[Editorial note from Dano: Folks, this post is by regular commenter, Todd Twilley. As such, we cannot in good conscience hold steadfastly to our own rules regarding "keeping it neutral." Todd's post clearly reflects his ideology, but that's okay...he's just filling in for me this week. I will comment on his and Reed's posts as if Reed and I were debating, here. I encourage the rest of you to withhold judgment on the neutrality issue and comment as normal otherwise. Thanks for the assistance, Todd!]
Anyone who argues that offshore drilling is the magic bullet in energy independence is crazy. They are also crazy if they don't believe alternative energies should be explored. So I'm not going to argue offshore drilling is the be-all and end-all to energy independence. And I'm not going to say we shouldn't encourage businesses to improve alternative energy technology. What I am going to argue is that offshore drilling, actually using our own resources, is essential for our country's economic well-being until alternate technologies advance.
Offshore drilling will not allow for new American oil to be put on the market overnight. Its silly to suggest it can. But just the threat of America drilling and using its own oil resources sends a shiver down the spine of our enemies who control the oil markets. Here's the proof: On Monday July 14, President George W. Bush lifted the ban on offshore drilling and urged Congress to do the same. (see http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2008/07/bush_lifts_ban_on_offshore_dri.html .com/business/index.ssf/2 7/bush_lifts_ban_on_offshore_dri.html).
Everyone knows OPEC controls the price of oil by how much they allow on the market, much as DeBeers controls the price of diamonds. And just like DeBeers' diamond resources, there's plenty of oil in the ground. This drop in price proves that OPEC is scared to death that we are going to drill for our own oil. Now Iran (who are not our friends, guys) says that OPEC needs to lower production to raise the prices of oil. Iran wants us to suffer economically. Iran has the alibi that the stronger dollar is the reason for the price drop in oil, and while the depleted value of the dollar has certainly contributed to the rise in the price of oil and gas (thank you, financial industry bailouts), it's recent recovery nowhere compares to the spike in oil prices we experienced during that dollar decline.
From OPEC nations to Russia, the countries that are out there who have oil are not our friends. And it's not a Bush foreign policy issue, either. They've never been our friends during the Industrial Age. We must show them we are serious and have a backbone. OPEC has held the power for decades. And now Russia is buying up oil reserves throughout the world. (see http://www.neurope.eu/view_news.php?id=69918).
Even if we don't use it. At least we need to find the oil and drill it. If we must, we can put a cap on the wells offshore and, should we need to show Russia or OPEC a thing o
r two, just haul an oil platform out to them and start pumping.
r two, just haul an oil platform out to them and start pumping.An estimated 18 billion barrels of offshore oil is now banned. Under the joke of a plan for "opening" offshore drilling proposed by the Democrat-controlled Congress, 90 percent of that would still be off limits. Democrats are not using logic here. But they are selfishly trying to win votes from their paranoid supporters. That's because its hard to defend the evidence above and say that offshore drilling won't have an impact on oil prices. Just talking about it has had an effect. Its a lot easier to use scare tactics and propaganda to argue against offshore drilling. Here are the arguments, in short, against offshore drilling and why they are faulty:
- Storms such as Hurricane Ike shut down offshore rigs, divert tankers, and shut down refineries. What happened in Tallahassee wasn't a result of Hurricane Ike directly. It was more directly a result of the Tallahassee Democrat, group think and mass hysteria. It's unlikely anything short of a concentrated terrorist attack that takes out all our refineries would cause any true gas shortage.Oil rigs can be restaffed and operational usually within a couple of days after a storm event. It takes about the same two days to reroute tankers. Oil refining is the first industry behind hospitals and government to get working in a devastated coastal city.
- Another argument is alternative energies. The legitimate alternative energies are susceptible to natural disasters, too. What happens when a tornado wipes out a windmill farm in the Midwest or a solar farm has an uncharacteristi
cally low streak of mostly cloudy days? What happens when those dependent on hydro power experience a drought? And what happens when a nuclear power plant is targeted by terrorists?
