A non-profit
foundation founded in 1990, the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, is funded by Shell
Oil, ConocoPhillips, Transocean and “partners” including Anadarko Petroleum,
British Petroleum, Marathon Oil Co., Walt Disney’s Worldwide Wildlife Fund and
Rowan Companies. Its director is Quenton
Dokken a marine biologist. Heavily tied
to the oil and gas industry the Gulf of Mexico Foundation provides a window on
the industry’s desire to give a good showing of concern for the oil rich Gulf,
but the cross-purposes and potential conflicts of interest in the Gulf have
many environmentalists crying foul (ProPublica, “Nonprofit conservation group
has ties to oil interests, May 4, 2010, retrieved from
http://www.propublica.org/ion/blog/item/non-profit-conservation-group-has-ties-to-big-oil-interests-gulf-oil-spill
on 1/1/15).
A close look at the Board of Directors of
these companies shows the clear, but disjointed connection between the petro-chemical industry
and the Gulf Coast fishing and culinary industries. Just as with the 2008 global financial meltdown
that had been shown in the 2010 film “Inside Job” produced by Charles Ferguson and featuring Matt Damon, academia and the financial institutions are mutually compromised, the same is true for the Gulf of Mexico Foundation and the Texas universities that are suppose to be champions of intellectual honesty but like the bumbling museum in Dallas' and the Houston
Museum of Natural History they are visibly and audibly silent on one of the most pressing concerns of our time. With Ross Perot’s $125 million gift to Dallas’ Perot Museum of Nature and
Science and that museum losing an exhibit on global warming, Mark Strauss, the curator reported on the disappearance of the exhibit on climate
change in June 2014 calling it a temporary warehousing of the small panel (Mark Strauss,” Texas Museum Censors Exhibit on Climate
Change,” I09 Welcome to the Future,
6/16/14, retrieved from
http://io9.com/science-museums-are-skittish-about-climate-change-1591364396
retrieved on 1/1/15).
The museum opened in late 2012, but the
newspaper only learned about the missing panel earlier this month, when its
existence was revealed in an interview with the design firm that had been
commissioned to create several of the exhibits. The museum says the panel was
incorrectly designed to fit its space, so it was temporarily removed until a
new one could be manufactured — which is a reasonable explanation, except that
the "temporary removal" has, thus far, lasted a year-and-a-half. The revelation isn't exactly shocking, given
that the museum's benefactors include Exxon and Chief Oil & Gas.
Meanwhile, 2014 set the record for the
hottest year in recorded history as the overwhelming majority of earth
scientists agreed that climate change was man-made. Even NASA’s website agreed “Consensus: 97% of
Climate Scientists Agree” while joining the list of other scientific societies
that see human activity adversely affecting the planet….American Association
for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, American Geophysical
Union, American Medical Association, American Meteorological Society, American
Physical Society, The Geological Society of America, U.S. National Academy of
Sciences, U.S. Global Change Research Program, Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, and a list of 200 worldwide scientific bodies that all agree
that the evidence is irrefutable (“Concensus: 97% of Climate Change Scientists
Agree,” NASA: Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of a Planet, retrieved from
http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ on 1/1/15).
The fishermen and chefs who met with Dr.
Dokken at an event hosted by Gulf of Mexico Foundation in Galveston may not
entirely understand the severity of the implications, however. Rowan Company, for example, finds that their
Director William T. Fox, III was a Managing Director of Citibank for which
Texan Lyndon Olson, former U.S. Ambassador to Sweden from Waco, was legal
counsel and which finds former CIA Director, John Deutsch, on the Citibank
Board. Sir Graham Hearne was CEO of
Enterprise Petroleum whose CEO was Dan Duncan and whose daughter was Chair of
the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
Suzanne P. Nimocks was a director and senior partner with McKinsey &
Company, the global management company that represents the top 25 U.S. defense
companies as well as the Roman Catholic Vatican and Pope Francis who in December
2014 took a leading part in negotiations between Cuba and the United States.
