Five Miles Deep: Pumping Oil from the Bottom of the GulfWow. Hell of a technological advance.
The problem is - the Democrats have pretty much scotched drilling off the coasts and in ANWR. When oil prices started going up - the Dems held hearings and blamed the oil companies. When oil prices kept going up - the Dems held hearings and blamed the oil companies. When oil prices continue to rise - the Dems held hearings and blamed the oil companies. Did they authorize further drilling? Open ANWR? Grant exemptions for refinery expansions? Understand that India and China put a significant demand on the world oil supply, raising prices?
Nope. They held hearings and blamed the oil companies. Hearings, after all, are cheap and fast and the oil companies are easy to blame. It's more important to be seen as 'doing something about the problem' than actually doing anything about it.
If we end up in an energy-caused depression, you can - I believe - thank the Democrats for it. With their support of the NIMBY and BANANA factions, they've discouraged a lot of advancement.
You know - there's times I think that deep down, the Dems KNOW they're ruining the economy - but consciously they simply can't accept that fact, it being too far off their 'progressive' fantasies. So they overcompensate - and we end up in 'politician-induced oscillation' where they're not waiting to see what the effects of their programs ARE - they do heavy control inputs when it's not really a good idea... You get into a feedback loop - and you crash.
Very embarrasing.
And THIS was originally clipped on 8-30-07...
J.
Comments (3)
Jerry:
Publicly castigating the proper villains for your current problems may be even more important than being seen doing something.
In the Middle Ages Heretics, Witches, and Jews were the ones usually designated to play the role of The People's Traditional Enemies and they, particularly the They that happened to be Jews, bore the brunt of society's displeasure when Bad Things happened.
In today's Enlightened Society we no longer believe that Satanic Forces are conspiring to over throw the rule of God on this Earth. That's silly, everyone knows Satan doesn't exist and God is just the big imaginary friend that stupid people use to justify their pathetic little lives.
All of humankind's problems are caused by greedy corporations, uncaring scientists, and power hungry Republicans conspiring to rip the world's natural recourses from their natural place in the land, sea, and sky and in the process destroy earth mother Gaea the giver of life.
otpu
Posted by otpu | April 8, 2008 7:43 AM
Posted on April 8, 2008 07:43
And the Republicans couldn't see this coming during the six years they held Congress? Why couldn't they just overrule and do it?
More to the point, ANWR is at most 5% of US supply. Oil would still be high with ANWR.
Posted by Chris Gerrib | April 11, 2008 2:17 PM
Posted on April 11, 2008 14:17
I believe, Chris, that it was considered politically un-expedient to push for this. First - oil wasn't a problem six years ago ... YET. There were other priorities.
Of course, Katrina spiked things, and we realized just how tight the supply and demand situation was regarding refinery capacity. THAT should have been a warning sign right there.
It wasn't. And by then, of course, the Democrats were in full obstructionist mode. Bush tried to push for Social Security reforms? Democrats fought him every step of the way. There were proposals to drill in ANWR, Democrats (to the cheering of the environmental lobby) fought it. They got a lot of cred in environmentalist circles for that - and they needed it.
Of course, it just shoved the problem down the line. There are some battles you can fight later in political circles - this one, unfortunately, was seen as something they could deal with later. The crunch hadn't hit YET - so there wasn't any problem.
The real difficulty I see is -
1. That we AREN'T doing anything serious about oil means we're NOT serious about oil. Drilling in ANWR, drilling off the Florida coast, drilling where we KNOW there's spitloads of oil would show we're serious about actually taking care of the problem.
2. ANYTHING we do is going to take a good 2-4 years to get into production. This is an eternity in political time. The Dems think they'll have a lock on the White House this year, along with the House and Senate. THEN they can do what they think needs to be done, which is steal money from the Oil Companies.
How that's gonna get more oil is beyond me.
So welcome to the Carter Years. If you loved the energy crisis of the late '70s, this will be shaping up as a VERY familiar repeat.
J.
Posted by JLawson | April 13, 2008 9:46 PM
Posted on April 13, 2008 21:46