Climate anxiety yesterday, climate complaining today. Do you have a right to happiness or just to pursue it? The early birds of false spring.
Fresh on the heels of climate anxiety from yesterday, we now have climate complaining about oil and gas exploration.
One consistent theme that I see when I read articles in left-leaning outfits is the relentless complaining by environmental groups that our state's various boards (you can say the same about the Fed's choices too) that they're not being harsh enough on oil and gas in this state.
To wit, I present the two articles below. One is from the Sun and the other by the Sum and Substance.
The Sun article details how environmental groups here in Colorado are unhappy with new BLM rules regarding allowing oil and gas leases on BLM land, especially out here on the Plains--we're not talking about derricks and pump jacks in the middle of the mountains and tourist destinations.
To get a sense of the issue, I present you three non-contiguous quotes from the article.
"The Center for Biological Diversity and other groups had asked BLM officials to consider an alternative plan that would stop new oil and gas leases on BLM-controlled properties, which includes the mineral rights underneath surface land administered by the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Reclamation and others."
and
"The resource plan [that outlines where in BLM land oil and gas exploration will be allowed] does close nearly 37,000 acres in South Park to leasing, though another environmental group said those lands had little oil and gas potential."
and
"Oil and gas development was taken off the table for 93% of the Eastern Colorado land, he [Royal Gorge district manager Keith Berger] added. ... BLM decided to allow new oil and gas development in northeast Colorado, for example, in part because those areas already have oil and gas as a common land use, he said. Much of the BLM-controlled mineral right is interspersed with private lands where oil and gas drilling is already dominant."
And we now turn from BLM use to the second link below from the Sum and Substance which deals with new draft "cumulative impacts" rules for oil and gas just put out by the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (which is the 3rd, if memory serves, name change for the state board that regulates oil and gas exploration).
Environmentalists here are also unhappy because, well, that's their job. Their job is being unhappy until any and all fossil fuels are removed from this state--both fossil fuels burned for energy and fossil fuels removed from the earth to be burned.
Here's a quote:
"They [the draft rules] do not, however, go as far as some environmental groups have requested and seek to require caps on the overall amount of emissions that are produced around communities already subject to higher levels of industrial or energy-sector emissions."
There's a ton more detail in the article and if this is a passion for you, it's worth a read.
Let's zoom out and ignore the surface detail for a second though and consider what is going on here. Regardless of the details of the actual rules and the specifics as to how things are defined, remember that the overall goal here by legislators that required these rules and the environmentalists who want them as tough as can be is to put an upper bound on total emissions.
In other words, the idea here is to limit future expansion of any oil and gas exploration.
Let me illustrate. Let's say that the rules put a limit on emissions at 100 units in a certain area. If there are currently enough wells there to put out 80 units and you want to drill 3 more wells that might emit a total of 25 more units, sorry.
If you want all three you need to displace someone else, help someone else emit less, or reduce your plans down.
This one irritates me enough (combined with what this board has done re. setbacks after the people of Colorado explicitly voted setbacks down) that I think I will testify about it remotely.
The public testimony period about these rules is in April, so expect an update when we get closer along with what I plan to say.
In the meantime, if you'd like to offer written comment on these rules, on this process, on the fact that an unelected board gets to decide all this, go to this form to do so.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/01/23/blm-colorado-eastern-plains-oil-and-gas/
https://tsscolorado.com/colorado-unveils-proposed-rules-on-cumulative-impacts-of-emissions/
Related:
Counterpoint on oil and gas you won't see in most media outlets.
If you actually read the Sun article above by climate activist (oops, reporter) Mr. Booth, you will notice a fitful attempt at being evenhanded, but a simple word count of his articles is evidence enough of a definite tilt toward the environmentalists' cause.
Can't fix the Sun, but I can give you counterpoint here. Counterpoint in the form of an op ed by an oil and gas spokesperson on how oil and gas exploration can coexist with the environment.
Worth a read and worth keeping the concepts in your pocket for later conversations.
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/opinion/how-colorado-oil-and-gas-economics-can-coexist-with-the-environment-opinion/article_c5037704-ba52-11ee-ba9b-cf36ab70545a.html#google_vignette
Do you have a right to happiness or just to pursue it?
I read articles like the Sun article below and I keep returning to the same question I did before: are you guaranteed the life you want or are you guaranteed the opportunity to be able to pursue the one you want?
