No drilling in Artic Wildlife Refuge [Archive]

evilarchangel68

04-18-2002, 09:18 PM

Originally posted by foofy

id agree with murkowski when he says that the environmentalists waged a war of misinformation. most of their claims are just flatout half truths.

i was watching a two-sided story about all this last night or the night before...the first part was the environmentalist side, and listenning to them i thought "wow, theyre right! leave alaska and the animals alone! nooooo to full-of-shit drilling companies!"...but after hearing the other side i was thinking "those lying knee-jerk reactionary environmentalists, blowing things out of proportion!"

...and realised that i cant choose a side :( lol

i just wish everyone else in the united states would quit treating alaska like its a big "pristine" national park that we must not develop at any cost whatsoever.

alaskans enjoy having jobs too, and drilling would create a whole hell of a lot of them.

this kind of statement actually has meaning when it comes from a person who is actually FROM alaska...good point..

..but i still dont know enough about the issue to decide :(

DJ Rawkus

04-18-2002, 09:28 PM

Having lived in Alaska for a number of years, that whole "create jobs for us poor alaskans" rhetoric doesn't fly very far with me. You have the wonderful State check that comes in every year and if i remember correctly, Prudhoe Bay hires every winter like clockwork.

Skippopot2mus

04-18-2002, 09:32 PM

i'm glad to hear this
just my little addition to this thread

booboo69

04-18-2002, 11:51 PM

Yep. What Rawkus said. The jobs for Alaskans bit doesn't make me any more sympathetic when the government pays every person living in the state for every X amount of crude produced...

Check out this picture, right around where Prudoe Bay should be is a big ol' swath of lights as big as the Seattle and Vancouver BC metro areas thrown together. It's probably bigger, but the picture looks like it was taken by maybe 2 sattelites total, so there's distortion.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights2_dmsp_big.jpg

186k\sec

04-19-2002, 08:07 AM

you know. as an alaskan resident i have to say its rather frustrating when all of these people who've never seen ANWR, have never been to alaska, and have minimal knowledge about the entire issue campaign tooth and claw against drilling in ANWR

though im not an Alaskan resident anymore, i was for 21 yrs. & i find the pro-drilling locals who DO have first hand knowledge of the issues - much more frustrating than non-residents who are 'anti-drilling', especially in light of the exxon valdez fiasco. "Safe drilling" we've learned unfortunatley is only as safe as the druken morons who are drilling, or suppose navagating the tankers, in hazelwood's case...im frustrated that nobody considers the inevidable "accidents" & the effects the costs to correct them when weighing the facts.....
..Both sides do have valid arguments for their beliefs, and Alaska would get more jobs if they had opened Awar, but drilling wouldnt ensure jobs for Alaskans, just as many jobs that went to locals would also go to 'out-of-state' workers, just like the pipeline construction in '76, so its not just a state project and 'jobs' arent a reason to develope.
...To me the negatives have always outweighed the potential benefits, and short-term fixes.. .bottom line is: the oil companies have not put forth a convincing proposal to ensure sucessful results, and the senate voted appropriately.. maybe someday they might invest in clean fuel technology & generate some new jobs for that market.

foofy

04-19-2002, 10:46 AM

in reply to the last three posts:

yes its true that the government of alaska sends out checks each year to every resident (hah! and arent you jealous?) but at the same time i think its rather naive to say "well you get a 1000-2000$ check each year! i cant sympathize with people who want more jobs & increased development for alaska!" plus if you really wanna quantify it, its probably feasible to argue that all that check does is offset some of the increased living costs of living in alaska.

secondly, both my parents work for the alyeska pipeline service company which manages the pipeline and hires people for all kinds of jobs, including the ones on the north slope, and while im sure they do hire people on a seasonal basis fairly regularly, i dont think its quite the gravy train youre painting it to be. heck, right now alyeska is looking for 150 heads to cut.

finally, yes, its quite true that a lot of jobs would probably go to out of state'ers but a lot of the money they make will flow right back into the state just as it did when they were building the pipeline and developing prudoe bay. on top of that, just the mere fact that all that development is going on will give an incredible boost to the state's economy.

