cultural/geographical note:
The 'East Coast' of the US is generally assumed to mean that stretch of coastline from the southern tip of Florida to Maine; only residents of the Mountain Time Zone maintain that the 'East Coast' begins at the mouth of the Rio Grande, and that is only to twit Texans who arrogantly refer to themselves as 'Southwesterners' and use images of Sahuaro cactus (found naturally only in Sonora and Arizona) and the like in their advertising or personal correspondance.
Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is going to happen no matter what; if American companies don't do it, Mexican, Venezualan, or God help us, Chinese companies will, and I doubt that they are more likely to be ecologically responsible than Americans will.
I understand that there was a mass orgasm on the Left when former Vice President Cheney's old firm Halliburton was revealed to be involved in some way, but that doesn't change the fact that the oil is there and someone is going to go get it out and sell it.
The US is the nearest first world country and has the greatest interest in seeing to it that the oil is extracted safely; it might as well be us. At the very least, it simplifies the lawsuits.
cheers
horseback
In theory, no.Originally posted by Bremspropeller:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> Any worse than the North Sea, or South China Sea? Beaufort Sea?
In practice, yes.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>
The whole facts of deep water drilling come up far short of the promises that were made.
I find your rational quite interesting. Seems that any safety concerns aren't in this equation though.Originally posted by horseback:
cultural/geographical note:
The 'East Coast' of the US is generally assumed to mean that stretch of coastline from the southern tip of Florida to Maine; only residents of the Mountain Time Zone maintain that the 'East Coast' begins at the mouth of the Rio Grande, and that is only to twit Texans who arrogantly refer to themselves as 'Southwesterners' and use images of Sahuaro cactus (found naturally only in Sonora and Arizona) and the like in their advertising or personal correspondance.
Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is going to happen no matter what; if American companies don't do it, Mexican, Venezualan, or God help us, Chinese companies will, and I doubt that they are more likely to be ecologically responsible than Americans will.
I understand that there was a mass orgasm on the Left when former Vice President Cheney's old firm Halliburton was revealed to be involved in some way, but that doesn't change the fact that the oil is there and someone is going to go get it out and sell it.
The US is the nearest first world country and has the greatest interest in seeing to it that the oil is extracted safely; it might as well be us. At the very least, it simplifies the lawsuits.
cheers
horseback
extracting oil safely is an oxymoron
in the 21st century - a truly 'first world country' (whatever the f*ck that is) should be done with oil and coal...
we are still living in the 18th century when it comes to energy and it is because we allow big corporate oil and coal lobbies to run our country and decide policy - rather than the way it is supposed to be
now if we called ourselves a 'world first' country - we might begin to make sensible choices
"Oil: We need it, we have it, let's drill it"
Seriously though, whether you like it or not, diesel and gasoline are still the best ways that we have to power vehicles of any size short of the stuff that you can fit a nuclear reactor into.
Plus, if we run out of oil (yes, *if*, how many times have we been past peak oil now? and we still keep finding more...), that's the best possible economic incentive for people to develop alternatives, and we don't even need the .gov to spend our money in that case as well.