Tonight I wanna talk about
America's obsession with oil.
When I say oil,
I'm not talking about the weird stuff
Gwyneth Paltrow sells on Goop.
I am talking about oil--
black gold, Texas tea,
Saudi sauce, Cheney lotion-- oil.
And unless you're one of the people
Al Gore pays to hang out with him,
you probably had no idea
that what could be one of the biggest
oil spills in American history
is happening right now
in the Gulf of Mexico.
[man] The Taylor Energy oil spill.
Never heard of it? Well, you're not alone.
[woman] The spill has been
quietly leaking millions of barrels
off Louisiana since 2004.
Taylor Energy acted like its Gulf oil leak
from 14 years ago was no big deal.
In fact, the high-end estimate
from the new report
would make the Taylor leak one
of the largest oil spills in US history.
This oil spill has been going on
since 2004.
2004 was so long ago.
Let me do the way-back math for you.
2004 is when College Dropout came out.
George W. Bush was still
the worst president in American history.
And I was wearing
two popped collars unironically.
[cheering, applause]
Do you understand the sacrifice
I just made to get that laugh?
This picture
will now be on the internet forever.
I look like if Kumail Nanjiani
ate Kid Rock.
All that hair gel and I still didn't have
the guts to touch a girl!
I went full hover hand.
I gave my wife the halal hand.
[laughter]
And while I was looking
like a dude named Chad in brownface,
this was happening in Louisiana.
[woman] A Taylor Energy platform sank
in a mudslide
that hurricane Ivan triggered back
in 2004.
[woman 2]
The president of Taylor Energy Company
told a gathering of industry experts
and environmental advocates
the leak was caused by
"an act of God event."
"Act of God" is a legal clause
that companies invoke
that lets them off the hook
for things they say isn't their fault,
and it's such a bullshit excuse.
Claiming an act of God is the worst excuse
after "Sorry! Just now seeing this text!"
It's bullshit, Vinay.
I know you were watching porn
the entire time.
And it was hosted by AWS.
Taylor Energy has been accused
of trying to keep the spill a secret
and is trying to get out
of paying more cleanup costs.
The only reason we know
about the Taylor oil spill
is because someone stumbled on it
while monitoring the BP oil spill.
What the fuck, man?
We only know about this oil spill
because of another oil spill?
That's like walking in on your wife
in bed with another guy,
and that guy is Guy Fieri.
[laughter and applause]
This is the problem:
no one notices the Taylor oil spill
because it's a disaster taking place
over a long period of time,
like Derrick Rose's career.
[audience groans]
[chuckles] Oh! Are you really groaning?
People get mad about that joke,
they're like... [shouts]
"Hey, he scored 50 points
the other night!"
Yeah, and then he twisted his ankle
a few games later.
You know what I love?
You could replace Derrick Rose
with Carmelo Anthony, and it still works.
Stay Melo.
But no one is paying attention
to the Taylor oil spill.
If you want your oil spill
to make the news,
it's gotta be sexy.
Exxon Valdez was a dramatic shipwreck
with a boozing captain.
Deepwater Horizon, there was an explosion!
These are the oil spills
that sell movie tickets.
These are the oil spills
that get people excited.
They even sell soap!
Specifically, Dawn detergent.
[man] To help save wildlife affected
by oil spills,
rescue workers have opened up
a lot of Dawn.
Go to facebook.com, DawnSavesWildlife.
What are you doing, Dawn?
Don't cash in on a disaster to sell soap.
That's like being like,
"Police brutality is bad,
but Tide will help you
clean up the bloodstains."
Unfortunately,
oil spills like Taylor Energy,
the ones we never hear about,
are not the exception.
They're the rule.
Offshore oil spills happen all the time.
This is a time-lapse
of nearly 10,000 oil spills in the gulf
from 2010 to 2015.
It's like watching the Gulf of Mexico
get chlamydia.
Here's the terrifying part:
oil spills are gonna keep happening
because the US is producing more oil
than ever.
[woman]
Move over, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
The US is the world's largest
crude oil producer.
[screams]
America is number one
in oil production in the world.
-We are now number one...
-[audience applauds]
...in prison population,
healthcare costs, defense spending,
and we have the biggest gaps
in bathroom stalls.
Seriously. Other countries don't do this.
It's creepy.
Close the gap, use a lota, please.
[applause]
Ten years ago
the US was producing around
five million barrels of crude oil a day.
This June we hit almost 11 million,
or roughly the amount of Polo Sport
I was wearing in this photo.
[laughter]
We're not just getting all this oil
from oil fields or offshore rigs.
