Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)

(I've been itching to write this post for a while now, and since I'm stuck at work waiting for a massive file copy to finish, here you go).
One of the environmental/no oil crowd's biggest success has been halting oil drilling in ANWR. to justify it they show pictures of the refuge such as this:

Beautiful, who'd want to put a stinky old oil rig there?
And this:

awwww, look at the cute little squirrel, the poor thing must be afraid of the noisy oil well, poor little guy!
What they don't tell you is neither of these pictures is from the area where drilling is proposed. They are from the permanent wilderness area far to the south. No one is suggesting drilling there.
This is where the oil is:

Oh, wait, that's the winter picture, of course it's just a bunch of ice, it's Alaska for crying out loud! I wouldn't want to be accused of falsifying it's true beauty by showing it out of season. Here's the summer view:

Much prettier, no? I hear it often hits 40 degrees in July. Parts of it even grow grass as you'll see. But that's beside the point; it's the wildlife that will really suffer!
The best indication of the horrors that await the caribou and the other wildlife of ANWR can be found by looking at the sad plight of their brethren right down the coast in Prudhoe Bay who are already suffering the effects of the unfettered greed and environmental indifference of Big Oil! BEHOLD THE CARNAGE!!!!

Note the oil drilling operation and pipeline behind all the rotting carcases. . . what? . . . wait a second . . . those caribou aren't dead, they're eating and resting with their young!. . . huh? . . . well I'm sure they're scared of all the development! you'd never see them get any closer than that to an oil rig!

. . . like right on the access road . . . D'oh! Well, caribou aren't the brightest . . .  savvy predators, like bears, surely understand the danger posed by the human intruders!


well, OK. . . those are just dumb brown bears. Polar bears would never. . .

. . . ah, but small animals, like birds, would be driven away by the . . .

. . . they may hunt, but they'd never nest near an oil rig . . .

Um . . . Ok. Maybe we should learn from the other Alaska coastal drilling sites and not hyperventilate over ANWR.

Current Oil and Gas Prices are Self-inflicted Wounds

For several reasons, I always enjoy finding articles that summarize everything I've been thinking on a current issue. First, it confirms what I've always thought - "I'm a smart guy." Second, it saves me the trouble of composing long blog posts - I can just cut, paste and link. Much easier.
so I'm glad I found this post on the real political and historical reasons for the current "energy crisis."
Short version: Congressional dismay about high gas prices is like me blindfolding myself and then complaining when I bump into things a lot.
Long Version:

Americans feeling the pinch at the pump should recognize that the wealthiest nation on the planet has nothing but itself to blame for the third in a series of energy crises that began when Richard Nixon was still in office.
Having largely ignored the previous two shots across the bow — the first coming in 1973 when OPEC decided to ban sales of oil to nations that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War, and the second in 1979 after the Islamic Revolution in Iran — the U.S. seems determined to repeat the mistakes of the past.

What should make Americans on both sides of the aisle even more ashamed is that before the first energy crisis, the United States produced 11.428 million barrels of oil per day. This represented 66 percent of the 17.308 million barrels we consumed that year.
Compare that to 2007, when America produced 8.481 million barrels per day, or only 41 percent of the 20.7 million barrels consumed. Such is the result of the so-called energy policies of seven White Houses and 17 Congresses controlled by both Democrats and Republicans.

Yet, today’s politicians — mostly on the left side of the aisle, of course — have the gall to place all the blame for rising energy prices on increased demand from expanding economies like China and India.
At least those countries are participating in exploration efforts to expand their own supplies. China’s oil production has almost doubled since 1980, while India’s has grown by an astounding 375 percent. At the same time, U.S. production has declined by 22 percent. . .
Closer to home, our neighbors also ramped up oil production. To the south, Mexico has seen its crude output jump 64 percent since 1980, while Canada’s increased 85 percent.
Did I mention that our production declined by 22 percent in the same period?
Putting this in its proper perspective, if America had responded to the second energy crisis by increasing oil production only at the average rate of our North American neighbors, we’d currently be supplying ourselves with 18.86 million barrels of crude per day, or 91 percent of our usage.

It's not as if we don't have the oil available. According to an April 2006 study done for the Library of Congress:

Oil shale is prevalent in the western states of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. The resource potential of these shales is estimated to be the equivalent of 1.8 trillion barrels of oil in place. . . . In comparison, Saudi Arabia reportedly holds proved reserves of 267 billion barrels.

That doesn't include ANWR, and it doesn't include offshore drilling.
The real problem, I believe, is that liberals, and environmentalists in particular, want oil to be expensive. Read the words of Sen. Obama when ask his opinion of high oil prices:

I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing. But if we take some steps right now to help people make the adjustment, first of all by putting more money in their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more rapidly, particularly U.S. automakers.

I think most people fail to see the need for an adjustment at all. the article points out that Democrats don't have this attitude about other scarce "resources."

Why has one political party for nearly four decades viewed energy crises through the narrow prism of learning to adjust to higher prices and declining resources, as opposed to aggressively finding and producing more of what the country and the economy needs?

Such questions seem particularly relevant given how this same party views hunger in our nation and throughout the world. The answer isn’t for those that have less to make an adjustment and adapt to their impoverished condition. 'Adjust to having less' is certainly not the Left’s prescription for Americans lacking health insurance.

