Deepwater Drilling Needs To Be Reconsidered

[Confederate Kahanist]

http://action.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147495366




Elijah Friedeman, the Millennial Perspective
"Drill, baby, drill."

It's the phrase that sums up the energy policy that conservatives from Sarah Palin to Michael Steele are advocating. The idea is that through drilling more oil wells domestically - both on land and in the ocean - America will become less dependent on oil from countries that hate our guts. More drilling, less dependency. The concept makes sense. And up until April 20th the case for more drilling seemed pretty airtight.

Cue the biggest environmental disaster in the history of America. As we've heard ad nauseum by now the Transocean Deepwater Horizon rig sank, causing an oil leak 5,000 feet under the surface on the ocean. Estimates on the amount of oil spilled range from a low-end government estimate of 30 million gallons to a worst case BP estimate of 126 million gallons of thick, black, environmentally-destructive oil. The oil is killing hundreds of animals, destroying people's livelihoods, wreaking havoc on the fragile Louisiana ecosystems, polluting the ocean for years to come, and despite all this conservatives are still chanting "Drill, baby drill."

In fact, after President Obama issued a moratorium on some deepwater drilling to reconsider the negative effects of deepwater drilling and necessary changes in regulations and drilling techniques, there was widespread outrage from Republicans and even some Democrats. Apparently we should keep on drilling at all costs, even the environment should be thrown by the wayside in an oily mess for the sake of deepwater drilling. I don't agree with the President often, but on this issue I think he got it at least partly right. We need to take a step back and reconsider what exactly we're doing drilling a mile under the ocean without proper safety precautions.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem necessarily with deepwater drilling. In the past I supported the practice like any "good" conservative should, but I've done a double take now. Call me fickle if you want, call me a tree hugging environmental wacko, I don't care. The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20th shows that we aren't ready for deepwater drilling, no matter what conservative leaders are saying. We need more domestic drilling, but not at the expense of billions of dollars in cleanup costs, lost jobs resulting from the spill, dead animals and fish, and long-term, major pollution on our beaches and in the ocean. It's not worth it.

I know that we have the technology to drill wells a mile under the surface of the ocean - that's quite obvious. What is also abundantly clear is that the technology doesn't exist yet that makes deepwater drilling safe for the environment. And by safe I mean not leaking oil to the tune of millions of gallons into the ocean. If we had the appropriate safety technology, then it wouldn't be taking the government and BP fifty days and counting to shut off the flow of oil. If deepwater drilling were really environmentally safe, the ocean wouldn't have 30 million, 90 million, or 120 million gallons of oil in it right now.

The bottom line is this: we can't go on living life as if the environment doesn't matter; it does. Domestic drilling should be an important priority, but we shouldn't get carried away in our chanting of "Drill, baby, drill" and stop thinking logically. Until BP and the other oil companies can figure out a way to implement appropriate safety precautions on their deepwater drilling rigs, deepwater drilling should be seriously reconsidered.

One Deepwater Horizon is bad enough. A second would be even more devastating - if such a scenario can be imagined - to the environment, ocean-dependent jobs, and the cause of domestic drilling. Now is not the time to be gung-ho for deepwater drilling.
Contact: [email protected]

[wonga66]

In a worse-case scenario, the sea floor may be irreparibly fractured and this could leak for 30 years and destroy the Atlantic Ocean
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1379.htm

Is it a fulfiment of the prediction that "Before the Moshiach, a fish will be sought for a sick man and it will not be found" (Sanhedrin 98)?

[Ari Ben-Canaan]

From what I understand and have read, safety protocol was ignored and was not implemented in this debacle.  And from what else I understand, the soild group parts of the US have tons of oil and natural gas which is not being harvested.  It is a crime against the state that we are paying for foreign oil when we have excellent untapped resources in the continental US and Alaska on land. -- Of course I already adamantly support invading* Saudi Arabia, Iran and all other Muslim [aka terrorist] countries which have oil to be commended and requisitioned; the world may kick and scream but in the end they still want their oil and will do anything that is required to get it.

*and freezing all assets of said countries just the same as drug dealers [especially since drug dealers are saints compared to Islamists].