If the White House encouraged Americans to prevent colds by wearing sweaters, one would hope that media outlets would point out that there’s no evidence that being chilly has anything to do with catching a cold.
Likewise, if the Interior Department green-lights a plan to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean in order to demonstrate “a willingness by President Obama to approve expanded domestic oil and gas exploration in response to high gasoline prices,” as John Broder and Clifford Krauss wrote in the New York Times today (8/5/11), then reporters really ought to point out that expanded offshore drilling can only have the tiniest impact on the price of gasoline, since oil is a global commodity and the United States does not have enough offshore oil to meaningfully increase the world supply.
But don’t hold your breath.
Jim, I won’t hold my breath.
But I often feel a deep need to hold my stomach.
The bigger issue here is that we need to become less dependent on oil–whether the oil is drilled in our backyard or in the Middle East, we are still destroying the environment around us. The Be2021 campaign, led by Americans for Informed Democracy, aims at fighting climate change and other issues withe goal of creating a more just, peaceful and sustainable world by the 20th anniversary of 9/11 in 2021. Declare your vision today at http://www.be2021.org/! -Ian
Since people keep on reading the propaganda rags and watching the talking box, they must like enjoy being misled. Guess they’ll wake up when global warming dries up their drinking water supplies … only it’ll be too late, probably already is. Our dead-end species will not be missed.
Since people keep on reading the propaganda rags and watching the talking box, they must enjoy being misled. Guess they’ll wake up when global warming dries up their drinking water supplies … only it’ll be too late, probably already is. Our dead-end species will not be missed.
President Obama is trying to find a new accomplishment he can trumpet, Okay? Real, insignificant, it doesn’t matter much since politics is the art of perception, at least for Obama. Why else would he refuse any remedy in the debt ceiling fiasco except for a bipartisan one, slash trillions from the debt, agree to what will end up being trillions more in automatic cuts, and then cynically announce a Midwestern ‘jobs’ tour? It’s all about perception, since he’s been batting 000 lately.
At least four publications/studies I am aware of show we can move off of fossil fuels. We can do it relatively quickly and we can get all the energy we need from wind, solar, energy efficiency, etc.
Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) released Winning the Oil Endgame: Innovation for Profits, Jobs, and Security, a Pentagon-cofunded blueprint for making the United States oil-free. The plan outlines how American industry can restore competitiveness and boost profits by mobilizing modern technologies and smart business strategies to displace oil more cheaply than buying it. – Monday 20 September 2004. You can download this publication.
According to a 2009 Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) report, Climate 2030: A National Blueprint for a Clean Energy Economy, the United States will be able to meet projected consumer demand for electricity over at least the next 20 years without building any new nuclear reactors or coal-fired power plants. The analysis shows that we can meet consumer demand by increasing our use of renewable energy resources like wind and solar and by increasing energy efficiency. This would reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and reduce global warming emissions from power plants by about 85 percent by 2030.
The UCS Climate 2030 Blueprint lays out a plan to increase renewable energy from about 11 percent of all U.S. electricity today to 50 percent by 2030, after cutting power demand by more than one-third through efficiency measures and greater use of combined heat and power systems, or CHP (generating both electricity and heat from a single fuel sourceâ┚¬”Âtypically natural gas). Where would all this clean electricity come from? More than half would come from hydro, biopower (from plant- or animal-based materials such as crops, crop residues, trees, animal fats, by-products, and wastes), and geothermal (heat from the earth), and concentrating solar plants with storage, all of which are available to produce electricity around the clock or during periods of high demand. Wind and solar photovoltaics would produce the rest, with wind accounting for about 20 percent of the total U.S. electricity supply. These wind results are consistent with the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2008 20% Wind Energy by 2030 study, which found such a scenario feasible. Collaborative studies by electric grid operators, government agencies, and others have all found that we can reliably generate up to 20-25 percent of our electricity from variable power sources like wind and solar.
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research published a downloadable book called Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy
by Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D.- November 5, 2010
IPCC issues Defining Report on Renewable Energy
London, England May 9, 2011
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released a new authoritative report on renewable energy in Abu Dhabi today.
