Crude Reality, Cruel Reality
Seven Reasons Why They Don’t Stop Oil Drilling in Ecuador's Amazon
NBC News released an online article entitled “Crude reality: One U.S. state consumes half the oil from the Amazon rainforest.” In my view, here are the broader takeaways:
1. Vast numbers of people directly or indirectly depend on oil — it has to come from somewhere,
2. Businesses and governments eagerly supply it,
3. The international community won’t pony up the money to protect Amazon forests,
4. Ecuador’s government badly needs oil revenues to pay down huge Chinese loans,
5. Ecuador has sold exploration rights to Chinese state-owned companies very capable of finding and extracting oil,
6. Meeting world demand for oil has far greater priority than protecting forests, wildlife, climate, environmental health, and indigenous people,
7. Society has convinced itself that continued oil drilling is OK because of promises to cut future fossil fuel use.
If you think this is madness you’re not alone.
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And this pattern repeats elsewhere, no doubt.