Speaking of alternative energies, the ones mentioned above are the only true alternative sources. Our leaders in Washington want to divert our attention with hopes of Ethanol or hydrogen powered cars or even plug-in vehicles. Energy is energy folks. Hydrogen and Ethanol take too much energy to make them a worthwhile option. Technology may improve on the hydrogen end. But use of Ethanol is simply a special interest ploy to get Midwest farmer votes. The end effect of Ethanol we've seen in an increase in almost all types of food products. It's about the corn, which is the basis for all meat and dairy (it's what the cows and chickens eat). But those farmers who have raised feed are turning to Ethanol, not because its more profitable in the free market, but because the government is subsidizing Ethanol.
The problem with alternative energies such as nuclear power plants are that the same people who oppose offshore drilling have so burdened those who might invest in nuclear power plants with heavy regulation that it makes investment in this clean energy nigh impossible. The problem with wind and solar is that our technology is just not there yet to harvest enough energy. It's getting better all the time, but it needs to get a lot better before wind and solar are viable options. We'll be using oil primarily for the next 30 years until these technologies can advance far enough, I predict. Even if it's sooner, we'll still need the oil for plastic.
Then there is the environmental aspect. As far as oil spills, human error in transport causes oil spills, not offshore drilling. We're going to import oil from somewhere. There's a less chance of a transport disaster by transporting it a few hundred miles off our shores than from thousands of miles away.
But what about the oil when it is actually burned? Global warming. That's a whole other debate. But man-made global warming is about as real as the Tallahassee gas shortage. Or I should say it was as real as the Tallahassee gas shortage before everyone in the city went nuts. I just hope we burn enough oil to ensure we avoid the coming ice age. See these two links for proof on that: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2008-09-09-farmers-almanac_N.htm
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7 comments:
Thanks for helping us out this week, but Todd, Todd, Todd. I don't know where to start with your post.
I guess I'll begin from the bottom up. You say that "proof" that there is no human-caused global warming, and we are about to experience an ice-age, can be found at the two websites you quote from. You're kidding, right? The first is a schlock article about the Farmer's Almanac predicting an ice age. For God's sake, Todd, even the rag's own editors take their predictions as tongue-in-cheek. The scientific community does not put stock in a publication that closes with first and second-grade children's "letters to God." Sorry.
The other source is a story on a fringe science proffering which says that the unusual lack of noticeable sunspot activity during August suggests, again, that we are not experiencing global warming, but rather, a coming ice age. This story depends on an unpublished paper submitted to a respected journal a number of years ago and rejected for publication. That's the exact definition of an unreliable source. Moreover, the "fact" that we have just now experienced a lack of sunspot activities that only last happened in 1913, suggests that whatever future effect this lack of sun activity may have has not happened yet (so cannot be proof that we have not caused global warming).
Next - offshore drilling doesn't cause oil spills, human mistakes in transportation do? Really? And because of that we should drill more offshore, because it's safer to transport oil over short distances than long ones? Seems to me the worst oil spills happen right off the coasts of most countries that suffer them. Gee, I don't know...what comes to mind? Exxon Valdez? How about the large spill on the Mississippi River just about a month ago? It is the presence of higher ground (lower draft, causing grounding) near and within continental borders that causes most accidents, not the distances of mid-ocean. It is, quite simply, no safer to transport oil by water near the Gulf coast than it is across the Atlantic Ocean - it's more dangerous. For more, see http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/topic_subtopic_entry.php?RECORD_KEY(entry_subtopic_topic)=entry_id,subtopic_id,topic_id&entry_id(entry_subtopic_topic)=184&subtopic_id(entry_subtopic_topic)=8&topic_id(entry_subtopic_topic)=1; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_spill; more if requested.
Next, while many people agree with you that alternative energies are too expensive to produce cost-effectively, many disagree - particularly those who work within the renewable energy industries. As I said under Reed's post, and one previously under one of your comments, see http://cc.pubco.net/www.valcent.net/i/misc/Vertigro/index.html for one example. It is the politics of conservatism to rely on "old" predictions about our capabilities. Face it, Todd, the rest of the world is moving ahead very quickly with alternative fuels, and doing very nicely with them (Germany alone accounts for 50% of the world's photoelectric energy output). Right now, in fact, only 5 % of the entire world's wind energy resources could completely supply the earth's energy needs if harvested with readily available technologies (over the 71% of the planet covered by high-wind oceans). It requires will, not non-existent technology to ween ourselves from fossil-fuels (and especially oil).
