Media Bias and the Energy Crisis

My son recently give a talk at the college he attends which dealt with the issue alluded to by the title of this blog entry. The following is an altered version of it. He can deliver good speeches.


America's current energy predicament, depicted by sharply rising fuel costs accompanied by increased dependency on foreign energy sources, finds its causal genesis in energy policies centered around the concerns of environmental activists. That environmental advocacy groups were able to set our energy agenda is in no small part attributable to media bias. The bias is subtle but detectable. It is built around four tacit understandings upon which the ediface of our current polices was fashioned.

The most basic of the four frames the debate. I'll illustrate by example. The New York Times recently featured an article entitled Bush Will Seek to End Offshore Oil Drilling Ban. The article cited President Bush's attempt to reverse longstanding policy which bans offshore oil drilling. The following quote points out an often repeated strategy.

...Mr. McCain sought to straddle the divide between environmentalists and the energy industry, while facing accusations from his Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama, that he had flip-flopped and capitulated to the oil industry.

Note how the opposing factions are described. Environmentalists are pitted against energy industries or most particularly big oil. Without even having the related arguments who do you think comes out on top in the perception of the public? Those concerned with the environment or fat cats concerned with profits? The writer did not use the term fat cats but he did not have to.

So what's wrong with the envirnmentalists vs. rich oil company paradigm? Plenty. Yes, big companies are involved in the search for energy resources and they do reap profits when successful. That's a business reality. So are the thousands of jobs and billions of dollars that flow through the American economy when energy resources are produced. We become a more prosperous nation when we produce what we consume rather than import our needs. Therein lies an insidious and underreported fact. We have not reduced our needs for fossil fuels by curtailing domestic production. All we have succeeded in doing is sending our wealth overseas and burning oil drilled in other nations. The other nations reap the benefits of our payments in terms of increased jobs and prosperity while we reap the consequences of increased dependency on foreign and sometimes hostile energy sources.

Burning imported oil yields the very same carbon emissions that domestic fuel combustion engenders but without the economic benefits. We sacrifice the upside and continue to experience the downside of fossil fuel useage. Where is the environmental benefit to this half-baked policy?

A second underpinning of current energy policies, promoted through the media, is the belief that scientific issues related to human causes of global warming are settled. They are not. A study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science by Friedericke Wagner, Bent Aaby and Henk Visscher, presented data indicating that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have varied over geologic time periods when there were no human sources of CO2 emissions and more importantly the elevated levels of carbon dioxide may be an effect of climatic changes rather than a cause of them. Moreover, even if one assumes that effects of fossil fuel combustion alter the earth's climate, there is no hard data quantifying a precise cause and effect relationship between curtailing carbon emissions from human sources and cutailing atmospheric CO2. Predictions are largely speculative and because of the uncertainty linking fossil fuel emissions to climate change, global warming arguments are de facto demands for blank checks prioritizing climate concerns over jobs and lower fuels costs. That may be necessary but how often is the dichotomy reported this way? If it were how would public opinion be impacted?

The third pillar of media coverage of energy issues is pointed out in the linked article entitled Environmental Doomsday: Bad news good, good news bad. The article accurately highlights an underappreciated fact- we have made great progress in ameliorating pollution. Quoting from the article:

The iron law of contemporary environmental understanding in the United States is: Bad News Good, Good News Bad. Though by almost every measure the Western environment at least has been getting better for decades, voters, thinkers, and pundits have been programmed to believe the environment is getting worse. Thus conditioned, Americans greet environmental bad news with a welcoming sigh as confirming the expected, while regarding environmental good news as some kind of deception. Bad News Good, Good News Bad.

During the 2000 presidential campaign, for example, much was made of Houston becoming the "smog capital of America." But Houston's overall air quality was improving at the time. Houston became the nation's smog capital only because Los Angeles's air improved even faster, passing Houston in a race of positives. Perhaps the commentators who spoke as though Houston's air were getting worse did not understand the issue. More likely they did not want to understand-for cleaner air would violate the rule of Good News Bad.

Environmental lobbyists intent on raising money have a stake in spinning everything in alarming terms. (Everyone is aware that corporate lobbyists have financial stakes in the positions they advocate. Why the same isn't understood about environmental lobbyists numbers among the small mysteries of our moment.) And when environmental lobbyists depict all news as bad, most of the media reflexively echoes this line.

Note that idealistic environmentalists are not immune to the self-serving, self-promoting impulses that afflict the rest of us. Noone is opposed to clean air and water but environmentalists have their own subjective biases as do those reporting on these issues.

This brings us to the final pillar sustaining media news coverage. This one touts the plausibility of alternative sources. Wind and solar power come to mind. Yet the actual obstacles to efficient wind and solar power technology are often glossed over when the issue of alternative fuels is suggested. Technological brakthroughs are on the way but this link illustrates the realistic economic and technical barriers that have stood in the path of green energy alternatives.

The problem with renewable energy sources, like sunlight and wind, is a lack of continuous energy flow. Sunlight is not available 24 hours a day and it is not always windy. Storage of energy has been problematic because the batteries needed have been too expensive and their useable lifetime too short. So called Smart Storage battery technology may be the sought after solution. The hybrid battery would combine a standard lead-acid battery with an asymmetric supercapacitor electrode which could rapidly absorb and release charges allowing for a steady release of power as needed by power supply systems. Performance increase is estimated to be 50 per cent greater with respect to the charge and discharge of power. Take note though of the future promises of this technology which is not about to replace conventional fuel sources any time soon.

Charles Krauthammer wrote a compelling piece titled Embrace oil drilling over environmental imperialism which details underreported costs of current energy policies. Quoting:

Gas is $4 a gallon. Oil is $135 a barrel and rising. We import two-thirds of our oil, sending hundreds of billions of dollars to the likes of Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. And yet we voluntarily prohibit ourselves from even exploring huge domestic reserves of petroleum and natural gas.

At a time when U.S. crude oil production has fallen 40 percent in the last 25 years, 75 billion barrels of oil have been declared off-limits, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That would be enough to replace every barrel of non-North American imports (oil trade with Canada and Mexico is a net economic and national security plus) for 22 years.

Until technology catches up with our desires for clean renewable energy an energy policy designed to make the USA self-reliant as Krautheimer argues is the wisest course. But where is the emphasis on self-reliance in the mainstream media?

One final story reminds us of the media's obtuseness with respect to tactics used by environmentalists. A Yahoo news item reported on 7/12/08 that U.S. District Judge David Lawson of Detroit nullified an oil drilling permit granted for a site in Michigan. The possibility of environmental harm was cited.

There is a clear pattern evident in cases like this. Environmentalists cite the possibility of environmental harm and advise that drilling be done elsewhere. This tactic is employed all the time across the country. An exagerated possibility of harm is linked to the advice that drillers go elsewhere. Elsewhere amounts to locations outside the United States although that is not stipulated. Can we have a critical analysis in place of doom and gloom possibilities? These possibilities don't play out often and less and less so as precautions and technology improve. This is, up to this point, a one sided story.