186k/sec: youre quite right that there are inevitable accidents, but its hard to plan for a retarded captain who likes to drink on the job and hand off the steering of the vessel to (another retarded) first mate who doesnt know what the fuck he's doing. i think its more important, and fairer to emphasize the fact that environmentally sound drilling can be achieved. there will still be oil spills (im talking in the hundreds and in the thousands of gallons scale, not millions), that happens whenever ANYONE drills ANYWHERE, but its really not that significant from a larger environmental perspective. and they do clean up as best they can.

having said all of that, i still have enough personal misgivings of another sort about drilling in ANWR that im not that unhappy that it failed to pass in the senate (and will probably fail again when it comes back for debate). i just think a lot of the rhetoric being thrown around is really annoying.

and a final note (this time for real): booboo69: just to clear up, the PFD (or permenant fund dividend) isnt based on how much crude is produced, but rather on how well the stock market performs since the dividend is paid on the stocks the money from the oil is invested in.

HexRei

04-19-2002, 10:56 AM

It's silly to act like these jobs would really be meaningful. Since oil is a limited resource, these jobs would just be a band-aid for unemployment.
Have you seen what happens to a town that grows up around a non-renewable resource-based industry? The town grows, investments are made, and when the resource dries up, the town can no longer sustain itself and it collapses into poverty. See many many examples of this occurring with various kinds of mines here in the US.
Instead of handing people temporary work, we might be better off finding a self-sustaining industry for these people to work in, perhaps even one that doesn't involve destroying wilderness and further polluting the earth.

tallcan

04-19-2002, 01:55 PM

hmm...I guess this is cool. it'd be better if like...the government was actually doing something for us and not just finally deciding not to screw us all over.

um...yay. gotta hand it to that government of ours, they always, like....look out for the 'common good,' (a concept completely unknown to a vast majority of our politicians.)

Mike S

04-19-2002, 02:39 PM

186k\sec

04-19-2002, 03:29 PM

Yeah I guess untill we have useable renewable energy we can just rely on foriegn oil..
Or we can wait untill we have a major problem (which is coming) in the middle east then under the auspices of a national emergency the prez can open anything he wants up and the people who voted against anwar will of course be on record as wanting us to be dependant on foriegn oil in a time of crisis. Not good in an election year.
Oh by the way 75 percent of the public is for more drilling. 55 percent of that public favors it in ANWAR.

Anyone else see a strategy unfolding Thats what you call getting sucker punched. poor dems.

I'm just gonna sit back and giggle while you all huff and puff

im not huffing. - celebratory puffing yes!., but not huffing, Mike. :p i hear some conservatives claiming the sky is going to fall though...
shit... there's a 'problem' in the middle east? - since when?!? - oh, gee, for the last 60+ years... well, well, guess what> we've *always* been dependant on forieng oil - the way to break the dependancy on oil is to develope alternative sources.. .
**its a time of CRISIS!!! Oh my god! - we'd better get on the stick then! & quit crusing around in our SUV -extendo cabs...
-
heh.. see ya at Bohemian, yer killing me.. :p

HexRei

04-19-2002, 03:33 PM

Anyone else see a strategy unfolding Thats what you call getting sucker punched. poor dems.

I'm just gonna sit back and giggle while you all huff and puff

Oh really? Forgive me, but I was under the impression the rep's just got their asses kicked on this topic.... poor, deluded dems, not seeing that it was all part of the republican master plan!!!!
They WANTED to lose!

Mike S

04-19-2002, 03:45 PM

Ok ...here's a prediction...

We invade Iraq. Opec goes into a tizzy fit. Bush opens certain areas for drilling.

Granted it takes time to get anything out of those preserves but to make his point all he has to do is show how at the mercy of foriegn oil we are..and if opec does what I think it will do he'll have no problem..and rhetorically how certain dem pols want to keep us that way to put their re-election at risk or even better to guarentee they lose.

Its a slam dunk actually.

Laugh it up... I am.

MS

Originally posted by 186k\sec

im not huffing. - celebratory puffing yes!., but not huffing, Mike. :p i hear some conservatives claiming the sky is going to fall though...
shit... there's a 'problem' in the middle east? - since when?!? - oh, gee, for the last 60+ years... well, well, guess what> we've *always* been dependant on forieng oil - the way to break the dependancy on oil is to develope alternative sources.. .
**its a time of CRISIS!!! Oh my god! - we'd better get on the stick then! & quit crusing around in our SUV -extendo cabs...
-
heh.. see ya at Bohemian, yer killing me.. :p

Justin

04-19-2002, 03:49 PM

This is a massive transfer of public asssets into private hands. Guess who's private hands? Hint: probably the same people who funded W's campaign. But everyone is going to benifit from lower gas prices, right? I mean, it's all going to go to American markets, right? Right?!

From the Christian Science Monitor, April 4:
OPINION
Ban Alaskan oil exports - and protect US consumers
By Ed Hunt

GRAYS RIVER, WASH.

