Bill Maher to people working on offshore drilling rigs: Too Bad!

[Rage for Order]

I don't remember the exact quote, but I'm sure the clip will be available on YouTube soon enough. He said roughly 58,000 people in Louisiana work in the oil industry, many of them on offshore rigs. He essentially told them they should find new jobs building windmills or solar panels, or some other type of industry that doesn't harm the planet.

Fair enough Bill, but how about you put your money where your mouth is? When can we expect you to invest a few tens of millions of dollars into building a couple of windmill factories in southern Louisiana so these people will be able to quit their jobs on the oil rigs and work at a job that you deem to be acceptable? Perhaps you can offer to pay the expenses of a few thousand of these people so they can re-train in a different field, and pay their mortgages, utilities, buy their food, clothing, and other necessities while they go to school? If you really want to be part of the solution then step up to the plate and put your money where your mouth is. Telling people, "Tough shit, find another line of work" is not going to cut it.

I agree that we need to discontinue offshore drilling, but the people who rely on that industry to make a living can't just stop going to work tomorrow. Where else will they earn $70,000 annually to do manual labor with no more than a high school diploma? Should they all go to work at Wal Mart for $10 an hour, or take a job as a butcher in a grocery store for $30,000 a year? It's easy for people like Bill Maher to sit in their multi-million dollar mansions and tell other people they should make sacrifices for the sake of the planet. Unfortunately, most people can't afford to quit a job because someone else doesn't like the way they make a living.


*grammar edit

[jp11]

1. He's on Cable, he doesn't get to decide policy regarding Oil, drilling or what jobs people take

unless they maybe work for his show.

The 'too bad' was in response to the argument that we shouldn't do this or that because it will affect someone's job.

[Rage for Order]

3. Not just "someone's" job

The jobs of tens of thousands of people. If one proposes to eliminate an entire industry, or sector of an industry, there needs to be a plan in place for the tens of thousands of displaced workers. I heard plenty of complaining but not much in the way of constructive suggestions.

The government did not build oil wells and hire the people to work the drilling rigs, private companies did. Maher and other people of means who want to see us move to green energy production should pool their money and start companies that focus on providing green energy alternatives, thereby creating jobs for the people who are displaced by the shuttering of industries he would like to see disappear. Or is he not willing to risk his money to promote his ideals?

[TheMadMonk]

6. Electric street lights put thousands of gaslighters out of work.

The mechanisation of agriculture did it to millions. Computers (the machine) replaced computers (the proffesion). The PC did in the secretarial pool.

Wanna know something, buggy whip manufacturers FFS threw the same pissy fit you're chucking right now, over the motor car.

None of them got five year plans to ease their transition into new jobs. No one deliberately created new jobs just for them.

Two certain things about existence: shit happens; no one get's out alive.

[Rage for Order]

8. None of the transitions you listed happened virtually overnight

Those professions disappeared via a gradual phasing out over a period of a decade or two rather than an abrupt elimination.

[TheMadMonk]

10. With the introduction of "alternative" portable energy sources, the oil industry...

...will drastically contract, but it will not go away. Too much of civilisation is dependent on petrochemical products. Lubricants just to start with. Plastics, medicine, pharmacuticals, synthetic fabrics aaaannnd like it or lump it, fuel for critical applications.

And the death of Oil will not happen overnight. If The People/concerned regulators get their way, drilling will continue until that "alternative" makes itself well and truly known, but under much closer oversight and more stringent safeguards.

Yes one unfortunate result is that the oil companies will "punish" the American Consumer and jack prices up to glory. Perhaps then the American Consumer might get a clue and seriously push for that "alternative".

[Donnachaidh]

16. and the gaslighter industry wasn't responsible for ecocide on a grand scale

:eyes:

[jp11]

9. So we can't talk about doing things unless we are prepared to put our money

on the line, quit our jobs or leave our families so we can all work on the idea we have? Sounds like a real winner you have there. His suggestion was the government pay the oil workers their current salary to make solar panels or whatever but 'we' won't do that there is plenty of money for war but not for something like that.

