in the name of journalistic balance, rather than investigating which version of a story is accurate.
This is not a partisan issue. Those who would obscure the facts, whatever their ideology, are either intellectually lazy or opportunistic. I firmly believe that clean energy advocates must acknowledge the potential difficulties that might accompany the transition to smarter energy policy. This is the only way to prepare for the challenges and ultimately avoid them. However, if one side of an issue is willing to talk about the dangers of their policy preference, and the other side presents an artificially rosy option, then those who try to really engage with the tough questions will be the ones to get burned.
Okay, so even three days later I was still a little rant-y. But people who bemoan an increasingly polarized country need to understand that the existence of two conflicting versions of events is a primary cause.