More later.
Good to see I may have put the fight back in you, Dano. Welcome back :). No pun intended, btw.
Firstly, I don't understand the editors note. But I'll discuss that with you later. I'll just say I could have easily argued just as steadfastly the other side of the issue. I may not have liked it as much, but I could have done it. Besides I thought the whole purpose was to argue two points of the issue. If I errered becasue I argued for offshore drilling more strongly than either you or Reed would have, then I appologize. I've opined before I don't think you guys have used all the resources or argued as strongly as you both could for the side I know you are ideologically opposed to.
As for your "fringe science" reference. Ever heard of one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter? One man's trash is another man's treasure? Sun activity and lack thereof aligns tightly with global temperature increases and decreases. Besides, isn't calling this science fringe without providing a source kind of going against the nature of the site? :)
Secondly, are you suggesting that since the Farmer's Almanac prints letters from kids to God that it shouldn't be taken seriously? Almost every newspaper in the nation at one time or another has printed children's letters to Santa Clause. Does that make all newspaper references void as well? I'm ok with it does. I just want to make sure I know the rules and that we all remain consistant.
If alternative means of power were cost efficient to produce, I'd have solar panals on my roof and pay $0 for electricity to the City of Tallahassee every month. As it is, they are not efficient enough for the cost, and therefore I still have only shingles. The wealthly can do this because they can take a loss on that will never be recouped in the longterm in actual energy savings. A solar roof system will run you approx. $15,000 for a single-family home and offset your home by just 10-30% of energy use (IF it's fully decked out in energy efficiency). Life of these units is yet to be determined they are so new.
So I would argue, no it doesn't require will. It requires money. And lots of it. Or slave labor. Who's going to build and install windmills all over the world's oceans? Who's going to keep them repaired and running and replace them when they wear out. Alternative energy has a price and the reward versus the cost is just not there yet unless we advocate energy slave labor.
The grammer on this site is just horrible. Then you have Dano atually arguing that the risk of an oil spill over a short distance is equal to that of an oil spill over a long distance. Next Dano then uses the Exxon Valdez as an example of why we shouldn't drill off shore. Excuse me Dano but the Exxon Valdez is a boat.......and it traveled a decent distance to boot.
Next we have Chicken Little and the "sky is falling" global warming political B.S. One of the biggest hoaxes ever sold to the American Public is global warming. Dano doesn't like the Farmer's Almanac and he may have a good arguement, execpt that the global warming science is even more whacked than the almanac.
Every planet from Mecury to Saturn has warmed over the last 20 years. (A proven fact.) So I guess I'm supposed to assume (ass-u-me) that man caused global warming on the other planets as well. The cycles of the sun are never considerec by the global warming hoax belivers. On top of of all this, the global warming hoax is based on 1970 tempatures which at that time we were ending a short cooling cycle. Hell it snowed in Miami for the first time in recorded history in 1976. I was actually there and saw it. Frostproof Florida got it's name for a reason. Wanna bet Frostproof gets frost this year as the sun has already entered a "down" cycle?
The Farmers Almanac is actually based on some real science and has been relatively acurate for over 100 years. On the other hand Global Warming is a mere 30 years old and actually hasn't been acurate at all by comparison. For one thing they quit measuring the tempatures at midnight and now measure them at 8 PM. They claim they have a mathmatical equasion that makes up for the time difference but anyone with a brain knows you can't acurately calculate a tempature variation with a simple equasion for temperature measurements at differnt times of the day. Then add to that the fact that most of the measuring stations have been gobbled up by urban sprawl. We all know what urban areas do to tempature measurements. You can't calculate for that no matter how hard you try. Everyone knows that to be true.
So we have mostly false tempature readings over the last 20 years and no consideration for the cycles of the sun but we are told it's all man and nothing but man.
Want an example? We got rid of R12 because it was allegedly blowing a hole in the ozone layer. I actually got told by a scientist (allegedly) and a doctor (allegedly) that getting rid of R12 actually worked. Yet this year Australia news media reported the biggest ozone hole ever.
