Energy Hypocrisy
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I do not have sufficient oil resources to determine if any of the presentation at the bottom is true. My best thinking is that it is mostly accurate.
Extremism can be viewed from many angles. As a true political independent and an environmentalist myself, albeit without tangible credentials many might want to see before according me any credibility, I love the natural world in which we live and want it to continue to support human life and be a source of inspiration and joy for all of us, forever and ever, amen.
That does not mean I want us to revert to living in caves or elsewhere with a smaller footprint by forgoing all of the inventions for comfort and joy that I also appreciate, solely to protect any given species of animal or plant. While we collectively have enormous effect on the land, we are natural creatures too and have a right to ply our trade as does the snail darter. Nature has created and killed millions of species in it’s time ruling earth and will do so forever in my opinion. Maybe, just maybe, species are evolving and being created as we speak.
I believe strongly in evolution and am pretty sure that while we could disrupt our lifestyle with our endeavors, atomic bombs, oil spills and the like, nothing we can do will ever approach the power of nature to reshape the landscape, foul the atmosphere if it chooses, tear down the Rocky Mountains again and replace it again with oceans. A threepete or more maybe.
The history of the world is replete with examples of non sustainable populations and governments. Just the ones we know about. We do not know everything.
Many of my friends and many strangers opine that we must punish carbon based energy sources every way possible, as we should also punish the evil empire of Monsanto for creating patented genetically modified seeds and foodstuff, all for the sake of saving the environment. I predict that there will be unwanted side effects of GMO. I also predict that Monsanto will be hailed someday as a savior of the underfed and unrelentingly growing populations around the world.
As I have learned, many things cut both ways, meaning that wonderful glass of wine can become a headache, that truly awful DDT that nearly wiped out the Brown Pelican and other species, fouled other plants and animals and humans, probably also saved million of lives from malaria. Some of those millions were not saved while we “saved the environment”over the last couple of decades.
No solutions we can ever come up with will ever be perfect I suspect, and there will always be tradeoffs which we should make carefully and with minimal politicking.
Nature, my hero in this world, is never perfect.
It is always adjusting or allowing naturally caused adjustments to correct imbalances, too many seals, too few plankton. The natural process of dying out, overpopulation, shortages and overages of all kinds, cause accelerating production or plants and animals when adversaries are temporarily on the ropes which will reverse. That is how nature does it.
While I think we as thinking inhabitants should seek enlightened approaches to our decisions, I think it critically important that we do not succumb to arrogance and think that we have a better way than nature. History proves that we are never perfectly on course, nor can we be. Despite valid and unwise attempts to regulate to guarantee fairness or sustainability, real sustainability as opposed to political sustainability is only assured if various elements are allowed to flourish and fade away on their own merits. Yes, let us be humane. That does not mean we have to be stupid.
Please consider the following with an open mind. There are some important points of wisdom as well as no doubt some debatable points of view. The author feels strongly as I do that the fictionalized facts used by Al Gore, Michael Moore, Oliver Stone in the pursuit of their guilty pleasures and power are more harmful to the sustainability of our lifestyle than the next 10,000 oil wells.
The government should in fact set high standards and then step back and let private enterprise figure out how to filter pollutants with nano technology or algae or whatever it takes, monitoring the side effects always. Not prevent the possibility of more energy self sufficiency by over regulation and hand slapping of the very hand that feeds us, politically administering pocketbook punishment of the very enterprises that give us a wonderful lifestyle today.
What is not debatable, is that carbon based energy is for the time being the most accessible, most deliverable and cheapest form of energy. All forms of energy should be developed and exploited with consumer willingness to pay used the ultimate test and regulator.
This environmentalist pledges that he would willingly pay 150% of my current energy costs to help theoretically more sustainable energy sources to gain a foot hold, thus allowing the market mechanism, grounded in what some insist on calling greed, to have better opportunities to innovate and lower costs.
Effective solution? No way, what a joke.
Most Americans and businesses cannot afford to pay 150% of current costs. That increase in cost would send inflation through the roof with all it’s attendant awful side effects.
Other problem is most credentialed environmentalists would only want you to pay those costs, they would likely do as they always do, spend as little as they have to driving their carbon based transportation to hang it in effigy to raise money to gain the necessary votes and power to, well, save the environment. Seems they might have to kill the environment to save it. Hurt our lifestyle to save it.
Which demonstrated that we would be foolish not to rapidly develop carbon resources wisely and carefully but with dispatch.
And despite peak oil concepts, which is fulfilled for production in the US, due to our unwillingness to exploit resources maximally, it is NOT TRUE globally and where we source too much energy.
The more carbon based energy is looked for, the more is found. When someone tells me we are going to run out of carbon based energy and the price will skyrocket, I tell them I am afraid we will never run out of it and that it will not skyrocket enough to make ostensibly eco friendly sustainable sources competitive.