There are plenty of reasons to oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on environmental grounds. But for a moment, let's set those aside and look instead at President George W. Bush's stated reasons for opening up essential wildlife habitat to oil exploration.

Aside from the California energy crisis, the new president has given two reasons to drill for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as well as other coastal areas, national monuments, and national forests. Mr. Bush has insisted that drilling in the Arctic refuge would be "good for American consumers" (although he's put the idea on the back burner). He also says that our reliance on oil imports constitutes a national security risk.

Yet there's no guarantee that the new oil resources wouldn't be exported overseas to whatever market bears the price. Any oil and gas would go into the hands of private multinational corporations that care little for American consumers.

We could open up all our wild and scenic areas to oil drilling and never see a drop in price at the pump or even an extra drop of domestic oil sold in the US. Right now, the private companies that would profit from drilling could well decide to sell it all overseas. There is nothing to stop them.

Worse, they may very well sell it overseas at a loss just to increase prices here in the US.

Hard to believe? It has been done before. As the Oregonian newspaper reported in January, court documents show that British Petroleum-Amoco manipulated West Coast oil prices by exporting Alaska oil for less than the price US refiners were willing to pay.

Between 1996 and 2000, British Petroleum - which controls a big chunk of Alaska's oil resources - shipped oil to Asia as a way to systematically reduce the supply of oil going to refiners in the US. They created a domestic oil shortage - thus artificially inflating gas and oil prices here on the West Coast.

The Asian exports were a small amount of the total output of Alaskan North Slope oil - about 7 percent - but because of the nature of the West Coast market, it was enough to allow BP to leverage oil prices in Washington, Oregon, and California.

The documents detailing this strategy were part of the Federal Trade Commission investigation into whether BP should be allowed to merge with another Alaska oil giant, Arco. Despite evidence of this sort of behavior, the FTC approved the merger on the condition that BP sell some assets to Phillips petroleum so that it wouldn't end up controlling 72 percent of Alaska's oil.

However, the FTC failed to prohibit Phillips or BP from exporting Alaska oil. The FTC also tried to keep these documents secret - until the Oregonian sued to have them released.

BP insists that what they did was "within the bounds of the law." Comforting as you may find that response, it doesn't say much about benefit to consumers, does it?

BP's strategy of shorting US refiners helped make West Coast oil prices the highest in the nation. Those increased oil prices laid the groundwork for a push for more domestic oil exploration - particularly during last summer's presidential campaign.

After these documents were released, Oregon congressmen called for a ban on the export of Alaska oil. Such a ban existed up until the mid '90s, when it was lifted on one condition - that oil exports wouldn't cause prices to increase here in the US.

That condition has been broken. It's time for the oil export ban to be put back in place. A bill to do so has just been introduced by Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Barbara Boxer of California.

If Bush really wants what's best for consumers, he'd back this ban. After all, as Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio (D) noted: "It would be an incredibly weak case to open up [the Alaska refuge] if the end result was going to be to export the oil and enhance corporate profits."

If Bush is asking us to give up the sanctity of our wilderness areas, he should at least be willing to guarantee that we get the oil out of the deal. Seems like that would be best for consumers, particularly since it is the public's land that is being mined and drilled.

Given his stated claims on consumer interest, you'd think Bush would back the oil export ban. It would shore up our domestic oil supply and guarantee that American consumers at least see some benefit. Yet I'll bet a gallon of gas that Bush opposes the export ban.

When it comes down to what's best for American consumers - and national security - my guess is he will choose what's best for the oil companies instead.

Justin

04-19-2002, 03:53 PM

Originally posted by Mike S
Ok ...here's a prediction...

We invade Iraq. Opec goes into a tizzy fit.
MS

We're probably not going to invade Iraq for that very reason.

Besides, the Arab world doesn't like us right now, for our Isreal policy. Iraq is landlocked. 2+2=?

Mike S

04-19-2002, 03:57 PM

Like I said - I predict we do. and no its not land locked. Look at its south eastern corner.

We'll see.

MS

Originally posted by Doc Mahem

We're probably not going to invade Iraq for that very reason.

Besides, the Arab world doesn't like us right now, for our Isreal policy. Iraq is landlocked. 2+2=?

Mike S

04-19-2002, 04:09 PM

Um I believe in the measure the senate voted down there was a provision saying that there would be no exporting of that oil except to Isreal. I believe one of the Alaska senators put it there. I believe Bush was fully supporting it.

So your point was what?

*Yawn*
Mike

Originally posted by Doc Mahem
This is a massive transfer of public asssets into private hands. Guess who's private hands? Hint: probably the same people who funded W's campaign. But everyone is going to benifit from lower gas prices, right? I mean, it's all going to go to American markets, right? Right?!