This is a hugely important distinction because in both cases the guarantee would need to be defined and enforced by some entity, but only in the former case does it more often mean that the government must take from someone to give to you.
If what I am guaranteed is a house that I can afford to live in, at my current wage, that is located in the neighborhood I like in Downtown Denver, someone will need to provide that.
If the government builds it, it will do so by taking money from others to build/operate that facility. If the government doesn't build it, they will ensure the right by forcing someone else into an agreement that takes from them by preventing the housing renting at market rates.
If what I am guaranteed is the right to pursue what I define as happiness, then it becomes more a case of the government staying out of the way. There can't be laws that restrict where I live, where I work, what kind of education I might try to pursue.
Because, you see, if the people in this article are struggling to afford the place they're living in, maybe they ought to move instead of telling their stories to a reporter who can then fill an article with statistics about how hard and expensive it can be to try and make rent as a working student.
Maybe they ought to consider a trade instead of (quoting the article), "...heed[ing] their elders’ calls to go to college, but then graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in debt and few resources to pay an apartment deposit."
No one is forcing them to live the life they are currently. Therefore, what are they owed here?
I don't say this from a place of hereditary affluence either. I worked when I went to school. I lived in tiny apartments. I lived simply. I rented for years and years, partly because I wanted to wait to buy property until I had a wife to move into it, but also partly because I couldn't afford any of the houses I liked in a neighborhood where I wanted to live on a teacher's salary.
I wanted to teach at the college level too and that was not likely to happen any time soon in the Front Range. So I expanded my search and ended up finding what I wanted out on the Plains: a job I love and houses I could afford.
I pursued happiness instead of staying put demanding that the government be used to take from others to give me the life I wanted.
That's all we should be guaranteed.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/01/23/young-colorado-renters/
Related:
Just a quick side note about the article above.
I noticed the original description of the group (New Era Colorado) in the article as nonpartisan.
No. Put quite simply it's not as a quick search of New Era Colorado's own site can quickly show.
I emailed the reporter and Larry Ryckman (the editor of the Sun), pointed out the mismatch I saw between their words and the actual actions/website of New Era and asked how it was that the Sun defined the term "nonpartisan".
Mr. Ryckman wrote back (never did hear from the reporter) and told me that they had updated the article. See the attached comparison with the original in blue and the updated in red. New Era is now a "nonprofit"--much closer to reality if you ask me.
Putting aside a discussion on just how precise language can/ought to be, I don't think it would ever be possible to reach complete unanimity on word choice: words have different connotations that may vary among different people.
That's why I think it important to check up on things like this. At the end of the day, the most important thing to me as a reader is to know what it is that I'm being given so I can better understand the meaning and intent of the writer.
The early bird
Well, we've hit that part of the week again. It's the last post til Sunday and that means something for fun.
I was walking between buildings on my campus recently and saw a little house finch* hop out into the sun, then crow loudly to let us--and all the lady finches--know this was his corner of the world.
It's always the young males that move back first. The rule for finches is the same as it was for prospectors: first in gets first pick of the land, provided you can hold it against others who might want it.
Hence Mr. Finch, chest-out, head high, belting out his own barbaric yawp. Reminding us of his desire to contribute, in the here and now, to our future.
There is the obvious biological imperative. Birds fighting over a perch. Birds fighting over a tree. Calls coming in sharp consonants that, even though I don't know their exact meaning, nonetheless communicate to any and all exactly what's going on.
But I wonder whether there is joy in the act. Do they take any pleasure in their mastery? It's hard to know with a song, but I almost see it in their flight. An extra flourish here, an unnecessary curlicue in a landing there. A bright hop, crest raised, after the execution that almost seems like pride.
Young males are not always known for thoughtful actions, whether bird or man, and we still have lots of winter to go. My guess is that Mr. Finch will have to forfeit his claim here once winter closes back over top of us.
Easy come, easy go.
My territory is already staked out. Yet I too feel a stirring from this false spring. I am eager to tend my plants, to bequeath some part of myself to the dirt. But, I have lived long enough to know that starting anything now (even indoors) is not a good idea.
I will just have to wait. At least I have had a foretaste of what is to come.
Have a good rest of the day and see you again on Sunday!
*See the screenshot and link below.
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/House_Finch/id