In the second half of his Live From The Oval address, Mr Obama let go of his bad Clinton I-feel-your-pain imitation to charge ahead with one more part of his Great Transformational Agenda effort. It will not have escaped anyone viewing that the Nice Young Man From Chicago has dropped the Spanish "green energy-green jobs" model given its admitted literal bankruptcy.
Spain has been replaced by of all places, China, as the new paradigm of Ain't-It-Great-To-Be-Green. Showing his typical abysmal ignorance of all things foreign (and all matters scientific) Mr Obama lauded the Peoples Republic of China for its creation of "green jobs" and its commitment to "renewable" energy.
China is a leading, even the leading, manufacturer of solar panels. What this means is China has been creating yet one more environmental catastrophe. The made-in-China eco-disaster is on a scale such as to make the great Gulf of Mexico oil blowout seem to be the equivalent of spilling a glass of lemonade on the carpet in comparison. Even the WaPo, a noted cheerleader for the Obama administration acknowledged this inconvenient truth more than two years ago.
The manufacture of silicon based solar panels necessitates the creation of silicon tetrachloride as a byproduct. Silicon tetrachloride is a highly toxic substance. Wherever the stuff is placed, buried, or burned, it poisons the earth and air to an extent that nothing, but nothing, can either grow or live. China has jumped into the making of polysilicon in a very big way as the popularity of "renewable solar energy" has boomed. This means that Chinese land, plants, air, and people are being poisoned by the silicon tetrachloride in ever increasing lots.
The Trolls of Beijing cannot be bothered by such insignificant annoyances given the huge profits which accrue to making solar panels and thin films. In China, you just can't make a few billion yuan without a few Chinese dying.
But, hang on, boyo, it gets worse. As thin film photovoltaic arrays become more popular, another environmental catastrophe looms. The manufacture of thin film produces as a byproduct a gas called nitrogen triflouride. This gas has a greenhouse effect which is some seventeen thousand times greater than carbon dioxide. Currently nitrogen triflouride in the atmosphere is increasing at eleven percent per year according to NASA. Capturing and storing this gas would add greatly to the cost of producing thin film arrays--not something the Trolls contemplate with equanimity.
Al Gore! Call your office! This is a really inconvenient truth. More to the point, Mr Obama had best hire a fact checker before he does his Joe Biden impression and runs off at the mouth regardless of reality.
There are some other problems with Mr Obama's hosannas onto China. For example, China is both the biggest producer and single largest consumer of coal. The absence of scrubbers on Chinese thermal power plants, cement factories, and similar high density users is as conspicuous as the smog bellowing through Beijing and other Chinese cities. Without scubbers and other relatively expensive air treatment devices, coal is very dirty. Particulate matter, sulphides, and the demon carbon dioxide are all present in impressive quantity.
The facts of contemporary Chinese life show that the country and its leaders are even less environmentally friendly than the BP blowout. The combination of fume belching coal fired plants, silicon tetrachloride, and nitrogen triflouride suggests that anyone visiting China ought to wear a Hazmat suit with scuba gear.
Somehow this unpleasant--and most assuredly ungreen--picture somehow eluded the ever so perceptive Mr Obama in his haste to let no crisis go unexploited. What a shock!
Equally unshocking was Mr Obama's performance as a Saul Alynski community organizer in his constant, egregious, and ultimately unjustifiable attacks on what he and his White House crew insist on calling "British Petroleum." One of the most basic tactics put forth by the Alynski approach to community organizing is that of designating a "sinner" and then lambasting the hell out of that wicked entity.
Big Oil is a large slow target in the best of conditions. With the blowout, BP became the perfect microcosm for all of Big Oil. BP and its CEO, Tony Hayward, became perfect "asses" to kick. And, kick them Mr Obama did. With far more relish and delight than beneficial long term effect, Mr Obama and his associates (including those in Congress) let go with their rhetorical Doc Martins.
This is not to imply that BP should be held harmless, let off from any responsibility for cleaning up its mess. That would be absurd. But, it is equally, if not more absurd, to blast, blast, and blast BP until there is a real risk of the company (thirty-nine percent owned by US stockholders and employing three times as many Americans as Brits) will go belly up, or be snatched by takeover specialists--including the Chinese national oil company.
It makes even less sense in the real world to go after BP in a way and with a furious energy which seems to imply a profound anti-British bias at the highest levels of US government. Mr Obama and his fellows of the Chicago Gang in the White House should take note that BP is critical to British economic stability, to the welfare of numerous British pensioners, to the strength of the British stock market. They might also take notice that the old style Brit-bashing which was the stock in trade of the long dead Colonel McCormick and his Chicago Tribune is all too yesterday to employ now.
Mr Obama has already made his distaste for the British and the presumed "special relationship" between the UK and the US very evident. His insultingly cavalier treatment of the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, was a violation of both diplomatic protocol and a slap at the only country which has been a real ally in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The new PM, David Cameron, is far more competent than his predecessor and far more low key and rational than Mr Obama. But, the treatment meted out to BP including the the Obama insistence that BP not pay dividends to its stockholders but rather place them in an escrow account will test both the patience of the British public and Mr Cameron to the fullest.
The continued presence of British troops in Afghanistan is highly unpopular with the majority of the British electorate. At the same time the Brits are doing heavy lifting in Helmand province and we would like them to do the same during the scheduled offensive in Kandahar. Mr Cameron has already made noises regarding the pullout of British forces in a carefully understated way during his visit to the troops last month. The Press responded favorably to these hints.
Not to put too fine a point on the matter, Mr Cameron could buy himself a great deal of political breathing space for his proposed austerity program by announcing a rapid evacuation of Her Majesty's Forces from Afghanistan. He needs or at least would benefit from the breathing space such a move would create since any austerity will hit lot of Brits right where it hurts most. But, the withdrawal of British forces would introduce an impossible complication for General McChrystal at a time when time is short.
President Obama has sought to gain short-term political advantage by getting right with an American public already disenchanted n0t only with his Great Transformational Agenda but his conduct during the long, long weeks of the blowout in the Gulf. Simultaneously, he is trying desperately to gin up support for his vision of "green" by a typical mix of mendacity and gross exaggeration.
Overlooked in the feeding frenzy of agenda driven politics is the real possibility that his actions will redound to America's disadvantage in Afghanistan--and elsewhere. The naive young man simply hasn't gotten a grip on the reality that all aspects of politics both domestic and foreign are interconnected. That is the sort of thing which only a "Maroon" can do.
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