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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
The true debate here is not about oil spills, but the economy. The idea that the earth is warming is by no means proven. Radicals like Al Gore would have us believe that we are in the midst of a huge crisis. He should be pillaried as the fraud he is. As the price of food and energy go up, the hard won advances made against poverty are withering away. I believe that if this trend is not reversed, it will result in the deaths by starvation of up to half a billion people. Most of these will be Africans and Asians. Maybe this is what these enviromentallists want. Thats why I call global-warming alarmism the "new eugenics", and Al Gore a "purveyor of misery". Technology will advance beyond fossil fuels(sooner rather than later, I hope). The stone age didn't end because we ran out of rocks.
Saying continued high energy prices are needed to provide economic incentives to improve energy efficiency and channel investment into research and development of alternative energy technologies is the same as saying these technologies are not sufficiently competitive in today's high priced marketplace (the marketplace price for investment in the production of future energy sources is substantially less than the current overheated price for energy.)
Hence, the energy investment decision makers are anticipating lower prices and not a continuation of today's prices. What is lacking in arriving at sustained lower energy prices is a coherent going forward energy policy in the US that uses all the weapons in our energy arsenal, especially the substantial ones, and not just relying on alternative energy sources to get us there (outside of conservation, alternatives are not going to be substantial producers anytime soon).
Somehow, subsidies are fine for alternative energy, but are outrageaous for oil and gas, nuclear, ethnanol or clean coal. The latter are super substantial energy sources for the world, whereas alternative energy sources are capable of only providing a less than substantial reliable energy source for a very high price.
If McCain had a decent college education perhaps he would understand the dangers of replaying history. Indonesia, Brazil, Russia and China had all thought they could easily overcome the hazards of plate tectonics due to off shore drilling. When plates under the ocean floor collide earthquakes, tzunami's and over-all destruction occurs. Off the shore of Oregon the Juan de Fuca plates collide every so often. Oregon is planning for the next tzunami. Off Shore drilling may lead to collisions whereby activating these plates and causing massive storms, hurricanes, tzunami's, destroying fish, sea mammals, and wildlife and interfere with sea bird's migration. We would have oil spills that would pollute perhaps the only untouched area on this planet. McCain probably does not understand that in order to start millions would have to be spent to make this a safe venture. Under the ocean floor pipes would have to be built and drilled which could lead to tectonic collisions. In the event of a hurricane lives would be lost because of a massive fire and oil spill but McCain and his Republican Bush Buddy's really don't care who it effects so long as their wallet is full. What McCain's quick fix proposes is an obstruction to the natural order of life. It will shift the mind set of the population into thinking that everything is honkey dory and McCain will be our 'Savior.' American's take a second and third look at everything this Bush thinking 'liberal' is proposing before voting for him.
All these pansy-assed supposed pro-oil people don't have any guts. Drill for more oil? When it will take decades for all the discovery and new infrastructure development?
And what's this bleating about oil as a stopgap while we develop alternative energy sources? Who let the hippies in?
Weak.
The only real solution to our oil crisis is more oil, and more oil now. Period.
In order to achieve this goal, we need to create more oil out of the raw materials from which it's made. And what is the largest source of hydrocarbons? Living things.
The easiest way to round up living things is to get them to volunteer. So I say that we embark on a balls-out campaign to recruit people for the oil renewal project. We'll gather them together, feed everyone a lot of pizza or something, and then shove them into massive, high temperature, high pressure catalytic converters.
We'll need some technological advance here, but it will be easier I'm sure than that hippie crap with solar power and wind and hippie nuclear whatever. Screw that.
We'll gather up house pets, too, and throw in whatever timber we can spare, which is pretty much all of it. And, you know, to make the hippies happy we can use lawn clippings and maybe recycle some bottles or some crap.
But the important thing is to understand that, in the absence of any more dinosaurs to throw on the pile, we've got ourselves. That's about it.
So get cracking, people! Your nation calls. No sacrifice can be too great.
But starting from scratch not only an entire industrial technology for non oil power but an entire infrastructure to create it, then distribute it, and do it affordably....will of course NOT take too long.
Do I have that right?
Will it be free too? And will a talking unicorn fly down on a rainbow to be Obama's Vice President?
Once again, Andrew Leonard drives home the case against further oil exploration and sounds the rallying cry for a sensible (i.e. clean and renewable) energy future. I campaign for Greenpeace and I talk to people all day long about these issues and I have found that most of the support for increased domestic oil production (or fossil fuel production in general) as well as support for such sources as nuclear power and 'clean' coal are born out of ignorance of the tangled realities of this loaded issue. Stay the course Andrew! Let's hope Obama follows...
"Time makes more converts than reason" - Thomas Paine.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