The erradication of R12 was a money grab by both manufacture's of R134 and the government in new taxes. In the meantime our media stops reporting ozone holes and reports the ozone hole is healed and we have scientist and doctors that believe what the newspaper reports. The reality is that the ozone hole is a natural phenom and that R12 never had anything to do with the damn hole.
Oh just forget it. No one reads this site anyway.
Twenty spelling errors, three errors in the use "it's" instead of "its", numerous failures to use a comma where one is needed... Hmm, thanks anon for contributing to the horrible "grammer" on this site. Or did you mean grammar?
You make a lot of good points, but you are reset to zero when you call out bad grammar by spelling grammar wrong and then committing more than 20 other errors as you make an abomination of the English language. But thanks for playing.
Anonymous...Once again, you have revealed your utter ignorance and lack of logical thought.
Todd is absolutely correct that your grammar and spelling are far worse than anything any of us has written. As a professional editor for many years, I can say that Todd was kind in his counting and listing of your many mistakes. I will not, however, elaborate.
As to your complaints about my comments:
My argument about short-haul vs. long-haul oil shipping had nothing whatever to do with the distance being important. The argument was that, far and away, shipping accidents involving oil spills happen much more commonly near land than in the open ocean -- this is the case because of 1)the presence of lower draft for ships near the continental shelves than in more distant waters, which causes grounding and hull breaches; and 2)shipping is much more congested as shipping routes converge and ships find themselves in close propinquity to one another near ports. It is of zero consequence where the Exxon Valdez shipment came from; it is of huge import that it spilled lots of oil onto the coast of Alaska - not in the open ocean somewhere. Moreover, my argument in this regard was not made in support of banning offshore drilling. The argument was strictly made to support the notion that shipping (or any kind of oil transport, for that matter)is no safer if it comes from a nearby offshore well than from a foreign source halfway around the world; it would be best not to increase our offshore drilling if there are better alternatives that don't carry the same risks and that can be made cost effective.
In terms of your global warming argument, I would love to school you in scientific methods, but I don't have the energy. In scientific terms, a fact is any resolution to a hypothesis that enjoys a super-majority consensus within the scientific community. This is why the highest tier peer-reviewed journals are the most appropriate place to publish scientific scholarship results. When 90% of the world's climatologists and other interested scientists come to the consensus that man is causing much of the global warming problems we are suffering, you can claim they are not real scientists or that they are simply idiots if you'd like; your opinion does not and will not change the facts to which they are in agreement. Feel free to rely on the non-scientific Farmer's Almanac for your "science" news, and feel just as free to avoid this horrid blog site that you disdain to such a degree that you have yet to write even one positive comment since you first visited us.
You are no more welcome here as a commenter than you would be as an English teacher at even the worst elementary school. Any future negative posts from you (and we can only ass-u-me they are all from you; the tone and horrid style are similar each time) will be removed.
We've touched upon global warming here and there, but never really went all out and had it as a debate topic. I'd like to see it in the future.
I'll just say 90 % of all scientist don't agree. And even if they had all been polled (which they haven't)all scientists might either 1) not have the expertise to comment or 2) be dependant on governmetn grants for climitology work (no coming disaster, no money), or 3) fear they would be ostrosized from the scientific community.
Man-made global warming is not a science issue. It's a political issue. The science is in no way conclusive in either direction. And I state as I have before, the U.N. document "signed" by numerous scientists was in fact bits and pieces from individual scientists pieced together to form the document that the U.N. wanted to form. The vast majority of scientific input from those scientists names who were tied to that report was left on the cutting room floor so to speak.
Most of the other cases anon made above are valid in respects to making a case for why the science is inconclusive. And recent history (as in the last couple of years) show that reduced sun activity has resulted in lower temperatures -- this lower temp. result is from the same measurements used to prove the that global temps were rising. Which again, is why global warming as a term is out of vogue and global climate change is in. That way these "climatologists" who scream the sky is falling will still get their funding whether the temps go up or down.
I apologize for the length of this comment, but you have forced me to do it.
Todd...first, I never said "90% of scientists agree." If you'll read again, you'll note that I said "...90% of the world's climatologists and other interested scientists..." Operative words here are "climatologists" and "other interested scientists." The latter was chosen for the sake of brevity...I didn't want to have to list all the other types of scientists that do scholarly investigation into global climate issues (such as meteorologists, geologists, environmentalists, paleontologists, astronomers, etc.)
