Their is an online petition advocating this http://www.americansolutions.com/ .

Energy development is the number one thing that government is doing to hurt it's citizens that I think can be capitalized on. Drilling our own is 13 times less likely to have an accidental spill then importing by oil tanker. Offshore deposits already have seepage into the ocean.

The Chinese are horizontal drilling from near Cuba to reach the deposits near Florida, why can't we? The government has a ban on drilling in any of these new areas and environmental laws make  the paper work to drill, build refineries, build nuclear plants take years.

Right now I'm more worried about the government wrecking our economy than I am about being blown up by terrorists.

Samantha

Bottom line, oil was and still is cheap.  Cheap = no need for alternatives.  Higher prices, the more need for Nuclear Energy where we need ample and cheap electricity to run electric cars.  104 Nuclear Power plants in this country and no casualties.   

John,
I'm so glad that your life is so grand that the price of gasoline and other petroleum products means nothing to you. Having come off a year fighting for my daughters life with cancer I can honestly say that my family is borderline. The neat little gadgets my kids have were given to them by generous people who had compassion, of which I'm thankful. You really do assume to much.


John, in certain local areas what you say about environmental damage is true. Over all our enviroment is not suffering, where I think Americans have gone soft is in the head, believing in the global warming hoax.


I wish that there was a coherent philosophy for our foreign policy, in the post cold war era it has not made a lot of sense. Clearly we did not have a war for oil, we did not get any of it. Clearly support of Israel does not add anything to our coffers, I think your philosophy blinds you a bit.


John, I would like to know where you get your facts. They seem in conflict with the information I have seen. I'll take the 1million barrels a day for ten years from ANWR. As I understood processing oil shale is very effective, it's defect was in being expensive. $40 dollars a barrel is not expensive NOW. Coal to Diesel can provide more fuel than the entire Middle east from Montana deposits alone.  We have untapped oil deposits in Wyoming and the Dakotas. Continental shelf deposits are nothing to sneeze at and you are thirteen times less likely to have a mishap with an offshore rig than you are using tankers to import. The Continental shelf deposits also have a lot of Natural Gas nearby major cities that need it for home heating.



John, all of this could be said of the Great Depression, you are the first person I know who thinks this is a good thing. I might agree with you that my neighbor owns too much junk. It is not up to me though to force my neighbor to give it up. The problem with energy development in the USA is purely a consequence of government manipulation and regulation.



John I think that you are naive. People will suffer. A few acres of land not looking pristine is not worth people suffering. I had a friend in Georgia that did environmental clean up after Kaola clay strip mining, he did a real good job and made a lot of money too.


You give politicians way too much credit for not doing stupid things for the wrong reasons. Ethanol subsidies are nothing more than a bribe to middle America for votes in the agriculture, everything I've read or heard about ethanol makes it sound like a real stupid idea. Just compare Ethanol made in Brazil without grain to what we make, and we have a tariff on imported ethanol.

Whether a majority of oil is in other countries or not, it is immaterial if we have enough to provide for our own needs. We can be energy independent without collapsing our economy if we had a national will to do so. Petroleum is used for a lot more than just gasoline.


The obvious answer to me is to access the new deposits. China right now is setting up oil rigs off the coast of Cuba drilling horizontal to tap the deposits that we refuse to tap. Who is more environmentally responsible the U.S. or China? The U.S. will not have a war for oil, but I guarantee that other nations will. The vast majority of infrastructure is in nations with dictators or oligarchy's that control the oil production, command economies are rarely efficient, where as capitalist economies are. Until we have the great new technologies which are on the horizon, I say we make the most of our god given resources.

Peace and Love,
Samantha

Gee John thanks for telling me I don't matter Why harm even one person if there is a better way.

Evidence of environmental damage on a global scale is pure conjecture that there are terminal consequences. I can unequivocally say that change does not inherently mean damage, let alone "terminal" damage. Short of creating a total toxic environment, change may be irreversible, but equating to permanent damage is extreme. Do volcanoes cause permanent ecological damage with long term terminal implications?

You want terminal consequences just look at the ban on DDT. No provable damage to the enviroment has or could be done by DDT. Millions have died from disease because DDT has been banned. Please don't tell me how small a percent of the world population that is to do something to make enviromantal nuts feel good about themselves.

I never said that we did not interferre in the Middle East, I said we have no coherent foreign policy in the Middle East. Free flow of oil or depriving others of oil is one of many strategies employed. Letting the Shah fall is one of the worst things we could have done if Oil ruled our foreign policy.

Actually I will not buy into the concept that there is only a finite amount of petroleum on the globe. Oil is compressed dead carbon based life forms, as long as carbon based life continues to die and be compressed oil results (yes I know I'm over simplifying). It is not considered a radical idea that the Earth is still producing oil. Admittedly we are probably using it up faster than it is produced.

Considering the advances in technology in my 40 years of life, I'd much rather push off running out of oil for 30 years rather than accept defeat today when there are untapped resources. Even if the U.S. is willing to cripple itself the rest of the globe will just laugh and bury us. If China becomes the dominant country on the globe and not the U.S. do you consider that a good thing?

John said"And yes, I think it is a good thing for people to be forced into simple living due to natural market forces. It will save us our environment and serve to curb population growth. Modern living is what makes us soft."

