Roadshow: Many reasons to drive the speed limit: better mileage, support troops

Sorry, I mistakenly typed Brazil when I meant Venezuela. I was on a conference call where someone was talking about our business in Brazil...

 

So how does your business partners in Brazil move people and goods around?
(I'm still assuming you were joking about attacking either of those countries).

 

It is a division of our company and to be perfectly honest, I don't know how they move our products or deliver our services.

Anyway, I was joking about invading Iran and Venezuela by making a tongue-in-cheek comment about invading them. After all, you guys want me to believe that we invaded Iraq for oil, so why not invade these two oil producing countries as well?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jun 27 2007, 07:40 AM) [snapback]468719[/snapback]</div>

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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swanny1172 @ Jun 27 2007, 12:54 PM) [snapback]468866[/snapback]</div>

because we can?

because we are addicted to sugar cane?

perhaps because they have nice beaches?

i know, we love rescuing people from poverty?

no, its because they are cutting down the rain forrest?

let me try - they are developing WMD's?

if not - because they have world class soccer players?



<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Jun 27 2007, 01:40 PM) [snapback]468898[/snapback]</div>

how do you know - did we drill a test well?

imagine if we were pumping oil from anwr or from new offshore sites or from new sites in the Gulf of Mexico now.........

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jun 27 2007, 12:45 PM) [snapback]468900[/snapback]</div>

Just imagine it, we would be tapping the last of our 3% of the worlds supply of oil to supply our current demand of 25% of the world production. Yah, that's a long term sustainable solution. We could also look forward to oil slicks to kill the fish and destroy our beaches. Sounds like a good idea to me.

I got some more for you:
Imagine if we all drove small cars when needed but they weren't needed that often because we lived close to work and shopping in cities with public transportation instead of in suburbs with nothing but cars to get around.

Image having solar cells on every rooftop and water collection systems to collect the rainwater instead of just sending it into the storm sewers.

Image building super-insulated structures that need a fraction of the energy that our current buildings require.

Image if everyone just got rid of their stupid incandescent bulbs and replaced them with compact fluorescent bulbs!

Image if we all stopped using disposable plastic bags at stores at took our own reusable bag instead!

Image if we CONSERVED energy instead of focusing on how to find more energy! Not that is a radical idea!

 

I like how the conservs say ANWR as though it is just some place with oil. They probably hope that over a couple of years we will forget its real name, which is the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. You support drilling oil in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge; I know how acronyms are nice sometimes, but I would applaud people to use its full name so that we remember that it is a Wildlife Refuge. I think having an Artic National Wildlife Refuge is more important than having a small flow of oil. 10 billions of technically recoverable oil is estimated there, and there is a global demand of oil of 80-90 million barrels a day. So the oil in ANWR will make the world's oil last another 111-125 days. What a joke! Lets destroy a part of the Artic National Wildlife Refuge for another 111-125 days of oil!

 

And, imagine if we all held hands and sang Koom-ba-ya...

 

I'm actually in favor of setting up to drill for ANWR oil, but not to actually use it. It's a far more practical Strategic Oil Reserve than a bunch of metal silos in Texas.

The worry for me with ANWR is less about the wilderness and more about why they want to drill it. Profit. That oil belongs to the US public. We will need it someday. Period. But if you just open it open to the oil majors, it is a cash cow to them, not a way to prevent oil shortages from crippling or even killing our economy. BTW, China is closer in shipping routes to ANWR than the US refineries are. Which route provides more profit to the multinational oil companies? (Keep in mind that these are companies that don't mind setting up shop in the Cayman Islands, creating blackouts to gouge energy prices, funding lies to delay realization of global warming, etc. etc.)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jun 27 2007, 12:45 PM) [snapback]468900[/snapback]</div>

Oh, I can imagine it, all right; we'd meet about 3% of our demand for oil for ten years --at best-- before it's pumped dry and the area is desecrated forever.

Sounds like a plan, Doctor.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Jun 27 2007, 02:19 PM) [snapback]468928[/snapback]</div>

Desecrated? I didn't know it was holy ground...

 

To me, Wildlife Refuges are a sort of 'holy' ground (and I shutter at using a religious term). It is land that the government has set aside with the preset notion of preserving it from human (and corporate) exploitation. It is land that we as a nation through our elected officials decided was worth saving for its natural beauty. Yet, now that the Repubs want more oil to support their SUV driving, suburban living lifestyle, they want to reverse that notion and extract the resources, and all for 120 days worth of oil?? What is the logic behind that? So shareholders and CEOs of corporations can make money?

The bottom line is Artic National Wildlife Refuge drilling will do so little to accomploshing anything beyond making 700 billion dollars worth of revenue for the oil industry. I probably even own oil stock through my mutual funds, but I don't want to destroy what land we have set aside for profit.

 

"I probably even own oil stock through my mutual funds, but I don't want to destroy what land we have set aside for profit."

And there is the heart of the conundrum we are in.
I'd say, as long as we ensure ANWR oil is only used for essential economic need (Farming and delevireing food to us), then I'm OK with it. Fueling hummers, jetskis, offroad monstertrucks, shipping plastic crap from China, and many other frivilous use are not. But how do you do this? I think the oil needs to sit there until public awareness of the seriousness of energy shortage problems becomes complete.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darwood @ Jun 27 2007, 01:41 PM) [snapback]468944[/snapback]</div>

The best way to do that is leave it as it is. If in say 20-30 years we haven't progressed down the road oil alternatives and our nations is truly in crisis then tap it and pump it. By that time the public will understand the concern and be willing to make sacrifices to use this vital energy source to power our transition to something else. If you tap it now it will get pump now and just go on to fuel our habit and fatten the pockets of the oil companies.

I vote for option C, leave it be and find alternatives now.