“Once again I give you thanks for your merciful love, kindest Lord, for having found
another way of arousing me from my inertia.”
--
St. Gertrude the Great
Why shouldn’t we drill our own resources and create the jobs that would go with it? Why should America not lead on the issue of dismantling OPEC’s stranglehold on energy supplies and their effect upon world’ economies? Sure, let’s look for alternative fuels, let’s produce them and transition to them as much as possible - but we’re years away from all that. A few months ago, Brazil found oil reserves and was drilling within weeks. Weeks, not years!
Let’s do it! Let’s start drilling! It’s an election year - make some noise about it to Washington!
We are still a nation that has a can-do attitude, once you get far enough away from the Beltway. IMHO, this is an issue
that can’t lose if the GOP chooses to make it one. The tactic is easy; point out the rising costs of energy, identify the officials who have vetoed any drilling legislation, and keep hammering them as to why they have not acted in the best interest of the country. Of course, those who enter office in the landslide victory will actually need to act to reduce our dependency on foreign oil by drilling for our own. If not, we would have to repeat the formula until we find those who recognize the seriousness of the problem and act responsibly toward our country.
1) Another nation (China) is beginning to drill in the shared coastal waters between Key West and Cuba. Drilling our own oil thus becomes an urgent matter of national security. We are ceding United States oil to China.
2) If the U.S. Congress restricts the drilling of oil, thus keeping oil prices high, then what is the difference between Congress and OPEC?
1) Despite the high price, we are using other country’s precious and limited resources that would not be available to us in the event of a crisis. Let’s use theirs and save ours for such time as peak oil becomes a real, as opposed to a perceived, problem.
2) High prices will spur alternate energy development. If prices are low, or even not quite outrageous, we simply will not allocate R&D resources where they are needed. It is a principle of capitalist economics - need and convenience spur innovation quicker than anything else. Comfort leads to complacency.
I would agree with surveying in order to indentify energy deposits to save actualization time once a moment of true crisis arrives, but not with drilling in currently protected areas now. Current hydrocarbon prices will seem cheap in the future (on a ten-thirty year time frame, not short term). Drilling now eases the current problem while delaying an arrival at a true solution.
I speak as one of the suffering. I would love to see prices go down sooner rather than later. However, the issue of future energy security is simply too critical to not address properly. Right now there is no true supply problem. How many of us are standing in lines for gas only to find empty tanks? In the future, if we don’t find other energy sources besides hydrocarbons, we will be. We will either lose the right to private transportation through rationing or be unable to afford it. Suffer now so that we - and our children, and grandchildren - don’t suffer much more later.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:35 am
We are still a nation that has a can-do attitude, once you get far enough away from the Beltway. IMHO, this is an issue
that can’t lose if the GOP chooses to make it one. The tactic is easy; point out the rising costs of energy, identify the officials who have vetoed any drilling legislation, and keep hammering them as to why they have not acted in the best interest of the country. Of course, those who enter office in the landslide victory will actually need to act to reduce our dependency on foreign oil by drilling for our own. If not, we would have to repeat the formula until we find those who recognize the seriousness of the problem and act responsibly toward our country.
July 10th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Two more things:
1) Another nation (China) is beginning to drill in the shared coastal waters between Key West and Cuba. Drilling our own oil thus becomes an urgent matter of national security. We are ceding United States oil to China.
2) If the U.S. Congress restricts the drilling of oil, thus keeping oil prices high, then what is the difference between Congress and OPEC?
July 10th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
1) Despite the high price, we are using other country’s precious and limited resources that would not be available to us in the event of a crisis. Let’s use theirs and save ours for such time as peak oil becomes a real, as opposed to a perceived, problem.
2) High prices will spur alternate energy development. If prices are low, or even not quite outrageous, we simply will not allocate R&D resources where they are needed. It is a principle of capitalist economics - need and convenience spur innovation quicker than anything else. Comfort leads to complacency.
July 10th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Good questions, all, but I disagree that we should “save” our oil. We need to start drilling NOW for just those emergencies you’re talking about.
July 10th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
I would agree with surveying in order to indentify energy deposits to save actualization time once a moment of true crisis arrives, but not with drilling in currently protected areas now. Current hydrocarbon prices will seem cheap in the future (on a ten-thirty year time frame, not short term). Drilling now eases the current problem while delaying an arrival at a true solution.
I speak as one of the suffering. I would love to see prices go down sooner rather than later. However, the issue of future energy security is simply too critical to not address properly. Right now there is no true supply problem. How many of us are standing in lines for gas only to find empty tanks? In the future, if we don’t find other energy sources besides hydrocarbons, we will be. We will either lose the right to private transportation through rationing or be unable to afford it. Suffer now so that we - and our children, and grandchildren - don’t suffer much more later.
July 10th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I think we are now at a critical time where we need to drill here. I don’t think the problems are just perceived.
July 10th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Ouch, that video was painful!