Dr. Dokken is a graduate of Texas A&M
University College Station, Texas, Corpus Christi University, now Texas A&M
University Corpus Christi, which is home to the Harte Institute for Marine
Sciences and of Texas A&I, University, now Texas A&M University,
Kingsville, Texas which is the alma mater of Houston developer, Walter Mischer, whose
involvement in the S&L scandal and Iran-Contra fiasco has been well documented.
Texas A&M Corpus Christi is also the home
to marine biologist, Dr. John Wesley Tunnell, Jr., a leading member of the Houston
Museum of Natural Science that also avoids an exhibit on climate change.
Dr.
Dokken who was Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration’s Gulf of Mexico Regional Marine Research Program was also Executive Director of the Texas State Aquarium
in 1985 (Gulfbase.org, Resource Database for Gulf of Mexico Research, Harte
Research, “Dr. Quenton R. Dokken,” retrieved from
http://www.gulfbase.org/person/view.php?uid=qdokken on 1/1/15).
The list of past officers of the Texas
State Aquarium reads like a “Who’s Who” of the nation’s military industrial and
petro-chemical industry leadership. Dr.
John Wesley Tunnell, who is now semi-retired
from the Harte Research Institute since 2013 said that he had hopes of “someday implementing a Gulf of Mexico
Ecosystem Report Card,” (Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, Dr. Wes
Tunnell, Harte Research Institute: Gulf of Mexico Studies, retrieved from
http://www.harteresearchinstitute.org/dr-wes-tunnell on 1/1/15). Tunnell was also the Adjunct Curator for
Malacology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science (John W. Tunnell, Jr. The
Houston Museum of Natural Science, retrieved from
http://www.hmns.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=90&Itemid=96.
On 1/2/15). The Houston Museum of
Natural Science has three board members.
Rhanda William of Enterprise Petroleum, William Montgomery of Quantum
Energy Partners and Kenneth Lang of Ridgewood Energy K Fund LLC (Company
Overview of Houston Museum of Natural Science, BloombergBusinessweek, retrieved
from
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/board.asp?privcapId=4549646
on 1/2/15).
Just
as with the Gulf of Mexico Foundation the Houston Museum of Natural Science was
phalanxed by leading oil cartel characters in a city that has denied the
potential of nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, hydrogen and other fuels...a city with no mass transit plan that would further reduce carbon emissions and green house gasses. Rhanda Williams, the Chair of the Board is
the daughter of Dan Duncan, the deceased CEO of Enterprise Petroleum and a
former member of Safari Club International found himself in the crosshairs
over an illegal game hunt in Russia (Tom Flowler, “Houston Tycoon in Big
Trouble Over Big Game Hunt,” The Houston Chronicle, July 19, 2007, retrieved
from
http://www.chron.com/business/article/Houston-tycoon-in-big-trouble-over-big-game-hunt-1821303.php
retrieved on 1/2/15).
Gulf Coast Fishermen were already
reporting on the health of the Gulf of Mexico. In September 2013, Ed Lallo
writing for Gulf Seafood News said: 'Sitting around a u-shaped conference table
at the historic Hotel Galvez on Galveston Island, Top Chef Texas winner Chef
Paul Qui joined 11 other Gulf chefs and a dozen other seafood industry leaders
to quiz and question local fishermen on how better communications could be
established between the water and the plate.'
The Gulf of Mexico Foundation sponsored
the special event funded by a grant from Sysco Louisiana Seafoods.
It was here that Dr. Quenton Dokken served
as note taker on the proceedings and it was from this authoritative position
that Dokken said…. “The seafood and fishery industries are major players in
both environmental quality and economic robustness.” He explained… “By bringing the seafood
harvesters and chefs together, we hope to advance more efficient fisheries and
utilization of living resources taken from the sea to protect the environment
and living resources and enhance the seafood and fishery industries.” Of course threading the needle between what
is of interest to the economic robustness of the Gulf’s living species and its
fossil fuel purveyors is a difficult task for the cross-eyed and
cross-purposed. It would be like
Copernicus or Galileo being appointed Roman Catholic Cardinals after their
house arrest for proclaiming that the earth is not the center of the church’s
universe. (Ed Lallo, “White Table Cloth Meets White Boots At Gulf of Mexico
Foundation Conference,” Gulf Seafood Institute, Newsroom: Voice of the Gulf,
http://gulfseafoodnews.com/2013/09/23/gulf-of-mexico-foundation-conference/
retrieved on 1/1/15).
