Pretty soon global warming will not only be fully acknowledged by the political right out of necessity (they’ve already pretty much had to do that), but realize that with it comes new financial opportunity– new shipping lanes are opening up where previously there had only been impenetrable ice and we can look forward to a new Cold War-style standoff with Russia in a fight over the vast resources projected to be accessible in the coming years if the warming continues. And we know how much they miss the Cold War.
Stumble It!
6 responses so far ↓
1 tehehehe // Apr 28, 2008 at 1:53 pm
There will be no standoff! There will be no “Cold War” over “warming”.
The Democrats are likely to be controlling Congress for the forseeable future, or at least have 40 senators to filibuster legislation. So the US will not drill off the northern coast of Alaska just like they have stopped drilling off all other US coasts. That means that the Reussians and Canadians will have those resources all to themselves.
Kind of like the drilling for oil in the Carribean and off the Florida and Georgia coastlines that South American nations are doing, but which US companies are prohibited from doing!
Remember, there is no Cold War if we decide to give up beforehand! Sorta like Iraq. If we just surrender and withdraw, the war will be over!
2 Administrator // Apr 28, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I’m not sure what you are talking about-your answer has little to do with the subject of my post because the areas Russia and scandanavia wans to exploit are areas where it is unclear under current treaties which nations actually have the right to the resources- it’s not entirely clear and I posted before about this.
The US has to start to deal with this issue but its not as easy as saying “oh, those nature-loving democrats don’t want to drill, blah, blah, blah”- this issue has been unfolding for years so you can’t just blame it on the democrats- I know that’s tough for you since you are pretty much a one-trick-pony in that regard. You can’t have it both ways- you can’t come late to the global warming party only to claim that we should have been doing something about this all along. This is about who controls the previously unavailable waterways and the issue is more complex than simply saying we should be drilling in the arctic- that’s kind of a bait and switch quite frankly.
3 Administrator // Apr 28, 2008 at 4:33 pm
This is a very good, balanced article about the issues involving these untapped resources.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080301faessay87206/scott-g-borgerson/arctic-meltdown.html
And yes, we have to balance our need for resources with environmental common sense- something that the likes of Cheney doesn’t understand- luckily, both parties now do understand.
We need an energy policy that does more than lines the pockets of our national leaders and their business interests. Cheney’s ‘energy task force’ was a joke.
We need to balance our need to drill with a meaningful policy which focuses on alternative energy and, god forbid, finding ways to decrease long term environmental harms and dependence on foreign oil which will cost us more in the long-run. The mantra of drill, drill, drill is becoming more and more futile and short-sighted.
Ironically, the decades of the type of greed and short-sightedness demonstrated by the likes of Cheney and his big oil friends, has brought us to a place where our national security depends on a new approach to our dwindling resources- we need a new vision that isn’t so short-sided. Our over-consumption and our balking at conservation has left us vulnerable and dependent.
4 tehehehe // Apr 29, 2008 at 9:48 am
My point is that we deal from a weak hand when we have no interest in exploiting the resources in the Arctic, but want to stop Russia and Canada from exploiting it. That is just obvious.
The US only claims a three mile territorial water limit for resources, except for fishing (which is claimed out to 200 miles). We can “negotiate” with the Russians and Canadians, but all they have to do is simply not agree to anything, because they know we will not compete to exploit the resources. We already have a history of that in the Gulf! That is simply fact.
Up until rather recently, it is has not been possible to exploit the resources in the Arctic. Sonn it will be possible. But no one will “negotiate” if we don’t “compete”. Essentially, we would be asking other nations to forgo exploiting some of the resources that are available, but with “sideways drilling”, it is possible to cover exploitation by initiating a well in their territory and then drilling across, subsurface, into “our” areas.
What motivation would those other nations have to not exploit the resources and to agree to not exploit them up to our “3-mile claimed territorial waters”? There is simply no motivation to agree to not exploit the area! Especailly if we say we will not do so! If we send ships into the area, they will just smile and wave!
How you get to “decades of greed by Cheney and his friends has ironically brought us todwindling resources” and called it “short sighted” is beyond me. That really is a distraction! What has that possibly got to do with new potential resources in the Arctic?
