Posted by Tina
Charles Krauthammer, looking at the giant mess that has accompanied the Gulf oil spill has asked a few very important questions:
“Oil spill culprits run deep,” by Charles Krauthammer – OC Register
“Why are we drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place? ** There will always be catastrophic oil spills. You make them as rare as humanly possible, but where would you rather have one: in the Gulf of Mexico, upon which thousands depend for their livelihood, or in the Arctic, where there are practically no people? ** All spills seriously damage wildlife. That’s a given. But why have we pushed the drilling from the barren to the populated, from the remote wilderness to a center of fishing, shipping, tourism and recreation?”
In other words why are we drilling there when we could be drilling here:
An Alaskan whose familiar with the oil business puts it like this:
“ANWR Oil? One Alaskan’s Opinion,” by Craig Bieber – Just One Opinion
I know we have to develop alternative sources of energy, and the quicker we do that the better. I also know that we will need oil for the foreseeable future, and we need to use it responsibly during the considerable length of time it will take to fully develop viable new sources of energy. I can’t visualize jet airplanes flying on something other than jet fuel for many years to come. It should concern everyone that we are doing tremendous damage to our economy by sending hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign countries for oil. Many of those countries are actively using our money to try to undermine our success and our way of life. We are also forcing U.S. oil companies to drill ultra-expensive deepwater wells while we neglect easily available onshore prospects like ANWR.
These men are on to something. Pressure by activists to block certain areas have forced deep water drilling. Until a better source of energy is readily available common sense, rather than pressure from special interest activists, should play a greater roll in deciding where we drill.