Senate votes to open arctic refuge to oil drilling

[Saw11_2000]

^Those were pretty much my thoughts, too. I thought I might make a fool of myself if I said I was wrong. I'm sorry, Druidus. After thinking about it a little more, it is a national park, so I suppose we shouldn't allow oil rigs on it. I just had a major wake up call when it comes to environmental issues like this. I wasn' t thinking too deeply when I said there would be no ill-affects to other people, I just assumed they wouldn't like the scenery.

Again, I'm very sorry Druidus.

We can still drill off the coast of Texas though right?

 

[Druidus]

No reason to be sorry, either of us. It was a great debate. Your arguments fanned the flames of my mind, and Brighid worked the hammer. Thank you. :jiggy:

 

[BUDDY]

We can still drill off the coast of Texas though right?

You actually hint on a great point that I hadn't thought of. I used to live in Texas, and I went to the beach twice. There was tar everywhere on the beach. It was disgusting. If they can't keep that from happening when they drill, maybe they should stop.

 

[Saw11_2000]

Wow, I didn't know about that either. There must be some place in the world where they can drill undisturbed in a non-national park.

 

[almifkhar]

hey maize why are you surprised? these people have no respect for nothing not even themselves. they are going to squeeze every drop of everything they can squeeze out of mother earth if they can profit off of it.

 

[Green Gaia]

Have any of you been up to the arctic slope lately, and seen what is happening in the areas we are discussing here? While there is some wildlife, for the most part, it is desolate with nothing but tundra.

So because it isn't a "pretty" forest with Bambi running around in it, it's so OK to destroy it? Sorry, but I don't agree.

 

[painted wolf]

eewred- six million carabou,Moose, Grizzly Bear, Polar Bear, Wolves, Wolverine, dozens of speices of small mammals, several hundred bird species, countless plant speices and once home to the Innuit and other first nations peoples.... and you call it barren?:areyoucra
Have you ever looked at the Artic Slope?
It is a thriving vital environment. It is the anthisis of barren and desolate.:banghead3

wa:do

 

[Sunstone]

The best guess is that the refuge could produce about a million barrels of oil a day, which is about the output of Texas. The US uses 20 million barrels of oil each day. Drilling the refuge will not meet the needs of the US.

 

[BUDDY]

eewred- six million carabou,Moose, Grizzly Bear, Polar Bear, Wolves, Wolverine, dozens of speices of small mammals, several hundred bird species, countless plant speices and once home to the Innuit and other first nations peoples.... and you call it barren?:areyoucra
Have you ever looked at the Artic Slope?
It is a thriving vital environment. It is the anthisis of barren and desolate.:banghead3

wa:do

Yep. I have been there a few times. To the places where we are currently drilling. One the Arctic Slope, where the drilling is taking place, there are no Grizzly bears, wolves, wolverines or moose. The caribou migrate near there, but mostly stay further into the interior. You are right about the bird species and the small mammals though. When I visited I saw many apf them all around the oil platforms. They were living among them. I still think that there is a responsible way to do this though, except for the off shore drilling. I am not totally sold on that continuing. The other animals you mentioned are effected when the pipeline is built, but only temporarily. We know this from research done since the building of the first pipeline. I haven't made my mind up on all of this yet honestly.

 

[Green Gaia]

Even if there is nothing but tundra and not an animal or plant in sight, we should not be doing this, IMO. This is very, very wrong. We should be concentrating ALL our effort and energy on getting the technology to replace oil into the mainstream, and not destroying more and more invaluable Earth, squeezing out the last little bit of oil the Earth has left so we don't have to change our lifestyle for a few more years because the Earth can NEVER be replaced. And there will be an impact and destruction of the native habitat everywhere they do this, it is inevitable.

Haven't we destroyed enough?

 

[painted wolf]

well lets hope Iceland gets thier Hydrogen power reserch going full tilt. It would be ironic don't you think if the centere of 'energy' sales switched from the Middle East to Iceland.

Iceland plans to get around the production problem by using their abundant hydro-thermal power to be the source of the initial energy to produce the Hydrogen. Not nessisarily a solution, but a definite step in the right direction. I'm glad someone is taking it.

Sadly all cultures make choices about thier environment, that determin thier long term success and failure. Numerous Civilizations have fallen due to environmental degridation, such as the Easter Islanders, Mayans, Greenland vikings, Anasazi and so on. It is rediculous for us to think that just because we are more 'advanced' we are immune to the same pit falls. We are not.

wa:do

 

[Ceridwen018]

Over in Europe, alternatives are becoming widespread. We need to take a page out of their book.

I agree with Maize that we're focusing in on the wrong problem.

 

[Saw11_2000]

LOL, look what I just found. I got the AirBP 2005 Calendar, how fun! Coincidentally, I thought of this thread, so I snapped it with my camera phone and uploaded it, here's the pic.

In case you can't see what it says, (camera phone sucks):

"Air BP's vision is to play a leading part in an aviation industry that is in harmony with the environment."

It just makes me so warm inside. Mmmmm.