Your contention that there is no scientific consensus is wrong. There has long been. If you chose not to accept scientific evidence because you don't trust scientists, that is your business. But to suggest that the scientists in question don't know what they are doing, are compelled to do bad research or publish incorrect conclusions for monetary reasons, or won't speak out for fear of being ostracized, is ludicrous. I don't recall where I got the 90% figure in terms of consensus (my bad, for not listing a reference, here), but, in fact, I believe the consensus is now probably even stronger than that.
For what it's worth, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is the organization tasked with collecting and reporting the state of science on this issue. Their conclusions are supported by many dozens of science academies and societies, including every single national academy of science of every major industrialized nation on the planet. Moreover, in order to test the hypothesis that legitimate dissenting scientific opinions were being ignored or overlooked, a study was conducted of 928 published articles from world-wide peer-reviewed scientific journals from 1993 to 2003 (well before the IPCC shared a Nobel peace prize with Al Gore on this issue)to determine the level of consensus on human-caused global warming. This study's results showed that, for the covered period, 75% of the 928 articles either explicitly or implicitly endorsed the consensus view, and 25% offered no opinion because their focus was on methodology or different climatological issues. Most importantly, NONE of the reviewed literature disagreed with the consensus opinion. For more on the consensus issue and this study, see http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686.
While there has long been some support for the notion that solar activity has tended to reduce Earth temperatures, it is also true that the tiny cooling effect of solar activity has not overcome the warming created by anthropogenic (human-caused) forces. For the current consensus, if you would ever care to know what it actually is, see http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/index.htm.
I hate to be pushed to the point of offending a friend, Todd, but as far as I'm concerned, it is insulting for non-scientists (e.g., you and anon) to lecture to a scientist(me)about what science is or isn't, or what the potential pitfalls of relying on scientific studies might be, or even whether the issue of global climate change is science or politics. Don't be ridiculous, please. Many issues are both scientific and political --if this were not so, then your argument about grants having influence over scientific results would be meaningless. Many grants are government grants; government grants to scientists are offered to further SCIENCE, not politics. To the extent that results don't agree with political hopes, the results are 1)buried or not widely publicized by the granting agency, or 2)published as is, and policies are adjusted based upon the findings. Guess what? Regardless of the outcomes, the authors (investigators) still publish and publicize their results. That's the way it works. To whatever extent scientists utilize inappropriate methods or do bad analysis because of grantor-induced bias, the peer-review process weeds out the papers, and therefore they aren't published. That's what peer reviews are for.
Finally, using one or two "reports" or sources to support an overreaching conclusion is a fallacy within science of generalizability. You and anonymous both do this regularly. For instance, to support his view that the earth is actually cooling and not warming, anon says "Hell it snowed in Miami for the first time in recorded history in 1976. I was actually there and saw it. Frostproof Florida got it's name for a reason. Wanna bet Frostproof gets frost this year as the sun has already entered a "down" cycle?" Anonymous erroneously believes that recent cooler weather than the average in Florida "proves" that there is no global warming, but there is global cooling. Not only can one not use one personal report from one incident at one location to generalize about the earth, but anon clearly doesn't know what is meant by global warming (an average overall increase in temperatures of air and water worldwide over time). You, likewise, make a generalizability mistake by saying "the U.N. document 'signed' by numerous scientists was in fact bits and pieces from individual scientists pieced together to form the document that the U.N. wanted to form." This argument presumes that the consensus argument relies on a single U.N. document that you think was inappropriately constructed, and that this inappropriate document treatment "proves" the current state of science is in disarray.
To both of you, I say these things: 1)stop making sweeping generalizations from a single source that was not designed to be generalized from, and 2)there is no such thing in science as "proving" anything. Science can only support a theory or hypothesis, or falsify a theory or hypothesis. Nothing is EVER proved in science, but when a super-majority of relevant scientists agree that sufficient supportive empirical support exists, a theory or hypothesis is considered to be the theory or hypothesis from which all of us should operate.
I will not entertain this specious argument again, so, unless you have comments to make on a different issue, please don't bother to respond to or address this notion again. And I hope I didn't offend you too darn much with my tone, my friend.
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