In response to Lallo’s article came the
following:
Sheila Mamolo
September 24, 2013 at 2:42 pm
That is all fine and
dandy, but that is to help the fishermen to the west, towards Texas and maybe
Mexico, what about the fishermen from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama that
were hurt from the BP oil spill. Our fishermen are not catching much at all. I
have never seen my husband to only come in with maybe 200 lbs. That does not pay the bills. Who is going to
help us out? My husband trawls for shrimp as a living since he was 12 years
old. His father did it and his grandfather. Where is our help? This might be a
little off course, but this message needs to be seen and heard also.
On the board of the Gulf Seafood Institute
is Dokken’s colleague from Florida, Dr. Bill Hogarth, Director of the Florida
Institute on Oceanography and Assistant Administrator of Fisheries at NOAA,
appointed to that position by George W. Bush in 2001 illustrating further the
connections between the Texas and Florida fossil fuel/environmental conflicts.
Here we see a loading up of an apparently impartial caretaking program of the
earth’s resources with the heavy hand of the exploitive petro-chemical industry
(from http://gulfseafoodinstitute.org/gsi-board-gulf-seafood-institute/).
Texas is showing itself to once again be
“ground zero” for the type of dialectic devil dance that had the world’s oil
cartel taking on Robert Oppenheimer’s vision of ubiquitous nuclear power
through Oppenheimer’s opponent Rice University’s President, Kenneth
Pitzer. Pitzer had been the key witness against Oppenheimer in a Congressional investigation headed by Gordon Gray, father of C. Boyden Gray, chief legal counsel to the Bush Administration and both heirs of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. an industry with little concern for human health and wellbeing.
This time the BP Deep Water Horizon
explosion and leak in 2009 brought the spotlight to the Harte Research
Institute for the Gulf of Mexico Studies and the Gulf of Mexico Foundation,
both of which are domiciled in Corpus Christi (John M. Broder and Tom Zeller,
Jr., “Gulf Oil Spill Is Bad, but How Bad?, New York Times, May 3, 2010,
retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/science/earth/04enviro.html?_r=0
on 1/3/15).
With Michael Bromwich, chief investigator into the Iran-Contra fiasco that stopped short of indicting Reagan and Bush, Bromwich was moving from the
investigation of the Harris County Medical Examiner Office’s problems to the investigation of the BP
oil spill and the power politics of seamless denial ability is simply
uncovered. It is however, enough to
give Houston and New Orleans’ oil executives the hee-bee-geevies as they slide
down their raw oysters at Emeril’s, Landry’s or Brennan’s restaurants, in spite
of Dokken and Hogarth’s assurances of the insignificance of the spoilage that
went far beyond only the Deep Water Horizon event and does not explore the active ingredients in Exxon's oil dispersant Corexit.
The issue is obvious. The draw of fossil fuels on the
petro-chemical industry’s exploration and production apparatus will not allow an altering of
its course toward less damaging sources of power. Not yet, anyway...and perhaps, if the 97% of climate scientists are correct, not before it's too late. The petro-chem minions join these
pseudo-conservationist organizations like unwavering Jesuits preaching
indulgences to those whose only point of reference is a solid world without
end, the center of all things, that Copernicus and Galileo told us clearly is a
myth.
On January 2, 2015 MSNBC’s The Ed Show on
a segment on global warming that repeated a May 2014 appearance by Louisiana
shrimp buyer, Dean Blanchard, Blanchard said “for the first 18 days of the
month before BP in 2009 we did 2,660,000 pounds and this year we did 129,000
pounds so we’re down to about 4 percent.
It’s a tough situation. Just
imagine getting 4 percent of your check and just how good you’d be doing.”
