After concluding the House's final workshop on the exploration of oil and gas drilling off Florida coasts on Friday, Rep. Dean Cannon (R-Winter Park) outlined three areas he expects the House bill to include when it is released in two weeks.
Point #1: Preventing "any visual impact to our beaches" that could "cause visual blight".
I appreciate that he knows something about this, as he is from the Orlando area where “visual blight” was not originally invented, but has certainly gained a firm foothold.
One can’t help but draw a rich parallel between Point #1 and the general state of affairs we Americans find ourselves in at present. In our efforts to look good (a.k.a. avoid visual blight), we bought and spent BIG: big cars and big homes with BIG mortgages we couldn’t afford, gobbling up energy, like water along the way. We all bought into the notion that we can continue to drill, buy and spend our way to prosperity, happiness, and success. The idea that it’s all okay, as long as we can't see it is not only ignorant but blind, arrogant and wrong. And, we have seen that it is wrong. That particular visual blight has not escaped our notice.
Gee whiz, our economy “looked” fine but was indeed in the throes of its own destruction long before you and yours knew the first thing about toxic assets. The insult added to that particular injury was that individuals, businesses and governments based their important decisions on how the economy “looked”, not on how it was. Certainty in the self-correction of our markets was our enemy. Thank goodness those economic shell games have fallen – right?
I guess not, because here comes Rep Cannon with the same tired argument for an equally tired technology. Every moment and taxpayer dollar he wastes on this specious sales pitch for coastal drilling keeps Florida from finding its new path: for conservation, renewable energy, water, and for creating a thriving economy by living sustainably. Frankly, we’re tired of it. Is there enough lipstick in the world to paint this pig? On top of that, we understand that the coastal drilling storyline is likely a bait and switch to drop the federal drilling moratorium, so we stand at the ready to beat back that colossal federal mistake.
This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2010.