The real problem is the environmental community that has brought us to the brink! They have opposed exploitation o nuclear energy (no plants have been built in 35 years, and those that were built spent twice as much in legal bills as it cost to actually build such a plant). They have shut down wind farms in California, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and New England. They have shut down solar power plants in the Southwest. They have shut down geothermal plants in the Rockies. They are now trying to stop explitation of biofuels because of the “global food crisis”. Environmentalists (mostly Dems) have shut down every alternative energy idea in the past 30 years. At the same time, they have prevented exploiting new fossil fuels resources in Us territory for over 20 years.
We do have a crisis looming. It has nothing to do with Cheney or his big oil friends. It is because they are sick of losing money in alternative energy schemes that environmental groups shut down halfway through to completion! They have lost billions chasing the rainbow of alternative energy and simply won’t do it again unless they are endemnified against opposition from “friends of earth” nutballs!
Now back to the point you raised. On the one hand you criticize Bush and Cheney for not “protecting drilling rights” in the Arctic, while in the next breath saying that we “should not be drilling”. This two-faced approach to criticizing energy, oil and the Republicans is typical of leftists. Its hypocritical, but typical. Get all your conservation buddies together, propose a plan, and promise to not protest and file court suits to shut it down once its begun, and you can have all the alternative energy you want. But “save your poweder” and threaten to “fight it in court” will simply discourage any investor from risking their money in some alternative energy scheme that a dozen activist can shut down with monetary asistance znd a good lawyer from Greenpeace.
P.S. if you need links to articles describing how environmentalist have shut down virtually every alternative energy project, I can provide them, but anyone can look them up using google. There are TONS of links, so they aren’t hard to find.
5 stacy // Apr 29, 2008 at 1:02 pm
greed and a aversion to conservation has helped us continue along this path. Its not just Cheney but he embodies exactly the type of thinking and political action that makes our environmental outlook so poor. To hear them 4 the past 20 years the oil would flow forever and screw conservation! Studies funded by big oil helped them promote that wprldview.
If you read the foreign affairs article we might have rights under a treaty but we’d better advocate for that- the issue is already upon us and better late than never doesn’t apply.
But this is all a nonissue since you don’t believe global warming really exists, right?
6 tehehehe // Apr 29, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I believe there is global warming. What makes you think that I don’t?
But tapping resources in the Arctic is immaterial to global warming in any direct sense. And the US pursuing a treaty regarding resources in the Artic is not a “global warming” issue either, unless you are suggesting that the US attemtp to obtain a treaty that would prohibit any nation from exploiting the Arctic.
What we desparately need is an alternative to fossil fuels, but we will still need fossil fuels in the forseeable future. We need to get on the stick to develop alternative energy.Regardless of global warming, we will some day run out of oil, and we need to get cracking to be prepared when it happens.
Already 1/3 of all corn production is devoted to biofuels, and that is likely to increase, drving up the price of commodities as farmers switch from rice and wheat to producing more lucrative corn.
When we pass subsidies to encourage development of alternative energy, will you be on board with that, or will you say it is “corporate welfare”? ‘Cause, quite frankly, corporations are in business to make a profit, and they are really hot on the idea of finding expensive and creative ways of lowering your energy costs while risking their own funding stream. I mean, that just reality. You can hate ‘em, but that’s the business cycle.
Besides, the Federal government makes more money off gasoline taxes per gallon that the oil comapnies make. Why aren’t you attacking the heavy taxes that hurt poor working families? The feds make 45 cents per gallon while “big oil” makes 8 cents per gallon.
As for a “new cold war” over Arctic resources, I just don’t see it happening anytime soon. I think the Russinas and Canadians will exploit the resource, and we will do nothing about it. They will sell us the oil and we will buy it. That is what is happening in the Gulf, why would it be different at our northern border? We don’t even exploit the resources we have now, why would we seek more? Why would we go to war for more? Why would anyone negotiate a treaty with us when they know we will not compete to exploit the resources? Why would the American people support a “war for oil” anyway?
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