Saturday 20 June 2015

Subs. Arctic.

Do you think Rohmer saw himself as a one-man think tank? A sort of lone wolf version of the Heritage Foundation or the American Petroleum Institute? Maybe the purpose of books like The Arctic Imperative and The Green North was to create some kind of intellectual foundation for "drill here/drill now... put the oil on blimps... make a law that only Canadians can buy stock in the companies"?

What I'm not getting is what's in it for Rohmer or the reader.

It feels like the book exists to be waved around by an MP.  "I have in my hands an exhaustive study by one of Canada's foremost experts that says we have to take action now!" And that's why it's so repetitive... to achieve waving girth.

Giant nuclear submarine oil tankers, though.

I want to give it a D-, because I think it's a prop for a political con game, like a report that says climate change needs more study, but just for the giant nuclear submarine oil tankers I'm upping it to a D.

1 comment:

  1. It's gets back to something Stan was saying -- this disoriented feeling reading chapter after chapter of statistics about pipeline diameters. We're not missing the connection between the evidence and the conclusions. For the middle 150 pages at least, there is no connection.

    Pipes come in many sizes.
    American businessmen have to give Canadian businessmen a piece of the action.

    The Inuit are concerned about oil spills, which come in many sizes.
    American businessmen have to give Canadian businessman a piece of the action.

    You could deliver crude oil by nuclear submarine. (You could also move popcorn by space shuttle, but you wouldn't make a profit.)
    American businessmen...

    Here's a drawing of a de Havilland Otter.
    The government should make a law that my friends get money.

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