Needs and Wants

There's a scene in one of the recent James Bond movies -- Quantum of Solace -- when James (played by David Craig) has his enemy right where he wants him. They're in the desert and the enemy has to get cross miles of open sand without any water. Bond flips the guy a quart of motor oil and says to his enemy that sooner or later he'll drink it, hoping that it will quench the aching thirst he'll surely feel beneath the hot sun of the Bolivian desert.

Bond's enemy is found dead and "M" or "Q" -- someone -- remarks that motor oil was found in the dead man's stomach.

With oil gushing from a pipe one mile beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and a slick miles wide spreading across the sea to poison marine life along the U.S. gulf coast, I'm reminded of that scene from James Bond: oil or water; which is the most important?

In March, Virginia's governor answered the question when he urged the federal government to allow Virginia to sell offshore drilling rights enabling Virginia to become "The Energy Capital of the East Coast".

But that was before the giant gusher in the gulf coast. Surely, Gov. McDonnell would rethink his eagerness to possibly send an oil slick miles across wafting into the Chesapeake?

Nope. According to numerous news reports, the governor remains committed to offshore oil drilling. He thinks that we need the oil.

It's the jobs, you see. Offshore drilling will create thousands of jobs and bring in millions if not billions in new tax revenue. When you're the governor of a state facing at least a $4 billion revenue short-fall, you'd look everywhere -- even a mile under the ocean -- for new revenue. One thing, though; the drilling wouldn't begin for another few years, probably five, according to an Associated Press article.

And Mr. McDonnell will be long gone from the governor's mansion.

That's the thing with these kinds of plans: folks are never around to see them through. They're plans are potentially lethal legacies like land mines from wars long over. Oh, I'm not so naive to think that there shouldn't be long-range plans -- I have a 401k that I'd like to be around to spend.

But it just seems easy to make plans and promises of new oil tomorrow because people want the benefits of cheap oil today. If we drill and find more oil we'll be able to keep our fantasy alive -- that wanting to base our standard of living on a nonrenewable resource is OK. It's OK because those of us alive today won't have to worry about it, someone coming after us will. That's not long range planning; that's selfishness.

The oil that inexorably is flowing toward the Mississippi and southern U.S. coastline and threatening the livelihoods of fisherman who need the business from fish and shellfish to feed their families is incapable of caring that we want the oil to not reach the shore and the estuaries.

Virginia is a beautiful state and the more time that I spend exploring it, the more I appreciate its beauty. But Virginia's beauty will only remain if we keep it from being abused and polluted. It needs that. I want it.

See the recent story from the Washington Post.

Note. -- The Quantum of Solace plot revolves around a plan to take control of Bolivia's freshwater supply.