The jobs of tens of thousands of people are at risk or 'gone' thanks to the oil industry being greedy and cutting corners, buying off officials, the rich people of 'means' using their 'means' to get their greedy corrupt friends jobs and have the government favor them to make more money, where is the plan for them?

Oil isn't going away anytime soon, freak out all you want it isn't happening because of what a few people or even if a lot of people say it should, roughly half the country will still be republican at any given time and they love oil.


Bill Maher isn't setting policy or leading a campaign in congress to abolish oil rigs or destroy the oil industry, you know this as well as I do, but ONE day it will run out and the jobs in the oil industry will be gone and on that day no one will offer the workers any new training because 'someone' killed the oil industry.

[Brickbat]

2. I say that to everyone who crows about green jobs.

As soon as someone can show me how green jobs are guaranteed to pay a living wage and won't be outsourced, I'll be just as excited as the next person.

EDIT: To clarify, I say what you are saying to everyone who crows about green jobs. I DON'T say what Bill Maher said.

[Zoeisright]

4. Money money everywhere, and nary a drop to drink.

[JonLP24]

5. You agree we need to discontinue

but everything else you say suggests that we continue because people will lose their jobs. When is a good time to discontinue? If it's not now but later, people will still lose offshore drilling jobs.

[Rage for Order]

7. When there is a viable alternative in place

I'm happy to stop driving my gasoline-powered car to work tomorrow. What source of fuel should I use instead?

Offshore drilling should only be allowed in depths of water where workers are able to seal a ruptured well within 48-72 hours of a blowout or similar incident.

[Liberation Angel]

11. Ride a bike, dude. And it is the PUBLIC's responsibility to create Green Jobs

not Bill Maher's

We do not need offshore drilling period and these folks need new jobs and to hell with the industry.

Ride a bike if you need an alternative to get to work.

Sustainable architectures, infrastructures, mass transit, all of that are possible. But not if people stay stuck in their "need" for oil, cars and mega consumption of energy.

[Rage for Order]

15. Riding a bike to work is not an option for me

I live in the Dallas area, where it is routinely 100+ degrees in the summer, 10 miles from work. I work in a professional office environment so I can't arrive at work drenched in sweat and smelling bad for the rest of the day. There are no buses that run from anywhere near my house to anywhere near my office. Again, give me a viable alternative and I'll be happy to take advantage of it.

[mmonk]

12. I agree with Bill.

We don't pick cotton by hand anymore. Sometimes, you need to evolve and change.

[jgraz]

13. This is the same argument Repugs make whenever anyone suggests cutting defense

Here's an idea: if you want a jobs program, how's about we find one that doesn't kill people and destroy the planet?

[Joe Fields]

14. Although Maher has no input on policy and can serve as a mouthpiece

to a relatively small group of people, I do agree with you. These offshore workers and Gulf fishermen are losing their livelihoods virtually overnight, while their bills keep coming. Not to mention the peripheral industries that depend on those workers to stay afloat, such as restaurant workers and yes, even WalMart employees. Louisiana could find itself facing bankruptcy, since oil and fishing tie everything together down there.

I hate offshore drilling, but for callous people to say "tuff, go find another job" is extremely shortsighted. The Gulf coast is going to need its own stimulus package, and quickly. (hopefully at BP's expense.)

[orleans]

17. wouldn't it be great if our government would invest in the green

technology for the benefit of our country and the world, and open up jobs for this in areas like LA? it would certainly help.

[Rage for Order]

19. Indeed it would

But I'd prefer to see private companies open green businesses in the areas where people currently work to produce fossil fuels - southern Louisiana and other areas where offshore and onshore drilling is prevalent, West Virginia and other areas where coal mining is prevalent, etc.

[Greyhound]

18. You misunderstood. He was countering the idiotic meme being pushed that

because BP employs 58,000 people, that they should get "special consideration" and not be held to account for all the damage they have done. He said that we could hire them all and put them to work on the infrastructure for money that the DoD loses in the couch.