The following came to me in an email. I do not know who wrote it, but I have to sympathize with the spirit of it if not exactly with any given opinion although I am also not sure what I would actually disagree with:My daughter and son-in-law were in L.A. last week from their home in Anchorage . He is a foreman in the oil fields at ANWR. He has to fly his own plane to get to the job where he spends months at a time in the most God forsaken place this side of Siberia . He confirmed everything that is in this story, and brought dozens o f pictures for proof. Our environmentalist friends have forced gas prices up to an impossible rate, forcing us to buy oil from our enemies, for whatever reason that simply isn't true. There is enough oil in ANWR to supply the US at our present rate of usage for more than 200 years. The space that AMWR occupies in Alaska is equivalent to a postage stamp in the Mojave Desert . If you won't paying $5.00 a gallon in the very near future try to make sense of the following: Something you should know: Alaska and Oil!! A lot of "STUFF" is about oil. From relatives in Alaska : Now that gasoline is $3.50 and climbing... we can help ourselves... This is the best presentation on ANWR I have seen. I would like to add a little more information. A new pipeline across Alaska isn't required since the location for drilling in ANWR is about 160 miles from the North Slope Prudhoe Bay pipeline where it would be connected. I did not know this.Second the wildlife love the pipeline since it is heated and provides a shelter during the worst times during the winter.Maybe another question should be asked. Question: Do you know what ANWR is? ANSWER: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Lanny Now A comparisonAnd some perspective
NOTE WHERE THE PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT AREA IS? (it's in the "ANWR Coastal Plain")
THIS IS WHAT THE DEMOCRATS, LIBERALS
AND “GREENS” SHOW YOU WHEN THEY TALK ABOUT ANWR
- and they are right these ARE photographs of ANWR
ISN’T ANWR BEAUTIFUL? WHY SHOULD WE DRILL HERE (AND DESTROY)
THIS BEAUTIFUL PLACE? WELL THAT’S NOT EXACTLY THE TRUTH.
Do you remember the map? The map showed that the proposed
drilling area is in the ANWR Coastal Plain. Do those
photographs look like a coastal plain to you?
WHAT’S GOING ON HERE? THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE.
THAT IS NOT WHERE THEY ARE WANTING TO DRILL!
THIS IS WHAT THE PROPOSED EXPLORATION AREA ACTUALLY LOOKS
LIKE IN THE WINTER
AND THIS IS WHAT IT ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE IN THE SUMMER
HERE ARE A COUPLE SCREEN SHOTS FROM GOOGLE EARTH
AS YOU CAN SEE, THE AREA WHERE THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT DRILLING IS
A BARREN WASTELAND.
OH AND THEY SAY THAT THEY ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE EFFECT
ON THE LOCAL WILDLIFE? HERE IS A PHOTO
(SHOT DURING THE SUMMER) OF THE “DEPLETED WILDLIFE”
SITUATION CREATED BY DRILLING AROUND PRUDHOE BAY
.
DON’T YOU THINK THAT THE CARIBOU REALLY HATE THAT DRILLING?
HERE’S THAT SAME SPOT DURING THE WINTER.
THIS BEAR SEEMS TO REALLY HATE THE PIPELINE NEAR PRUDHOE BAY .
*The Prudhoe bay area accounts for 17% of U.S. Domestic
Oil Production.
NOW, WHY DO YOU THINK THAT THE DEMOCRATS ARE LYING ABOUT
ANWAR?
REMEMBER WHEN AL GORE SAID THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD
WORK TO ARTIFICIALLY RAISE GAS PRICES TO $5.00 A GALLON?
WELL
AL GORE AND HIS FELLOW DEMOCRATS HAVE ALMOST REACHED THEIR
GOAL!
NOW THAT YOU KNOW THAT THE DEMOCRATS HAVE BEEN LYING,
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
YOU CAN START BY FORWARDING THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW SO
THAT THEY WILL KNOW THE TRUTH.
Comment by Chief Hypocrite on 14 May 2011:
My man, Prez Obama, according to the New York Times, just said we need to look for more oil in the United States while continuing to push improvements forward with the more expensive alternatives (I added the cost part).
He would not have gotten nominated nor elected had he said it so clearly in 2008.
Comment by Dr Shermy on 14 May 2011:
The Denver Post weighed in this way:
“There’s something about $4-a-gallon gas that brings out the opportunist in federal lawmakers.
This week, the nation’s capital was abuzz with desk-pounding talk from the right about more drilling, and breathless proposals from the left about eliminating oil company tax breaks.
Though there are kernels of good policy buried deep beneath the rhetoric, you’d be hard-pressed to separate them from the bluster.
We think both pieces should be considered as parts of a comprehensive energy policy that includes domestic drilling with reasonable environmental protections, continued development of alternative energy, and an alignment of energy subsidies and tax breaks with broader policy.
Coming up with a comprehensive energy platform, however, is hard work.
It should be a long-term road map that is not hijacked by crass attempts to score points with voters who have immediate worries about gas prices.
But this is Washington we’re talking about, where every crisis presents an opportunity to spin forth a favored policy, regardless of how inadequately it addresses the problem.
Gasoline topping $4 a gallon is the perfect example. It is, no doubt, a troubling additional expense for many families and a drag on the larger economic rebound.
The consensus among mainstream economists is that rising gas prices are a result of increased demand from emerging markets and turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa. These macroeconomic forces are not easily influenced.
To be sure, a slew of Republican proposals to speed up and expand offshore drilling would increase supply . . . some years down the road.
The trouble is, that supply increase would be relatively small when melded into the global oil market. It’s not going to bring down gas prices very much, if at all.
Is it a good idea to responsibly expand domestic drilling? Yes. So long as there are environmental protections in place, we think domestic oil production has an important place in a broader energy policy.
Republicans need to stop demagoguing on the issue in an effort to exploit gas prices and push a favored cause.
We have the same criticism about Democratic proposals to cut billions in annual U.S. subsidies and tax breaks for oil companies. It won’t do a thing to bring down prices at the pump.
Is it reasonable to look at those tax breaks in the broader context of addressing the budget deficit, or in examining whether it moves the country toward its energy goals? Yes.
But last week’s congressional hearing, at which executives from the nation’s five largest oil companies were called to testify, was more about beating up Big Oil for soaring gas prices.
This country would be well-served to have elected officials who contemplate rising gas prices in the larger context of developing a coherent energy policy — but that’s not much of a sound bite, is it?”
Comment by kyle on 14 May 2011:
A Rhetorical Blowout is about as effective as a gulf well head blowout as a way to establish an energy policy.