"Look," said Ripples, "the scientific method has the same ethic as the world's greatest spiritually enlightened leaders and I'm not talking ISIS. Was it not Jesus that said "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." Both worldviews, science and spirit, demand the same thing. That was what the Reformation and Enlightenment demanded of humanity. Truth! Even when that truth will require great upheaval, yet there are some that believe that this truth-telling should be a mealy-mouthed and unassuming tweeking of the message. We are beyond unassuming. This required more than a tweeking of some off-message PR program. Ninety-seven percent of scientists have grasped the problem. They are on-message! The others? You must at this point genuinely assert boldly that they are motivated by nefarious ambitions. Take the 1986 Reagan 1086 tax laws in the U.S. that benefited fossil fuels with Master Limited Partnerships (MLP) that prop up the carbon fuel companies, but not wind, solar, geothermal and other alternative fuel sources. Sure, you can get up to a 30% tax break on your initial investment in solar panels or geothermal cooling and heating systems, but MLP's are ongoing, long-term tax incentives for energy companies. Suppose neighborhoods or apartment buildings had their own MLP's for renewables over the long haul! That would effectively drain the fossil fuel Vatican's vat of canned indulgences and stop their power pimping of these sludge-buckets of putrid pavlova. I can hear the shrimp and oysters rejoicing now and Emeril and Wolfgang Puck and the others glad that their Cajun spices and roasted garlic and herb sauces don't have to hide the smell of Pennzoil or Quaker State!"
Ripples said that he believes the reports that former VP, Al Gore, attempted to fund the "Al Gore Global Warming Exhibit" at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, but that the offer was unceremoniously swept under the rug.
Ripples pressed the issue. "Who took the lead in creating MLP's for the fossil fuel companies? Why Goldman Sachs, of course, but there will be no Hank Paulson bailout for the planet's eco-system like there was of AIG and the big banks like Citibank, Merrill Lynch and all the others," said Ripples. "Paulson has moved from the financial crash of 2008 that was as big a bamboozle as the Iraq War and is now joining forces with his ex-GS colleagues to sell the U.S.A. to China," said Ripples. If China can fund a billion dollar oil pipe company in Texas why couldn't Texas' economic development fund have the foresight to fund its own U.S. company like Paulson did General Motors?" asked Ripples who said "it fishier than a derailed sushi train."
Ripples noted
that his source also shared that Dr. Wes Tunnel had been the keynote speaker at
a graduation of the Texas A&M Graduating class in 2007 when he gave a
fascinating illustration to the students that sounded like a Spanish
Inquisition warning or a Vatican vendetta against Copernicus or Galileo who had
gone public with their news that the earth wasn’t, like oil isn’t, the source
of all things. He once again quoted his source:
The Harte Research
Institute, as it was told to me by numerous oil men, charted the Gulf of
Mexico’s sea bottom for future oil exploration under the guise of doing broad
science-based oceanography. A
collector of Walker Colt pistols and editor of the largest publication
dedicated to the handgun, Dr. Wes Tunnell spoke to the students of how a ship
captain noticing a light in the distance on a stormy night at sea radioed
feverishly for the other ship to change course to avoid a collision. 'The captain radioed back saying ‘I’m a
lighthouse. Change your course,’” said Ripples.
“Good story, but misguided in this context. Texas better change its course,” said Ripples
noting that in some ways it already has, but without fanfare....a large segment of the region near Corpus Christi had a field of wind turbines near Taft,
Texas, home to the Rincon Ranch of Charles P. Taft, brother of President William Howard Taft and both sons of Alphonso Taft. “They always hedge their bets,”
said Ripples, “using one source of funding
to secure the next, but not until the former is depleted. Its the second half of this game, their business plan for their own success, that has dire consequences for the planet."
Ripples noted that the true Darwinians in this story are "the environmentalists who are pushing for adaptation and change before the clock runs out. Darwin said that survival goes to those species most readily able to adapt and change and all of his projections were made within the context of a livable planet which we are quickly destroying and may well run out its livability long before the projected 2 billion year life span of our sun."
