Lilliputians by Bill Willingham and Linda Medley
We’re not really waiting for the smoke to settle on the Incidental Harassment Authorizations (IHAs) issued a week ago last Friday before sharing with you what to do next. We’re actually enjoying watching the continuing conflagration – for the simple reason that the more that people get all heated up about this ill-advised proposal, the more likely it will get canned.
It seems that a day doesn’t go by without some Governor, Congressional leader, municipality, chamber of commerce, or public organization damning the prospect of this power grab by the Oilmen.
So while it was not NOAA’s remit to gauge the popularity of the Seismic Survey proposal, in the end, regardless of how astute or sloppy NOAA’s work was on granting the Authorizations, the future of the proposal will rest on how many people do, or don’t want it. At least this is how it is supposed to work in a representative democracy…
But as I’ve indicated before, there has been an industrial coup of our Nation, and the Oilmen and their minions have been storming ahead against the tides of public opinion. And a lot of stuff has been crammed down our collective throats lately, so this one may be what commences the “biting back round.” Probably the best thing we can do at this juncture is start gnashing away (instructions below).
In the arc of our realities; on Friday November 23, when the California Camp Fire was still blazing away, the 13-Agency climate report was released (presumably buried in a post-Thanksgiving Friday) implicating fossil fuel contribution to our rapidly-developing climate catastrophe. Then on Friday November 30, NOAA “surreptitiously” blurted out the IHA announcement in a press conference, probably hoping that the journalists had already made their weekend plans.
But as it happened a number of them were “tipped off” on Thursday night, so the press conference was well attended by a surprising collection of well-informed reporters. This kept the issue “above the fold” well into Monday.
There are a number of theories as to why the IHA announcement was made when it was. (This is the sort of conversation we in my business have over our beers.) I subscribe to two: The Richard Charter school involves a coordinated timing between the announcement and the release of the much-anticipated “Five-Year Offshore Leasing Program” (probably in January 2019), which would coordinate the 2020 lease-sales with the return of the first data from the surveys.
But I am more predisposed to the “willy-nilly” theory that looks at the required series of events for offshore oil extraction (the Harassment Authorizations from NOAA; the survey permits from Bureau of Ocean Energy Management; the release of the 5-year Offshore Leasing Plan; the surveys and sales of the survey data, and finally the sales of the Outer Continental Shelf leasing areas – all happening in a rapidly closing window of opportunity – the 2020 elections.
There were a number of moving parts in this situation that the fossil-fuel strategists were not able to incorporate into their model – like the results of the 2018 elections.
So what I am suggesting is that even while it appears to be the case, the perpetrators of this scheme are not really driving the narrative, you are.
So how can you keep the fires lit under this roiling disaster? The objective is to keep it up on the stove, served up hot to your elected representatives:
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Keep talking about it.
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Dig into the OCR canon on seismic surveys for historic and technical details.
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Share freely.
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Contact your US Senators and Representatives. A simple message will do. “Hell No!” would work.
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Call our Ocean Champions and let them know you are behind them.