The report shows that close to 80% of the worldâ┚¬Ã‹Å“s energy supply could be met by renewables by the mid-century, leading to greenhouse gas (GHG) savings equivalent to 220 to 560 gigatons of CO2 between 2010 and 2050.
better to do nothing, i guess.
other countries are advancing with fossil fuels (think china) and we are deteriorating.
this is no freaking game plan, so i say drill, baby, drill.
oh, and natural gas too!
That might just be the silliest argument i have ever heard on this debate.Because of the commodities market and the parameters of its trading mechanisms we will decide NOT to drill for domestic oil because there is not enough to effect price?Or are you talking about one well?This country has more gas and oil reserves than all the middle east.A veritable ocean under our feet.This president blocks development to force a new energy source ahead of market developments.There is an old saying that less is more.I believe you are trying to push more… is less.How about the president gets his dumb ass out of the way and allow market forces to worry about their profits.He just dumped 30 million bbs on the market to manipulate prices.Try to imagine a constant supply of massive amounts of oil.You actually believe no one makes out?Another bit of proof you dont understand capitalism.
Arctic exploration may not help lower gas prices but it will help the oil companies whom we all know are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. As for natural gas who hasn’t seen the ad with the almost smirking man who claims to be a geologist (or does he play one on TV)? He tells us how safe and clean the stuff is but never mentions fracking and its effects on ground and surface water. I happen to be a real geologist and nobody has offered me a far commercial.
Oops – Make that “fat” commercial.
Don’t ALLOW the Alobamaing, Mississippeeing, Louisianusing, Texassing, Californication and Alaskanization of the Arctic Or FLORIDA by the Obamanible BP (Bully Puppets)!
Yield estimates for the entire Arctic field is 27 billion barrels…that’s about 7 years of what America currently imports or a bit less than 4 years of the country’s total use. In 2004 the entire world went through 27 billion barrels.
There is only one reason to drill for oil in Alaska: Greed. There is only one reason to maintain our dependency on oil: Greed. On the other hand, if we’re going to keep drilling, what difference does it make where we poke our sticks into the oil? We make a mess wherever we go. Has anyone seen any pictures or heard any reports on the what the coast of Nigeria looks like these days? I didn’t think so. And anyway, we’re cooking the planet. It’s time to stop the madness of drilling ANYWHERE, and start thinking sanely about the future.
Oh, if only the oil companies didn’t own the entire planet and make all of our laws and decisions for us.
Read mr pickens experience with fracking.He has been doing it for decades .Thousands and thousands of wells.No damage yet.Hey Art why dont you explain to the people how deep fracking takes place and where the water table lies.Thousands of feet apart.Accidents do happen.We still fly.We still drive.3 people died in the Japan nuclear problem.Took Germany off line.If it were up to you all the plugs would be pulled.All the cars garaged.The planes and trains grounded.
Doug the reason we drill is need.We are not cooking the planet.And please tell us how you believe we will move into the next century by horse and buggy.Tree hugging nonsense.
The wells used for fracking are found at around 8,000 feet below the ground while the water table is found much closer to the surface. As the chemicals rise to the surface, they pass through the water table. The chemicals have the opportunity to escape into the ground water at this point.
Another concern is while the waste water with natural gas is waiting to be separated, it is left in an open pool where it is free to be evaporated and enter the water cycle. The chemicals used during the process can be taken up with water vapor and then can be transported long distance before falling as rain.
Then there’s the problem, as Pennsylvania has discovered, that the fracking liquid that gushes back out of the gas wells is only partially treated for substances that could be environmentally harmful, then dumped into rivers and streams from which communities get their drinking water.
A READER
Those possibilities are in fact “possibilities”.But how often has it happened?What are the percentages?I am looking at the safety violations and reports on environmental impact for Bradford county Pa as we speak.All in all -pretty good.And are the safety features not getting better everyday?Again read Pickens track record.He has probably been doing it longer than anyone.Decades longer.This is not as new a technology as most believe.So far he is batting a thousand.You see the environmental lobby use not only the facts that would prove short term damage(easy to prove)but those that impart fear of the possible long term damages(very hard to prove or disprove).I am not saying we should not be vigilant.We should be doubly so when dealing with environment.We have agencies in place that monitor these things.So far fracking has a very different record than that portrayed by the left.