by Peleg » Fri 18 Jul 2008, 03:27:27
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'Y')ou;ve posted here- what? Less than two months. Spend some time reading. You call me extreme- spend some time reading roccman or Jack's posts. I am simply astonished that anyone would post here and say they agree that domestic drilling is part of the solution- as if there were a "solution".
The reality is that we are soon going to be experiencing 1-4% annual drops in global production that will not be remotely slowed by domestic drilling. Take the time to read the lengthy threads that describe what that means and why a paltry 1 or 2 extra million barrels that might or might not be produced will mean next to nothing compared to that reality...
I agree with everything you are saying (except where you are wrong) and I apologize for losing my temper, if it matters. BTW I have been around here since August of 2005. You must know that alot of the people here have multiple identities. Some of them even play good cop bad cop in various threads. It's too bad that they do not realize how closely they are being watched, the laughs would ring hollow if they did.
Did you see that Roscoe Bartlett and Robert Hirsch recently advocated for drilling? I was shocked too. But then I thought about what they were trying to do. They both fear a liquid fuels shortage. That is game over, not five years from now, not ten, but immediately. You tell people they are rationing fuel in the greatest nation on earth and the damage goes deep. No one I know is saying any of this is a solution to peak oil. We all know that there is no solution, the question is mitigation which comes down to being shrewd to try to minimize the damage. Right now the current danger is an overheated energy market that leaves us no options in dealing with the credit crisis. Within five years it is quite possible that peak oil will have reduced parts of the US to smouldering ruins, that does not mean we can leave off the game now.
Economic and political forces are bigger than all of us, they emerge from us and then we spend our lives foyning and parrying. The Boar's Tooth is the first lesson of politics. They are always trying to cut you below the waist. That alone explains alot of the atmosphere in Washington and why it is so hard to get what so many of us see as reasonable compromise to go anywhere. People in the Beltway first assume you are attacking them in some covert way and then maybe they entertain the possiblity you actually want to cooperate. Why else would a US president claim the 'Art of War' is his favorite book? Public policy has the potential to help but the politics of compromise that comes from being determined by small or large steps to serve the American people is lacking and it is a great evil (IMO.)
Here is link to Hirsch talking about mitigation at ASPO
http://aspo-usa.com/There is a nice set of videos on the front page. Mitigation is all they are talking about, that simply means we can't stop it but we can change the outcomes somewhat through cooperation and moving forward on some kind of plan now. to get down to nuts and bolts we have to neutralize the caustic politics in Washington, anything that can do that is worth talking seriously about.
BTW I like Jack, he is brilliant and no-nonsense. I'm not sure I want to run into him post peak though. He seems likely to kill and eat me first and then ask why I'm on his property.
