Solving our oil problem
 

Forgive me for not supplying links on this, I could NOT find any objective, unbiased sources that didn't go into some kind of political bickering.

The simple fact is though, we have to fix this oil problem. We can't sit there and let OPEC rob us at the pump just because they can't afford solid gold limos anymore. Here are my thoughts on the matter. Gas prices may be low back where they should be adjusted for inflation from 2000 right now, but they're not solidly low back where they should be adjusted for inflation from 2000. They're still unstable and we are in danger of a spike. Which really won't help our economy.

The factors as I understand them are as follows:

1. We've gone crazy with out environmental regulations. We don't allow drilling anywhere because we're afraid of a little oil spilling on the ground, or that the drilling machines might have a 1 in 1000 chance of accidentally smacking a bird that flies by. Our domestic oil companies WANT to drill but it takes a while and costs them money, and that's when they're even allowed to do it. This causes us to in turn be dependant on foreign oil, and so when OPEC cuts production it has a greater effect this way.

2. Refinery problems. It costs several billion dollars and takes a number of years to build a new oil refinery. Now those things stink(literally) and I can understand not wanting one near your house. However they aren't typically built near housing areas or the like anyway. Now it is true that environmental sanctions are to blame for very little of the costs of the actual building, but this ignores the fact that environmental movements have bullied congress into requiring exhorbitant licensing fees that make up a huge part of the costs. It also ignores the fact that environmental sanctions are responsible for it taking so long for refineries to be made.

3. Price gouging is way overblown. I believe that some probably has occured and we need to watch for it and be ready to act. However when we try to blame the companies themselves w/o actually doing the research, that's bad. It ignores the things that are often the real factors.

4. Misdirection. We often focus only on making cars more fuel efficient or alternative fuels for cars. These are not fruitless endeavors, but it creates a narrow focus. Alternative fuels are often very applicable to stuff other than cars. Two good example are using coal instead of propane, and electric(as opposed to gas) stoves. There's also the fact that a lot of our power plants are gas power plants. Moving away from those will have a pretty decent effect on demand.

Now what do I think? I think the first thing is we have to deregulate. I mean we can't expect to not be dependant on foreign oil if we're going to keep our domestic oil companies in a virtual headlock. That's not to say they should be allowed to dump crude into the ocean whenever they feel like it, certainly not. But maybe reduce the licensing fees, and speed up the process?

Also forgive me for noticing, but loud, heavy machinery tends to scare wildlife away does it not? I don't think it's necessarily a hazard to local wildlife to allow drilling in any area. And yes it tears the ground up, but so does mining, so does urban development. I'm all for preserving the environment. I don't want to live in a wasteland. But getting hysterical about it is only causing us problems.

I'm not saying there should be no regulations, or that we shouldn't import any oil. I'm just saying our regulations and foreign oil dependence are at insane levels.

That's my thoughts anyway. Maybe there's something I missed.

Generally, habitat loss is the factor that matters, and this kind of stuff does destroy a lot of habitat. Actually, humans destroy a lot of habitat.

And make no mistake everyone, habitat loss is biggest contributor to most environmental damage, ever. As far as any attempts at empirical effects of climate change, it's much worse than that.

And I think it's a little unfair to say environmental groups are "getting hysterical." Perhaps some are a bit radical, but that's what you HAVE to do to get heard, unless you have the backing of a huge proporation of the population. And they don't.

Okay but then developing cities, mining resources, paving roads all are responsible for habitat loss as well. Do you live in a house? Do you drive a car across paved roads? Then you're responsible for habitat loss yourself. We all are. So are you saying we should also stop living in cites, and stop developing our society? Oil drilling does not have a worse effect on habitats than building a city over a location does. And yes we can do one and not the other but that isn't the point.

The point is anything we do to progress will in some way change the environment. If you want to stop damaging it, the only way is to live deep down in a cave somewhere. We have to take a common sense to how we go about "preserving" it.

And as for as climate change, there is no objective scientific evidence that man induced climate change is happening. In fact there's plenty of evidence to the contrary.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/glob...on-neptune.htm

We're not warming Neptune, and if our temperature change trends are the same, then we have to at least question what's going on. But some make the point that perhaps this wasn't supposed to happen on Earth, but was supposed to happen on Neptune, there's problems there too. Because there's evidence that these same trends are happening throughout the whole solar system, not just Earth and Neptune.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread221608/pg1

So to assume that our oil industry is causing global warming, you'd first have to assume that these warming trends are supposed to occur on every planet in our solar system but Earth itself, that's not impossible, but there's evidence against even that. Mountains of evidence.

http://www.kn4lf.com/globalwarminglie.htm

So yeah, drilling for oil isn't causing global warming. So we have no reason not to do it, at least not based on that.

