Rush Limbaugh called me a wacko environmentalist. I must consider why.
I had said the Gulf oil spill was a problem and the government should do something because of it. To me this view had the virtue of being a truth – maybe a truism. But apparently Limbaugh disagrees. Let’s review the bidding.
It all started when Limbaugh suggested on his show that the timing of the oil rig explosion around Earth Day was maybe more than a coincidence and that self-serving environmentalists could have blown up the rig for their own purposes. I told an ABC reporter that the only thing anyone was suggesting had happened was a failure of technology due to the company’s operation of the system.
Thinking back on it I still can’t imagine a secret corps of environmental super frogmen who can go 5,000 feet underwater to blow up oil rigs. Kind of like Blackwater goes deepwater. But what do I know? They would be secret and super after all. As for the timing, don’t forget that Earth Day is also Jack Nicholson’s birthday. I mean that’s a wacky coincidence.
Limbaugh went on to claim that oil was completely natural so even a big oil spill was nothing to worry about. (I guess like sewage is natural too, except more toxic and sticky and harder to clean up. In fact I heard the industry is saying the spill might be a type of oil called sweet crude. Maybe it would help them if an oil industry executive drank a glass on television. But I digress.)
To Limbaugh’s remark I replied that what was really crazy was having to set the ocean on fire to respond to a big spill when there are better ways to supply our energy needs without these risks. I regret this statement now.
I should have said having to do that was wacko.
These comments of mine must have been too much for Limbaugh. Soon he was back on his show denouncing me by name. Apparently the spill is no Big Problem and the environmentalists are just spinning it for their Big Government agenda. My statement to an L.A Times reporter was proof positive. Let’s see what I said:
“He [Obama] needs a response which is as big as the spill is.”
Outrageous!
Even upon reflection it’s hard to conceive of living in Limbaugh’s mental world where the size of solutions should not fit to size of problems, even though I would agree that government is not the only solution. But I especially can’t live in this real world and say flat out there’s not going to be a problem with this spill when there are already 11 deaths in the explosion, scores of fishermen thrown out of work, and whole communities facing economic ruin.
Call me a wacko, but I’ve got to be me.
This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard.
Wesley Warren is NRDC’s Director of Programs. NRDC is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the environment, people and animals. NRDC was founded in 1970 and is comprised of more than 300 lawyers, scientists and policy experts, with more than one million members and e-activists.
