My View on Drilling for Oil

If we are ever to move away from our dependence from oil, the answers are not to be found in more drilling. The demand for oil is growing and the supply diminishing.

The debate over when the supply is depleted is whether it’s 10 years from now or 50? The only difference between the two is that we have room to make some decisions now without sacrificing too much of our “creature comforts.” The longer we wait to transition to some type of alternative fuel, the less options we will have. 

We must not fear such a transition to alternative energy. We should embrace these changes. Living more efficiently is just another way of being self-sufficient, and since when is that a bad thing? It would mean wasting less and using more of what we have, in a better way. 

Think of all that has happened in the past two years as a direct result of high gas prices – more carpooling, more people using public transportation, biking, buying more efficient cars and appliances; gardening at home, building more modest and efficient homes, shopping and eating locally more often…and so.

Think what else we could do in two more years if this trend continued with the support of our government? Al Gore’s speech of reducing our carbon foot print within 10 years could be achievable if the US government spent the same amount of money it did in the Iraq war in renewable and alternative energy! 

Yet, we live in a political year and despite the good things that have been done, the historic high of almost $140 a barrel for oil has has captured the attention of the media and caused lawmakers to revise their electoral prospects and created a renewed call for more drilling..’Drill here, drill now, drill everywhere!’  

In The Economist, “Twelve years after an infamous spill from a well off Santa Barbara in 1969, Congress barred the government from issuing new offshore leases anywhere but in the western Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. By the government’s own reckoning, there are some 18 billion barrels of oil to be discovered in the restricted areas — enough to supply all America’s needs for two-and-a-half years.”

None of the new oil would be available for public use for at least 10 years,. A recent article in US News & World Report, “What you have is a scarcity of resources,’ said Dory Stiles, investor relations manager for Murphy Oil Corp. ‘Companies are looking for more opportunities to explore.’”

The article goes on to say, that even if Congress were to open the entire Gulf for drilling, there still would be serious constraints to drilling such as a limited supply of equipment and labor.

Only a limited number of shipyards can build the $700 million platform rigs used for drilling and the current orders are going to Brazil, West Africa and Southeast Asia. It could take years just to get a new oil platform to even begin exploration.

Perhaps the 1969 oil disaster is a thing of the past, but for communities who rely on beach tourism, can we really afford to take that chance?

Katrina was a 1 in 100-year storm. How many times do we need to roll the dice before we start making the right decision and not just the easy one?

 

Tthe real issue is looking forward to the future and not to the past. If drilling is going to alleviate our oil problem for only two years, aren’t we losing site of the bigger picture?

We are dooming ourselves to having the same discussion in 2010 and every year we put off making the tough choices leaving ourselves fewer options as to what we can do. For example, Congress went on vacation and failed to vote on a bill that expires at the end of this year that would allow tax credits and incentives for solar, wind and other renewable energies. 

By not renewing this bill, jobs will be lost in these fields. More money needs to be spent to encourage more investment in these areas not less.

 

But who cares? Oil is getting cheaper again and all is well, right?

 

Lawmakers ridiculously claim the recent dip in oil prices is from their public push for more drilling. In fact, the dip in oil prices is a result of three recent things: U.S. talks with Iran (war avoided and so too, major oil disruption); U.S. oil reserves are higher than expected; and Ben Bernake suggested a recession is unavoidable and so the economy slowed down thus creating less demand for oil.

 

We need to do better and think positively. We need to demand more from ourselves as well as from those who represent us in public office.

 

80 vs 20

Gee. Well let’s see here..It’s been about a year since I last wrote anything of substance…and this probably won’t be ‘of substance’ either. Ahh, but you have to start somewhere.

I’m quickly overwhelmed at the possible topics to blog about: Peak Oil- or to drill or not to drill off shore?; The current election; the importance of ‘keeping it local’; Bicycling whenever possible; The challenges of being in a serious relationship..or… how about Voting?

Let’s talk about that for a second.

When people around the world or Third worlds, have to risk their lives to cast their vote to be heard, whether it be in Pakistan, Iraq, or other places where the general masses feel taken advantage of by the select few who are in power, it makes me think that our attitude about voting in this Country [being the U.S.] should be taking more seriously. We all know the adage of’ voting is a privilege not a right.’ Yet, we Americans are so cynical about politics that many of us think the system is ‘broken’, so why waste your time to vote? A politician is going to say whatever he has to say to get elected and then do whatever he wants to do once in office. Who can differentiate between fact and bullshit? It goes without saying of course, that the power is in the collective of people who are organized and get out there to vote. Historically, voting in this country has seen it’s shares of ups and downs, about who can vote and who should vote.

