….here’s this week’s question:
If you were advising Congress and the White House, what would you recommend they do about offshore drilling? Cut it off and sharply cut back on environmental risks? Or continue it so that we can be less dependent upon foreign oil until alternative energies are easily accessible?
Some questions are best answered in the area of faith. Others are purely technical ones which are independent of a particular belief system. Others overlap. In this case, they would have been just as relevant if they had gone out and asked a group of Buddhists or Zoroastrians.
I think Terry Graham nailed it:
[blockquote]We must have energy resources to allow our economy to continue and our livelihoods to exist in their current form. We should aggressively encourage and fund research, through both public and private means, into the development of alternative energy sources.
However, those options are not yet available and we cannot and should not eliminate fossil fuels unless and until we can safely and effectively replace that type of energy with renewable energy sources. In the near-term, we must continue and expand offshore drilling in the United States to lessen our dependence on the oil of foreign countries, some of whom use the oil industry proceeds to fund terrorism against our nation’s soldiers and interests.
These offshore drilling endeavors should operate under strict safety and environmental guidelines to prevent tragic accidents like we are currently watching in the Gulf of Mexico. The American government should enforce strict standards to protect the environment as we skillfully take advantage of the resources that belong to our nation to provide for the energy needs of our nation. [/blockquote]
Keep in mind, too, that as bad as this leak is, it is still the second or third “Smallest” oil disaster in the history of drilling. That is not an excuse, but if the Administration would get off the blame game towards BP and allow other companies/countries to move in with their emergency experts, the problem could be solved much quicker than it is currently being worked on.
i heard on a radio show today that there are very few, less than 10, companies that drill this deep and that they are helping bp. no, it is not the worst in the world but it is the worst in US history. sometimes there is no blame, accidents happen and i think most people realize that. unfortunately in this case the blame is on bp for not having a backup plan for a worst case scenario.
i don’t oppose drilling as long as it is a transition and not an excuse for putting off the hard and expensive decisions to wean ourselves off of oil, but depending upon who is in power at any given time it seems unlikely that it will be a transition and used as a crutch with excuses for putting it off. for example; safety belts were decried by auto makers as being too expensive until the gov’t forced the issue. now, they all have them and no one went broke because of it. i mean heck, gerald ford and jimmy carter were both trying to get us off oil until reagan came along and told us we shouldn’t have to ask ourselves or our families to sacrifice any part of our privileged american lifestyle….
An interesting point was made by Charles Krauthammer on assessing blame for the spill and that was that environmentalists must share the blame for forcing drilling further and further out and deeper and deeper where any accident is extremely hard to handle. Onshore and shallow water drilling accidents can be handled much more quickly and easily. Food for thought.
Yes, leave it up to Krauthammer to cut to the truth. This is clearly the fault of those guys who have been saying this was going to happen. How else would they have known this was going to happen. I can’t wait to get some of those wells off the coast of SC; and as Charles says, if we put them close in, we have the added advantage of being able to see them from our windows while vacationing, and enjoying the smell of money as its pumped from the ground. Heck, two are three generations from now people they will think it always smelled that way.
#5. And yes, being forced to put them out in the middle of the Gulf a mile down has really worked out well for all the Gulf states hasn’t it?
Offshore drilling should be curtailed. The price of fossil fuel should be raised to the point that usage is reduced and incentives for substitute sources of energy encouraged through the free market. Local, State and Federal Government could benefit from sharply increased taxes on fossil fuels. At the very least, fossil fuel prices in the US should be raised to the levels in Europe and Japan. I realize some people would complain about this and propose many reasons not to do it. But unfortunately, it is the only way to wean ourselves off dependence on a declining resource and is the only way forward in the long run.
#7. It’s obvious that you place much more faith in government, Local, State, Federal, than I do. Please look around you and observe what government has done. More debt for the people than can ever be repaid, more loss of liberty for the people, more wars and on and on. Government planning has not and will not ever succeed. The sooner the people realize this the better.
[blockquote] Government planning has not and will not ever succeed. The sooner the people realize this the better. [/blockquote]
tsh, I think you have a hard sell. Civilized people abandoned anarchy approximately 10,000 years ago. I cannot agree with your assessment of government failure. We are the healthiest, wealthiest and most powerful people in the history of the world. All of this is attributable to our form of government. Those who would tear down government always obsess on the problems created by Government, and never give it any credit for its successes.
We have certainly not borrowed more than we can repay. We are not even at an all time high of debt as a percentage of GDP. We would not even be close had we not tried to fight a war without a tax to pay for it, for the first time in the history of our country.
Government has brought us civilization, we have clean water to drink, we have clean food to eat, we have clean streets, our waist is processed, we have roads, we have air travel, we have police protection, we have fire protection, we have property and civil rights protected by courts, we can buy and sell real estate and generally be assured no one will take it from us as long as we pay for it, we have enforceable contracts, we have an army, navy, and air force to defend us from the attack of others, we have parks and recreation for our citizens, we have a sometimes regulated stock market that we can invest in, we have a way to provide health care to our oldest and sickest citizens, we have an economy that does not require us to hoard gold and products in a basement in hopes of trading it for food and water, we have educated children, we have public art, etc. etc. Most of us lead happy comfortable lives.
As for loss of liberty, I am always amazed when people say that. Exactly what liberty have you lost that you would now like to exercise? Democratic government has granted you far more liberty than you have lost by reason of government.
Before you bash our country so hard, I suggest you spend a few years in the jungle of some third world country. Then you will see what life is like without government.
Which is exactly WHY we do protest this administration — because we DO NOT want to become on a level with third world dictatorial governments. We want to preserve and restore a Constitutionally based American government, which, to be honest, began to decline with Teddy Roosevelt, who was a ‘progressive’ president, but not to the level of THIS president who is now presiding over a government take-over of private businesses (the Gov’t owns 61% of GM!).
Absent Roosevelt you would likely live in an Oligarchy, much like moder day Russia or a South American style military dictatorship, where the military is bought, paid, for and beholden to a few wealthy families, whose wealth decides the administration of justice. You would likely have no civil liberties that could not easily be overcome by a call from the right person.
American was not founded on and has never been a temple to unbridled capitalism. The foundations of this nation rests on philosophies of liberty, equality and the abolition the system of government where an individuals rights were determined by his lineage. I see nothing in the actions of Roosevelt’s contrary to those philosophies.
If Roosevelt is to be demonized for recognizing that allowing the wealth, resources and industry of the nation to be concentrated into the hands of a few powerful families who had evidenced willingness to use that wealth to corrupt government and crush competitors by denying them access to resources and transportation was a threat to democratic rule, so be it. He is a demon.