The problem is that we are not talking about natural market forces, we are talking about government regulation forcing consequences on people. Are Libertarians in favor of coercive force when it suits their environmental Theology? So I say let the government lift it's ban and remove regulations and let natural market forces operate!

Population growth??? Have you noticed that the less developed a nation is the higher it's population growth. When there are no gadgets to amuse, people resort to free entertainment like sex. As it stands Caucasian people of the western world are in a population decrease. On a related note Christianity is actually the fastest growing religion through conversion; Islam is the fastest growing religion because they have lots of children. If western culture, with it's libertarian values becomes extinct, would this be a good thing?

With or without man climate and the environment change. It is a question of faith and not science that changes in the environment caused by man are inherently bad. Undeniably man killed off the passenger pigeon, what has been the consequence? I live in an area with lots of closed slate quarries that nature is reclaiming, where is the harm? Considering all of the claims made about the Alaskan Pipeline and the fact that it has actually been good for wild life, explain the disaster that ANWR would be? On Discovery channel I saw a program about how quickly NYC would disappear if people did not stop nature, what man does is incredibly fleeting in a geologic scale.

The time is not now to concede anything! Let the oil flow until we find alternative ways to keep the good times rolling. If the good times do stop I do not want them to stop by the hands of the U.S. government. If we do not drill the oil someone less environmentally conscience will, even if they do it over our dead bodies. Shrinking the U.S. economy while our enemies expand theirs only brings that conclusion.

Peace and Love,
Samantha

I disagree completely.  Do you have any sources showing how ANWR or drilling in any other places would be useful?  It is not crippling our dollar, in fact drilling in ANWR will have virtually no effect on oil prices.  To say that we have enough oil to be self sufficient is laughable.  And I'm not trying to be rude, It just isn't even CLOSE to being true.

I agree that the Gov is failing with its energy policies but really for the reason that the US doesn't really have any type or energy plan.

This isn't a matter of anyone harming anybody. The market forces are raising the cost of energy. You're in a tight situation due to family illness. I sympathize with you, but these things happen. The point is that, in general, people are not suffering high energy prices for the reasons that you are and when we discuss the situation, it is unfair for you to be the poster-girl for what is wrong with high energy prices when your case is not typical of the general population.



Yes, the larger volcanoes can and do cause permanent ecological damage on a human scale. While unprovable, it is largely thought by the scientific community that volcanic eruptions were among the causes, if not the leading cause of the "Little Ice Age" (1650 - 1850).

There is no single effect of human environmental damage that has a global reach that I know of, but humans have a global reach and the many effects of our lifestyles has affected every part of the globe. Our lifestyles and the nearly seven billion people on this planet are unsustainable. We either have to reduce our population or start consuming less.



I am going to decline to get into yet another DDT debate with anyone.



We didn't have much of a choice in that matter. When the people truly want it, they get it -- if they're willing to fight for it. The United States did everything within its abilities to prevent the Shah from losing control of that country, but the US isn't invincible. We were defeated in that struggle.


Then, in human terms, petroleum is finite, especially since it takes thousands of years to produce.



So you want us to be like China? China is an ecological disaster area and believe me, that will come back to haunt them very soon; already is. China is a paper tiger, just like the Soviet Union was, and at least the Soviets had nuclear weapons out the wazoo. China is lucky that it can sustain itself as a nation, much less be a threat to anyone. China will never be the dominant global power.

Regardless, we don't have 30 years, even with the best projections. We cannot increase production enough, even by tapping these new reserves and waiting for new infrastructure that will last us barely more than a decade, and prices will still be high.

I think that now, while we have the imports available, and the domestic back-up, we ought to be trying to shift over our energy use from fossil fuels to some other alternative, preferably a mix of solar, hydrogen fuel-cell, hydro-electric, wind, nuclear, and coal. We ought not to wait until the last drop hits our taps. That is what is going to crush this country.



You just seem like a blame government for everything kind of person. The government can drop regulation as much as it wants and the price won't be affected to any significant degree. The best that it could do is drop the fuel tax and your pump prices might go down thirty cents, but then they're just going to have to raise taxes somewhere else.



Yeah, thats what I said.



I never said that we ought to be a less-developed nation, only that we should consume less.



NYC shouldn't have been built on a swamp, just like New Orleans shouldn't have been built below sea level.

I don't think much environmental damage would come out of drilling in ANWR. What does concern me is that we're putting off the inevitable and probably gaining very little in return.

What is the consequence of the loss of biodiversity? How high is the rate of extinction?


The time is not now to concede anything! Let the oil flow until we find alternative ways to keep the good times rolling. If the good times do stop I do not want them to stop by the hands of the U.S. government. If we do not drill the oil someone less environmentally conscience will, even if they do it over our dead bodies. Shrinking the U.S. economy while our enemies expand theirs only brings that conclusion.

Peace and Love,
Samantha
[/quote]


You know, I am done arguing this with you. I am not going to convince you of anything and you're not going to convince me of anything. I am not going to keep running in circles to

Well, in the short and mid-term, we definitely ought to be accessing nuclear power. It is insane in this day and age where we've virtually eliminated the threat of a melt-down, with energy prices as high as they are, and the alternatives to nuclear power as dirty as they are, not to tap into nuclear power more. Long-term, I don't think nuclear power is necessary, but it can't hurt either.