We are drilling anywhere we can.
Experts say the oil-and-gas boom
in Colorado is just beginning.
[man] Current regulations say
oil and gas developments
can't be located within 500 feet
of homes and 1,000 feet of schools.
There are more than 3,000 oil wells
scattered across South Los Angeles.
Sometimes the drilling
is behind the scenes.
No office workers in this building.
It's actually disguising an oil rig.
That oil rig was acting like a building?
I bet in five years we'll find out
it was Daniel Day-Lewis the entire time.
Don't get me wrong.
It's not like we can't have any oil.
A lot of what we make and do requires oil.
But that doesn't mean
we have to keep burning though it
like it's an NFL rookie's salary.
Other countries are figuring this out.
Denmark is on track to generate 69%
of its electricity from renewables.
India plans on building some
of the largest solar parks in the world.
A Chinese energy company
is planning to build new solar plants
-in the shape of pandas.
-[audience "ooh's"]
That's the most endearing thing
an authoritarian regime has done
since Gaddafi wore
that big-ass Africa pin.
Nicolas Sarkozy
is looking at Gaddafi like,
"If I just stand here, can they just
photoshop me out of the picture?"
And Gaddafi's like, "Whatever, man.
You know I'm Libyan Flavor Flav."
[laughter]
I've always loved that from the neck down
Gaddafi was fresh as fuck.
And then from the neck up he looked like
North African Rick James.
[laughter and applause]
How did we get here? How did we become
number one in oil production?
Well, like unironic mustaches
and plot-based pornography,
it began in the 1970s.
Back in those days,
the US got a lot of its oil
from a group of countries known as OPEC,
the Organization
of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
The OPEC states were a team,
like the Avengers,
except the only Infinity War is Iraq.
In 1973, OPEC's Arab nations
refused to sell oil
to countries that supported Israel
during the Yom Kippur War.
And America was one of those countries.
And the embargo drove up gas prices.
People panicked
there wouldn't be enough gas.
And without gas, no one could drive
to their dealer's house for cocaine.
Or return that Bill Cosby album
they borrowed.
It was a very scary time.
This was a massive wake-up call
for America.
It's when we realized
we were OPEC's bitch,
and we were like, "Never again!"
So the federal government
banned most oil exports
to make sure America
always had extra reserves.
When Carter became president in 1977,
he encouraged Americans
to reduce energy consumption.
He championed renewables.
He installed solar panels
on the White House.
This is the '70s!
He even wore sweaters
instead of turning on the heat.
Simply by keeping our thermostats,
for instance,
at 65 degrees in the daytime
and 55 degrees at night,
we could save half the current shortage
of natural gas.
And America looked at "President Cardigan"
and responded with a big fat
"Fuck you, Jimmy Carter!"
In 1981, Reagan becomes president,
and he's like, "Yeah,
fiddlesticks to this
conservation bull-malarkey."
[laughter]
I don't know. Is that how Reagan talked?
In my head, I just thought he was like,
"Fiddlesticks!"
He tears down Carter's solar panels,
he gets rid of all the remaining
federal controls over oil production,
and just for fun, he decides
to ignore the AIDS epidemic.
Then we had George Bush Sr.,
who was an oil man.
Bill Clinton who was an oily man.
And George W. Bush. You know his deal.
Cut to 2015.
The oil export ban from 1975
was still in effect,
and while president Obama
prioritized wind and solar,
he also signed off on lifting the ban,
which meant even more oil production.
Basically, the last 50 years has been
fossil fuels battling renewables.
Just look at the solar panel beef
between Carter and Reagan.
Last year Jimmy Carter put solar panels
on his peanut farm,
which probably looked like this.
[laughter]
-That's right.
-[applause, whooping]
Jimmy C, Cardigan Man,
is playing the long game like a savage.
This was his version of Ether.
[laughter]
He was like, "Boom, boom, boom!
Fuck you, Gipper."
Battle lines between oil and renewables
are being drawn all over the country,
especially in Texas,
home to the largest oil field in America.
The Permian Basin, you know about that?
It is a gigantic lake of oil
just under the ground.
Texas is on track right now
to surpass Iran and Iraq
and eventually be the third largest
oil producer in the world.
Weirdly, Texas is also
just behind Iran and Iraq
in how many dudes are just
walking around with assault rifles.
[laughter]
For decades, we've been drilling
in the Permian Basin,
but oil production has skyrocketed
in the last ten years
thanks to huge technological advances
in drilling and hydraulic fracking.
Now, I would love to explain
how hydraulic fracking works,
but I can't top this description of it.
Shale yeah! This is so American!