Democrats want government to increase the supply of food and medical care to those deemed financially incapable of providing for themselves.
Why doesn’t the same hold true for energy?

Climate and the Precautionary Principle

We went to a memorial day barbeque today with several families from the ward, and I got into a debate (friendly, of course) with a brother about the greenhouse effect, global warming, climate change (whatever it's called now).
Anyway, we each had points and counterpoints. I'm a lawyer and he's a physicist, so it's not like either of us really knows what we're talking about. But I noticed that whenever I'd make a point, the response would be something like "yeah, we don't really know, but we shouldn't risk it."
I've encountered this attitude recently as I wrote my final law school paper. It is basically "better safe than sorry." The formal name for this philosophy is the Precautionary Principle. It's widely used in environmental circles as a justification to prohibit, regulate or tax any activity that could conceivably impact the environment.
the Precautionary Principle is insidious for at least two reasons.

• First, it reverses the burden of proof - forcing one side to prove a negative. Instead of the environmental advocate gathering evidence of actual harm and using that evidence to advocate halting the damaging activity, all the activist has to do is come up with a scenario that will potentially harm the environment, and invoke the Precautionary Principle. The activist doesn't have to prove anything, the other side has to prove that their activities will be harmless. This is nearly impossible. I can't prove that driving to taco bell to get lunch will be harmless. This being the case, the precautionary principle says I should not do it.
• Second, it is used selectively. Environmentalists use it to force industry to prove they will cause no harm, but activists don't take into account the harm caused by their own actions. DDT was banned because it may have harmed some birds, but this ban has allowed millions of people to die from mosquito-bourne malaria over the last 3 decades. One would think that if an action had the potential of killing millions, the precautionary principle would dictate that it not be taken. not so. Only environmental harm is fair game. (and humans are not part of the environment).

Just something to keep in mind next time you hear predictions of possible environmental catastrophe.

Keeping Up With the Joneses

You know the stories you hear of neighborhood rivalries? The Smiths buy an Explorer, and the Joneses counter with an Escalade, etc?

It's not just greedy, rich, white Republicans playing anymore. From California . . . (where else?). . . (and no, I did not make up the name of the city) . . . (and all parenthetical snide remarks are my additions, not from the article).

SUNNYVALE, California (AP) -- In an environmental dispute seemingly scripted for eco-friendly California, a man asked prosecutors to file charges against his neighbors because their towering redwoods blocked sunlight to his backyard solar panels. . . After more than six years of legal wrangling, a judge recently ordered Richard Treanor and his wife, Carolyn Bissett, to cut down two of their eight redwoods, citing an obscure state law that protects a homeowner's right to sunlight.

As for who cares more about the environment, must be the solar guy, right?

Vargas (solar guy) says the law protects his $70,000 investment in solar power, and he believes it should be strengthened."I think it's unfair that a neighbor can take away this source of energy from another neighbor," he said.

Well he's obviously seen the light. . . er . . . been enlightened . . . has a sunny outlook on . . . stupid puns . . . LOVES the environment. But wait, the Redwood couple counters with . . .

. . . Treanor and Bissett (Redwood couple), who drive a hybrid Toyota Prius, argue that trees absorb carbon dioxide, cool the surrounding air and provide a habitat for wildlife. (in the middle of San Fran/Oakland/San Jose's 3 million people)

A Prius, countering global warming, and wildlife habitat, all in one sentence! It's the Trifecta of Green-ness! Take that Vargas, you tree-hating, gas-guzzling corporate sell-out !!! But, hang on, what's this?

Vargas, who recently bought a plug-in electric car, counters it would take two or three acres of trees to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as much as the solar panels that cover his roof and backyard trellis.

No mere hybrid for him! His new car plugs in. You can take your majestic Redwoods and 2 more acres full, chop 'em down and burn 'em . . . compost 'em! (or just transplant them 'where the sun don't shine'). Zero-emission, solar-powered self-righteousness FOR THE WIN!

This sounds like the new Rock, Paper, Scissors. It used to be that paper covered rock, rock crushed scissors, and scissors cut paper.

Now, Redwoods cover solar power, solar power crushes redwoods, and windmills cut birds

(I know, it doesn't make sense, so sue me! I had to get the bird link in somehow)

Al Gore, Friend of the Animals

Al Gore is out to save the environment again. From Mary Katharine Ham's Townhall.com blog:

After Live Earth produced the carbon emissions of a small country in order to discourage carbon emissions, Gore has moved onto eating endangered species to encourage their preservation, I guess. Don't ask questions. He's a visionary:

Gore and his guests at the weekend ceremony dined on Chilean sea bass - arguably one of the world's most threatened fish species.
Also known as Patagonian toothfish, the species is under pressure from illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing activities in the Southern Ocean, jeopardising the sustainability of remaining stocks.
The species is currently managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Living Marine Resources, the body which introduced a catch and trade documentation scheme as an attempt to tackle illegal poaching of this species.

The story comes from the Humane Society.

Apparently, endangered fish taste better than abundant ones. I guess that makes sense, if no one liked them, no one would catch them . . . and they wouldn't be endangered, right?