From the Christian Science Monitor, April 4:
OPINION
Ban Alaskan oil exports - and protect US consumers
By Ed Hunt

GRAYS RIVER, WASH.

There are plenty of reasons to oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on environmental grounds. But for a moment, let's set those aside and look instead at President George W. Bush's stated reasons for opening up essential wildlife habitat to oil exploration.

Aside from the California energy crisis, the new president has given two reasons to drill for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as well as other coastal areas, national monuments, and national forests. Mr. Bush has insisted that drilling in the Arctic refuge would be "good for American consumers" (although he's put the idea on the back burner). He also says that our reliance on oil imports constitutes a national security risk.

Yet there's no guarantee that the new oil resources wouldn't be exported overseas to whatever market bears the price. Any oil and gas would go into the hands of private multinational corporations that care little for American consumers.

We could open up all our wild and scenic areas to oil drilling and never see a drop in price at the pump or even an extra drop of domestic oil sold in the US. Right now, the private companies that would profit from drilling could well decide to sell it all overseas. There is nothing to stop them.

Worse, they may very well sell it overseas at a loss just to increase prices here in the US.

Hard to believe? It has been done before. As the Oregonian newspaper reported in January, court documents show that British Petroleum-Amoco manipulated West Coast oil prices by exporting Alaska oil for less than the price US refiners were willing to pay.

Between 1996 and 2000, British Petroleum - which controls a big chunk of Alaska's oil resources - shipped oil to Asia as a way to systematically reduce the supply of oil going to refiners in the US. They created a domestic oil shortage - thus artificially inflating gas and oil prices here on the West Coast.

The Asian exports were a small amount of the total output of Alaskan North Slope oil - about 7 percent - but because of the nature of the West Coast market, it was enough to allow BP to leverage oil prices in Washington, Oregon, and California.

The documents detailing this strategy were part of the Federal Trade Commission investigation into whether BP should be allowed to merge with another Alaska oil giant, Arco. Despite evidence of this sort of behavior, the FTC approved the merger on the condition that BP sell some assets to Phillips petroleum so that it wouldn't end up controlling 72 percent of Alaska's oil.

However, the FTC failed to prohibit Phillips or BP from exporting Alaska oil. The FTC also tried to keep these documents secret - until the Oregonian sued to have them released.

BP insists that what they did was "within the bounds of the law." Comforting as you may find that response, it doesn't say much about benefit to consumers, does it?

BP's strategy of shorting US refiners helped make West Coast oil prices the highest in the nation. Those increased oil prices laid the groundwork for a push for more domestic oil exploration - particularly during last summer's presidential campaign.

After these documents were released, Oregon congressmen called for a ban on the export of Alaska oil. Such a ban existed up until the mid '90s, when it was lifted on one condition - that oil exports wouldn't cause prices to increase here in the US.

That condition has been broken. It's time for the oil export ban to be put back in place. A bill to do so has just been introduced by Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Barbara Boxer of California.

If Bush really wants what's best for consumers, he'd back this ban. After all, as Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio (D) noted: "It would be an incredibly weak case to open up [the Alaska refuge] if the end result was going to be to export the oil and enhance corporate profits."

If Bush is asking us to give up the sanctity of our wilderness areas, he should at least be willing to guarantee that we get the oil out of the deal. Seems like that would be best for consumers, particularly since it is the public's land that is being mined and drilled.

Given his stated claims on consumer interest, you'd think Bush would back the oil export ban. It would shore up our domestic oil supply and guarantee that American consumers at least see some benefit. Yet I'll bet a gallon of gas that Bush opposes the export ban.

When it comes down to what's best for American consumers - and national security - my guess is he will choose what's best for the oil companies instead.

foofy

04-20-2002, 02:53 PM

yes there was a provision (i believe) that we dont export to anyone but isreal. but most of what youre arguing is the same smoke and mirrors the pro drillers have been arguing with since the beginning.

exactly how much do you think drilling in ANWR is really going to reduce our dependance on middle eastern oil? maybe it goes from them having both our nuts in a vise, to them only having one and a half? i think the oil reserves of ANWR have been estimated at being able to provide for all of the united state's oil needs for 6 months.

its a short term solution to a permenant problem.

HexRei: well. construction on the trans alaska pipeline started in 1975. theyre still pumping oil through it and people are still employed in the industry. i dunno what your definition of temporary is, but developing ANWR, along with creating hundreds of temporary construction jobs, will create a ton of more or less permenant jobs as well.