Find it, drill it, give the earth
a safe and loving enema,
flood the markets and tell Russia
they can eat a bag of hockey sticks
with their dirty gas.
[girl hollers]
I can't believe Fox News is talking about
consensual and pleasurable butt stuff.
You know they hate that.
[applause]
Drilling and fracking in the Permian Basin
is a big reason America shot
to number one on the oil charts.
Texas oil production could double by 2023.
The only thing that should double
that quickly is the value of bitcoin.
Just kidding. That was a garbage
investment, and you're an idiot.
Bitcoin is just Beanie Babies
for tech bros.
[laughter]
Look, man, every person
I went to high school with was like,
"Yo, bitcoin is gonna change your life.
BTC. Get on it right now."
And I'm like,
"Tommy Wilson, you work at OfficeMax.
-What the fuck are you talking about?"
-[laughter]
Oh, by the way! By the way,
Hey, internet comments,
it's trading at 6.5k. Go fuck yourself.
Look, Texas doesn't need
to double oil production.
It has other options.
[man] Texas is where you'll find
the most wind industry jobs.
The traditionally conservative state
is leading the way for renewable energy
across the nation.
Texas is leading the country in wind?
That'd be like if you went
to med school for neuroscience
and your professor was Roger Goodell.
[laughter]
You won't be surprised to learn
the oil industry
isn't going down without a fight.
Check out these ads
from the Texas Public Policy Foundation,
a right-wing think tank
that wants you to hate the wind.
I see these advertisements on television,
and they have windmills in the background.
People think, "Oh, they're so pretty."
Well, they're not pretty to us
when we're surrounded by them.
I'm exhausted. Erm...
We stay that way.
You don't rest good at night,
you work hard during the day,
and that's strictly
because of the turbines.
The wind towers are not about the wind,
they're about the money.
-Yeah, no shit.
-[laughter]
Of course it's about the money.
No one gets into oil to find themselves.
[laughter]
This ad wants you to believe two things:
the wind is as dangerous as MS-13,
and the only reason wind turbines are
profitable is because of government money.
Renewables do get government subsidies,
but overall fossil fuels
have received far more.
Remember the Permian Basin,
that lake of oil?
Studies show almost half
of the new oil fields in the Permian Basin
wouldn't be profitable
without subsidies and tax breaks.
The cost lines have crossed,
and renewables and storage
are cheaper than fossil fuels.
We see even states run
by Republican governors...
They are investing in renewable energy.
It's cheaper.
Yet, as a country, we are still
extracting oil and gas at record levels.
And the Trump administration
could not be happier about that.
When it comes to renewable energy,
it feels like Trump's
only interested in one thing.
You can blow up the windmills,
you know, the windmills...
[imitates turbine]
Bing! That's the end of that windmill.
For the record,
he keeps calling them windmills.
This is a windmill. They make flour.
They tempt fanciful Spaniards
and obstruct miniature golf holes.
Wind turbines make power.
And no one will tell DJT the difference,
because the administration
is full of people with close ties
to the oil and gas industry.
My personal favorite is this man--
William Happer.
He's a member
of Trump's National Security Council.
The demonization of carbon dioxide
is just like the demonization
of the poor Jews under Hitler.
Carbon dioxide is actually a benefit
to the world and so were the Jews.
Yeah, sure.
Compare Jews to a toxic gas.
It's not like there's any sensitive
history between those two groups.
[audience groans]
Since entering office,
the Trump administration has sent
a very clear message
to the fossil fuel industry:
"We work for you now."
And that's reflected best in the Trump
administration's new energy policy.
American energy dominance.
American energy dominance.
I want us to be energy dominant.
Energy dominance
sounds like Charles Barkley
trying to say Ellen DeGeneres.
[laughter]
And Trump's go-to guy in energy dominance
is the Secretary of the Interior,
Ryan Zinke.
He is responsible for the management
and conservation of federal lands
and natural resources.
He's also under investigation
for a number of alleged ethics violations.
Say what you want about Zinke,
but he's out here living his best life.
He's into scout cosplay,
he loves grizzly bears,
and he's a former Navy SEAL
who loves hand-to-hand combat.
Just watch him throw down
in this action packed video.
So what you do is you step in,
you bend it back, right?
-And then you just turn.
-Okay, I'm gonna die!
What's interesting is your face
is near my knee.
[man laughs]
So, little love taps.
This is how you get bills passed,
right here.
Yes, say yes. Say yes.
I didn't know Zinke
had an Access Hollywood tape.
Also, that's not your knee, man.
[laughter, applause]
Is that what they call it
in the administration?