From WSWS.org, they put it more to the point of “ defense of democratic rights has always been fundamentally a class question. In the past, the disenfranchisement of African Americans in the South was aimed at preventing black and white laborers and farmers from waging a common political struggle against the economic forces that oppressed them. Today, America’s ruling elite increasingly views the traditional forms of bourgeois democracy as an obstacle to its accumulation of wealth.

The defense of basic democratic rights is bound up with building a mass political party that will unite all working people to oppose the two parties of big business and reorganize society on the basis of genuine democracy and social equality, to serve the interests of the vast majority rather than the wealthy few.”

The current Republican Party has traditionally been in favor of less government policies to let the ‘Free-market’ of economics do it’s thing. We have discovered two things these last 8 years: The Republican Party is no longer a party about small government…and that if left to it’s own devices, a ‘free market’ only profits the really wealthy and thus further divides the the gulf that exist between rich and poor.

Class struggles have always existed. From the website of GlobalExchange.org “the richest 20 percent of the world’s population receives 83% of the world’s income, while the poorest 60% of the world’s people receive just 5.6% of the world’s income. The richest 20% of the world’s population in northern industrial countries uses 70% of the world’s energy, 75% of the world’s metals, 85% of the world’s wood, and 60% of the world’s food. This 20% minority is also responsible for producing about 75% of the world’s environmental pollution.”

There are many problems that exist in the world today. Here in the United States, we have our own issues that need to be resolved-from Health care cost, to immigration, to our national Debt to our energy policy, foreclosure rates, banking industry, and so on…  not to mention, in my opinion, we are probably at least responsible for half of the Worlds problems with our involvement, either directly or indirectly, through globalization of trade; tariffs being imposed; military arms being bought and sold, influencing government policy and on and on. My point here again, is to reiterate that the wealthiest 20% control 80% of the world. Here in the United States, and in other Democratic nations, the remaining 80% of the population have the power every couple of years to make change. That’s the power the collective people have. 

Now ‘we the people’, will be met with over zealous police and government policies intent to keep the rich getting richer. Change doesn’t come easy. There will be bureaucratic red-tape to dissuade us; elections might even be stolen from us; wars might be waged on false information; civil liberties might be curtailed in the name of security and so on and so on..All of this because we know that the American people have a tendency to give up easy: ’This is a pain in the ass- just how badly do we want to invest our time in this?’ After all isn’t it easier to just ignore everything and watch tv or play Wii? 

We must be consistent on keeping the pressure on them. One thing history has shown, that when the general public gets mobilized, ‘change’ comes more quickly…er, not necessarily for the better but it does come one way or the other.

It’s an appalling statistic to read that in 2006, the US population of 220,600,000 had 135,889,600 registered voters of which only 80,588,000 voted- meaning 43.6%! We are ranked 23rd, just behind the Canadians with Iceland’s general population ranked the best, with 89% of the population voting.

The power of your vote can be seen more easily at a local level. [Which is funny, because I think most people ignore the local voting contest and only pay attention to the National contest]. Government at a local level is much more accessible, more transparent and easier to be apart of to influence the changes you seek. Policies at a local level will affect and influence your daily life a lot more than government at a national level. You can see that our system of government does work, but only when the general masses get involved. Other wise, local politicians are left to make up their own mind about things and usually, but not always, it’s in their own self interest they make those decisions. Not for the sake or the well being of the general public that they claim.

Yet, here again, voter turnout was a dismal 26% for County Commissioner election in my neck of the woods. I live in an area where probably 80% of the county’s money comes from my area but 80% of the population live to the north of me. We have one representative to their four. Our philosophy on just about anything from World Views to mosquito spraying are probably at polar opposites. So, with an opportunity at this years elections to vote someone into office to properly represent my district came up short on the voters turnout, I was left feeling ‘empty’ and frustrated. I knew that the numbers were against us and if we want to put someone in office, we had better get out there and vote. It seemed more people were aware and were eager to vote this time around.

Maybe I surround myself with too many ‘like-minded’ people?.

How can we want change if we can’t even take advantage of a system that allows us to exercise those changes? It seems like it’s a disease that exists all the way from local politics to the national level. We are stupefied, numb, dumb,misinformed and lazy…maybe it’s informational overload because of the internet iprovides too much work to decipher fact from fiction and it’s much easier to get our news from the tv [which we all know is unbiased, right?]. I don’t know..but I do know that voting in a high numbers would be a step in the right direction to putting the power back into the 80 and not in the 20.