But even if it was, it would just mean that us not causing global warming would result in other countries doing it in our place. Someone has to drill and refine the oil in order for us to drive our cars, so if it really did cause what you say it does, it would do so regardless if we do the drilling or not.

Well, you've made a fantastic implication from my few simple statements. I don't recall saying we should stop living in cities, or developing our society.

I have a feeling the only way to stop damaging the environment isn't just to "live deep down in a cave somewhere." But tell me, where does common sense guide us to? More importantly, who decides what common sense is? The common sense of the United States Government? The common sense of the French government? The common sense of the people of Uganda?

Recent human development has minimal interest in preserving much of anything.



I will now preface the climate change response with this: I have no idea why you responded the way you did. My point was to illustrate that habitat loss is by far the most destructive thing humans do to the environment. It nearly outweighs the cumulative damage of climate change, air, water, and land pollution put together. Know what other variable puts it over the top? Not always one you hear about in the news.

And now to address these points, because why not:


Well I consider myself a scientist, and that means I remain skeptical until I feel I've analyzed all the evidence. By the way, I don't really consider the links you've provided evidence, I go straight to primary literature when I'm looking for answers.

And while I disagree with your methods, I more or less agree. The evidence for man-induced climate change, since I last checked in early 2008, was very weak, if nonexistant. There is ample proof we are undergoing climate change, but we don't understand the cause, we are still trying to understand the effect.

However, because we don't understand the cause at all, we can't say it's much else either with much weight. Still, the most convincing papers I've read on the subject (It'll be very hard for me to track them down, as I didn't download them on this PC, but I could give it a shot) point towards natural activities, such as increased solar activity and so forth.

AboveTopSecret is a conspiracy theory website. You are consulting the wrong sources.

This stands out in particular, if only because I don't think I even mentioned offshore drilling in my only post.

If I offended you in anyway I do apologize. It was simply meant to demonstrate a broader picture of things.

Well ok, habitat destruction is bad, but think about it statistically, we'd drill on less(much less actually) than 1% of our landspace. You always have to sacrifice natural habitats for any human development, but it isn't like the wildlife will have nowhere to go either.

Noted, I did double check this and you are correct. however I do think the blog from the scientist should at least be taken serious.

I beg to differ on this one... Incentives are the most powerful thing in the human world. Some things that are common resources get used up far differently from private resources. If we make people pay premiums for specific goods (elephant in Africa, cattle in TX...) then we can make it so that what once was not preserved at all, that much more precious for future generations.

More or less to assist in this view, Nasa.gov did have some information on the fact that solar flares may be linked to why we have solar warming. As well, I read recently that there was information on the fact the world may go into a cooling phase soon.

As I wrote that I thought to myself many selfish human concerns that I could consider our actions the preservation of, but that would have made my post seem too mean and anti-human. And I'm not really anti-human, deep down.

But if you take the time to check out global resource use (and only a fraction of the Earth's population using them!) over the past 60 years versus the past 10000, that's what I mean. Yes, yes, exponential acceleration in technological advancement. I guess I don't necessarily consider that a 'good' thing, if you can even call it a moral thing.

Yeah I didn't want to get too deep into it. There may be plenty of contributing factors, and really humanity could be a proportion. It's far from ruled out. There's other things like the axial-tilt of the planet, differences in cloud cover. Ice core evidence shows rather clearly that the climate of the Earth varies insanely, and can even do so on shorter time scales (though harder to show...More skeptical). Blah blah blah, back to oil solving.

I'm far from offended, no need to apologize. We all just need to be careful when we reiterate what others have "said."

I'll have to consider the oil solution more. The best way to force change towards something better is to make people a little uncomfortable! Necessity's great for that, which is why I kind of wish we would run out of oil. Humans are genius, we will find alternatives quickly if we need to.

The main question... What could run in a similar force? Last I checked there were cars run on chicken grease but still...

Solar would only work on a rainy day and other things include ethanol (which I STILL don't support) which isn't good for massive consumption.

My answer to that question would be twofold:

We, as a species and as a cough Western society, should not require such a "force", it is not impossible to have technologically advanced, yet simpler and less wasteful lives.

Two, electric cars might be doable. The question is then transferred to what powers the massive electric grid? Discovery once had an interesting special on the true ability of Wind power. That if planned properly, it would not be intermittant (as individual farms might be), and that despite significant casualties to birds, powering the planet would not be very costly. And aside from the bird thing, it is insanely clean.

That's a decent theory on paper. In practice it may even work. The problem is that if it doesn't the results will be catastrophic. If we think we're in an economic crisis now, it'll be way worse if people can't get to their jobs.

I do think that maybe there's something to the shock factor though. Which is why I wish we'd put more emphasis on the gas problem we had in July instead of just breathing a sigh of relief.

This is true, except that:

A. Electric cars require massive batteries

B. Used batteries are responsible for part of the toxic waste problem.