Senate Defeats Effort To Open The Arctic Refuge To Oil Drilling

I don�t own a car � I walk and ride my bicycle to get where I need to

go, so I have no concern if gas is $.10 or $10 a gallon.

I was expecting a discussion of LF photography issues when I stumbled

onto this thread. How on earth did we hit upon this topic?

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Knowing full well that drilling in the arctic refuge is not a

complete solution to our energy problems, I'm still all for drilling

there. I hope President Bush will skirt congress and pull something

along the lines of an executive order to get the job done.

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Drilling in the arctic does not mean automatic enviornmental ruin as

greanpeace, and the sierra club et al would have you believe. Since

the Alaskan pipeline has been in place, the caribou population has

continued to flourish. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if their

population is sufficient enough that the caribou farts start to

contribute to the much overblown "greenhouse effect."

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Relax Colin, pop open a tall cold one and enjoy life a little. The

enviornment isn't going to change all over the world, just because we

drill in Alaska. The climate hasn't been studied long enough to tell

if a trend towards global warming even exists. Even if it did exist,

is global warming aactually a bad thing? Is industrialized man to

blame, or is it a naturally occuring event? I understand that the

polar ice caps on Mars are melting too. I didn't know Mars had

SUV's, factories or conservatives to cause global warming there. Do

you think it might be the sun that is causing the warming? Na, guess

that would be to obvious.

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The USA has a strong economy, in spite of the nay-sayers, and we will

continue to need new sources of energy to fuel our growing economy

and population. Natural gas (other than Sals'), alternative fuels,

and conservation all play a part in the energy picture; but for the

short term, we need more oil, refineries, and power plants. Without

more power plants spewing out tons of coal emisions, how will we ever

power those tiny little electric cars? In the long term we

definately need to look into other sources of energy, as well as

superconductor technology to cut energy loss in power lines, and

hydroelectric needs to be exploited more.

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Those of you who either don't care or actually want $5.00/gal plus

fuel prices, ARE YOU INSANE?! All levels of the economy will be

adversely effected, even yours Sal. There are a lot of very decent,

hard working people out there who would sufer from these high

prices. Even those who drive the little rice burning 40mpg cars will

sufer from hyper-inflation. Be careful of what you wish for!

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Sal: I want to sincerely thank you for not having any children. I

can sleep easy knowing that the gene pool is safe for yet another

day :-)

Of course Eric, there are no enviromental problems! If there would

be, we had to change the way we live. That is what we don't want, so

there are no enviromental problems.

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I guess this is what people call realistic?

Eric - thanks for your well reasoned contribution. It's good to hear

from those who keep an open mind, reach conclusions based on best

available scientific evidence rather than wishful thinking, strive

for an inclusive society, respect the constitutional separation of

powers, and are always civil, sticking to issues rather than

descending into personal attacks.

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Were the US government to levy appropriate fuel taxes, resulting in

gasoline prices rising to the level I described, there would indeed

be temporary negative economic consequences for many decent, hard

working people, including myself. I consider that alternative

preferable to the path we're now taking. It is easy to conclude

that, since ever-growing human population and its load on the

environment has been tolerated so far, why worry now? The problem

with this approach is that carrying capacity of the planet will be

reached suddenly and irreversibly if we ignore the evidence and

continue our exponential increase of exploitation and pollution.

You don't know this man, so making a snide comment on whether he

did or didn't have kids is wrong.

The USA has a strong economy, in spite of the nay-sayers, and we will

continue to need new sources of energy to fuel our growing economy and

population.

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--

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the economy, the economy, the economy. The economy, the economy, the

economy. The economy the economy the economy. Growth, growth,

growth. Growth, growth, growth. the econonmy the economy the

economy. This is true patriotism! Who gives a flippin flop about

anything but the economy and growth? This should always be the number

one thing on our minds, always. Why should we, with more than anyone

else, sacrifice one little penny that could be going into our pocket?

Conserve? Develop alternatives? Sustainable anything? Nahhh! Hell, we

could probably have even more money without these damn environmental

regulations! The environment doesnt matter anyway, and theres nothing

wrong! That *overwhelming majority* of scientists who say there IS

something wrong are just angry because they arent on retainer by the

oil companies. We dont have too much growth and too many people

already, we need MORE oil use and people and growth to fuel our

economy and growth, which will then grow more, and then we'll need

more oil and people and growth to the fuel that economy and then of

course more growth and more poeple and more...! This cycle then

apparently continues, without end, in the small minds of those who

support it. They think we can get bigger and bigger and richer and

richer forever and ever.

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Those who promote this endless growth attitude are apparently unaware

of some very basic physical and ecological laws of this planet, and

need to to be locked up for 6 months with nothing but an ecological

economics book or two. If you really care about the economy, you

should learn why we cant continue the way we have been forever.