That's their code word?
[laughter]
"You know, I got a lot of weird feelings
in my knee right now."
[laughter]
But there's one thing
that Ryan Zinke loves more than anything.
Our 26th president.
I'm a great admirer of Teddy Roosevelt.
I'm a strong admirer of Teddy Roosevelt.
I keep going back to Roosevelt
'cause I'm a great admirer.
I get my inspiration from Teddy Roosevelt.
Roosevelt's vision for our national parks
was inspiring.
It is the preservation of the scenery,
of the forests,
and people should see to it
that they are preserved for their children
and their children's children forever.
It seems like Zinke may have
slightly misunderstood that vision.
The US Interior Secretary signed an order
to hold more lease sales
and to speed up permitting
for oil and gas exploration
on federal land.
He has proposed giving oil companies
access to drill
on more than 50 million acres
of public lands
in the past two years alone.
You can't idolize Teddy Roosevelt
and destroy the environment.
That's like Netflix having
the first Muslim talk show host
and Bodyguard.
Stay woke, Netflix.
[cheering, applause]
Bodyguard is good though, right?
It's good.
It's so good you almost forget
about the Islamophobia.
Almost. Almost...
You can still taste it, though,
a little bit.
Ah. Why does he have to be
so close to the bomb?
But ah... the drama is so gripping.
Oh, to be white!
Energy dominance does not end
with our public lands.
Out of 26 offshore areas
in the United States,
the Trump administration wanted
to open 25 to new drilling.
And as storms intensify
and sea levels rise,
oil companies in Texas have asked DJT
to protect their infrastructure.
[woman] Big oil companies
are asking the federal government
to protect facilities in Texas
against future storms.
The proposal seeks a nearly 60-mile spine
of concrete seawalls, barriers,
floating gates and steel levees
along the Texas Gulf Coast.
Oil companies are asking for protection
from the climate change
they helped create.
We're subsidizing
and deregulating oil companies
so they can produce more oil,
which fuels climate change,
which exacerbates weather events
like hurricanes,
which causes more oil spills
like Taylor Energy,
and now they want
government infrastructure
to protect their refineries
so they can produce more oil.
This is the life cycle of death.
And here's the kicker.
Even if we did extract all of our oil,
we can't even use it all,
we literally can't.
I don't mean "literally"
like when your friend's like,
"I'm literally starving,
we should go to brunch."
I mean if we literally burned all
of the world's fossil fuel reserves,
it would cause the temperatures
to rise so much
it would make the planet unlivable.
Remember, this isn't just a problem,
it's a problem with a deadline.
A new report by the UN
carries a stark warning:
the world has little more than a decade
to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide
released into the atmosphere,
-or it may be too late.
-[woman] At the current warming rate,
millions more people will die
from extreme heat by the year 2040.
I know it doesn't seem like it,
but 2040 isn't that far away.
Most of us will still be paying off
our student loans.
[laughter]
Think about it,
that's just 22 years from now.
We are only one Zendaya away
from Mad Max: Fury Road.
This isn't just about temperatures rising.
Climate change will make
every problem we have worse:
Famine, overcrowding,
infrastructure problems, disease, war.
I gotta be honest.
When I was researching for this topic,
I got really depressed.
It's one thing
to feel bad about not recycling,
it's another thing to realize
none of this matters
if the fossil fuel industry
and the government
are undercutting everything we do.
This hit me even harder
when I started thinking about my daughter.
And part of we was just like,
"Maybe I just grab the baby
and we head to a bunker in Iceland,
and we just hang out in Iceland."
And then I'm like, "What are you doing?
You're the only brown people in Iceland.
[laughter]
They'll just kill you."
You don't get out yourself.
Usually it's forced upon you.
[laughter]
The good news is some kids aren't
waiting around for adults to save them.
21 kids across the nation
are seeking to end the use of fossil fuels
contributing to global warming.
And they want to hold the federal
government accountable for it.
This case is about the federal government
for more than five decades
creating a dangerous climate situation
for young people
and for all our future generations.
Politicians, Democrats, Republicans
aren't doing the best job
of representing our future.
Their lawsuit against the government
claims that its failure
to address climate change
violates their constitutional rights
to life, liberty and property.
The Trump administration tried
to block the suit,
but just last week the Supreme Court ruled
that the case should go forward.
No child's afterschool activity
should be being a plaintiff.
We produce enough oil.
We have enough reserves.
We need to stop running this race.
I don't want my daughter
to have to sue for the right to be alive.
She should only have to sue
for normal American things.
[laughter]
Like not getting into Harvard.