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We are not only economically healthy now, we are economically bloated

and materialistically obese, and could stand to lose more than a

little weight to help ensure our future health-or even just our

future. Quite simply, we cannot sustain the madness of growth forever.

Obviously some people, and oil companies, will never accept this on

their own. Politicians will never address this pro-actively because

its political suicide. It will only happen when the rest of us educate

ourselves and realize the economic (and ecologic) fallacy and

ultimately destructive effects of continuing to follow the endless

growth mentality, and make it socially unacceptable. But we have been

programmed to believe that growth is always good. We are so screwed up

that it has become morally reprehensible to even suggest that growth

and greed isnt desireable! In fact, growth has brought us many good

things to be thankful for in the past, but there is NO reason to think

it can continue in perpetuity, or that its drawbacks wont eventually

outweigh its benefits. In fact, they already do outweigh its benefits

for those who value open space, uncrowded wild places, wild things,

and the possibility of a sustainable future in a liveable world.

The First Drunk is an oilman... need we look any further for the real

reason he is pushing this? His buddies will all get rich as will his

family. No honest person spends $200 million to get a job that pays

less than $200 thousand a year.

As for gas guzzling SUV's. Just try loading a full sheet of plywood,

a batch of 2x4's and a few bags of fertilizer in the civic & see what

happens. I live in a relatively rural area and more than 70% of the

roads in our county are dirt with a number of the towns having no

paved roads at all. Some times of the year you don't get in or out

without 4wd and at times you have to wait a day or two for the roads

to clear up a bit to travel them. Anytime I head out to Grouse Creek,

Yost or southern Idaho or northern Nevada I have to take overnight

gear just in case the weather gets feisty. Jarbidge, Nevada is so

isolated you can't even get to it from Nevada roads 7-9 months out of

the year.

So yes, some of do use SUV's or trucks because we have to. The rest

of the time I drive a VW diesel (82 model) that gets around 50 mpg

and is light enough that it is easier to tow or dig out of the snow

when the inevitable happens. In spite of the ads, AAA does NOT tow

you even when you get stuck in a snowbank in downtown Lynn, Utah. (I

know it is downtown as there are two buildings within a quarter mile).

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If I could do it with an electric car, I would. If I could use

hydrogen, I would as I have seen & driven hydrogen powered cars &

they are great... just no place to fill up in Almo, Idaho or Gold

Hill, Utah or the middle of nowhere. So, we are stuck with gas &

diesel for the present.

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As far as all the statistics we keep repeating, a federal study shows

that 74.4 percent of statistics are made up as needed while the other

50% are wrong.

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I bet if we made all government employees take public transportation

we would save a lot more oil than with any other proposed solution.

Here's some statistics for ya....30% of the worlds natural resourses

have been destroyed since 1970.The seas are in severe decline.Dont

eat too much fish...esp the kids...unless you like mercury....that

is if you can find the fish .Cancers on the rise...overuse of

chemicals in food and animal feed.Disease on the rise...overuse of

antibiotics.Rise in childrens asthma ...cause....air

pollutants.General overall suffering of humankind...

poverty/jobless/starvation....cause...overpopulation...which is

directly or indirectly related to all the problems of humanity both

physically and psychologically. Time to wake up! If you cant work

for a better planet for altruistic reasons do it for greedy

ones.....do you really want your children and grandchildern to live

in a garbage dump?

Hi all

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I know there are many economical and also money oriented problems on

the world. But for example the USA is not behind the Kyoto protocols

and tid not sign them up!

So everything should be fine in USA, isn`t?

But it is not a political forum here!

The fact of the matter is that the ANWR debate in Washington is

simply a political game that's being played by each party to earn

points for their side. I don't believe for a second that either party

really gives a rats a** about ANWR or its oil; they're just looking

to mollify their constituents.

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Politics aside, the unfortunate aspect that's being ignored is that

defeating drilling in ANWR simply shifts the focus to other areas.

Here's one of the headlines from my local rag yesterday:

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<a href="Rockies eyed as plan to drill oil-rich refuge heads to

defeat ">http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRM

N_4_1097366,00.html</a>

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Again, I doubt anyone in Washington really cares about the outcome.

You can bet they'll act like they do at their conventions though.

Well, I doubly hosed that one up!

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(screwed up the HTML AND I used the wrong link)

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Try this:

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<a

href="http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/home/article/0,1299,DRMN_1_110

1726,00.html">Rockies eyed as plan to drill oil-rich refuge heads to

defeat </a>

Good grief - have you guys never heard of the word "TROLL"? Note the

guy who started this never replied to any other posts - he just sat

back and had a good chuckle...