ZupanGOD

04-20-2002, 03:28 PM

Originally posted by foofy
you know. as an alaskan resident i have to say its rather frustrating when all of these people who've never seen ANWR, have never been to alaska, and have minimal knowledge about the entire issue campaign tooth and claw against drilling in ANWR.

id agree with murkowski when he says that the environmentalists waged a war of misinformation. most of their claims are just flatout half truths.

this isnt to say that the pro drillers havent spewed enough bullshit of their own of course. all that reducing reliance on foreign oil crap is laughable.

i just wish everyone else in the united states would quit treating alaska like its a big "pristine" national park that we must not develop at any cost whatsoever.

alaskans enjoy having jobs too, and drilling would create a whole hell of a lot of them.

Hard work but those jobs pay well..

-Jason

ZupanGOD

04-20-2002, 03:32 PM

Originally posted by DJ Rawkus
Having lived in Alaska for a number of years, that whole "create jobs for us poor alaskans" rhetoric doesn't fly very far with me. You have the wonderful State check that comes in every year and if i remember correctly, Prudhoe Bay hires every winter like clockwork.

What? You don't think it would bring more jobs to that state?

Err.. think about it a second.

-Jason

ZupanGOD

04-20-2002, 03:37 PM

Originally posted by 186k\sec

though im not an Alaskan resident anymore, i was for 21 yrs. & i find the pro-drilling locals who DO have first hand knowledge of the issues - much more frustrating than non-residents who are 'anti-drilling', especially in light of the exxon valdez fiasco. "Safe drilling" we've learned unfortunatley is only as safe as the druken morons who are drilling, or suppose navagating the tankers, in hazelwood's case...im frustrated that nobody considers the inevidable "accidents" & the effects the costs to correct them when weighing the facts.....
..Both sides do have valid arguments for their beliefs, and Alaska would get more jobs if they had opened Awar, but drilling wouldnt ensure jobs for Alaskans, just as many jobs that went to locals would also go to 'out-of-state' workers, just like the pipeline construction in '76, so its not just a state project and 'jobs' arent a reason to develope.
...To me the negatives have always outweighed the potential benefits, and short-term fixes.. .bottom line is: the oil companies have not put forth a convincing proposal to ensure sucessful results, and the senate voted appropriately.. maybe someday they might invest in clean fuel technology & generate some new jobs for that market.

Yea well than forward progress in anything never happens. Let's not increase the railroad system a drunk amtrak driver might cause yet another accident. Let's not increase the number of gas trucks becuase they might cause an accident and leak fuel all over. Do you see where I sm going with this?

-Jason

Justin

04-20-2002, 03:39 PM

Originally posted by ZupanGOD

What? You don't think it would bring more jobs to that state?

Err.. think about it a second.

-Jason

I find it entertaining that one of the best arguments for drilling, promoted by the right, is that it will create jobs. The irony of having get-those-bums-off-welfare, small government except for guns+bombs crowd promoting an initiative to create jobs is thick.

Is it the government's job to create jobs? If so, must those jobs be created in such an environmentally destructive way?
.

ZupanGOD

04-20-2002, 03:49 PM

Originally posted by Doc Mahem

I find it entertaining that one of the best arguments for drilling, promoted by the right, is that it will create jobs. The irony of having get-those-bums-off-welfare, small government except for guns+bombs crowd promoting an initiative to create jobs is thick.

Is it the government's job to create jobs? If so, must those jobs be created in such an environmentally destructive way?
.

Doc that's very short sided for you to say. The government is not creating the jobs.. common you know that.

If I am in control of a building and allow you to run your business from within, did I create your job? Or did I allow you create jobs within the building I control?

-Jason

Mike S

04-20-2002, 03:51 PM

Ya know the funny thing is that only two entities know how much oil is up there - the oil conglomerate that did the initial research and the government and both are bound under contract not to divulge the amount so foofy next time you want to pull a bogus "estimate" out of thin air please try it on someone else.. mmk? good.
The fact is that none of the enviro-wacko groups know the amount up there so they've out and out lied about the amounts and you've bought into it. Gee foof.. ya think if they've lied about that maybe they've lied about some other "facts" concerning that frozen desert we call ANWR as well? If I remember correctly the same bogus arguments were made when they wanted to start drilling the north slope. hmmm do I see a pattern here with the enviro-wacko movement? The destruction of the environment, the "temporary" jobs argument. on and on and on. These fuckers cant convince people on the actual merits of their arguments so they resort to distortions, lies and scare tactics.

And how is my statement smoke and mirrors? Facts please foofy to back that up?

MS

Originally posted by foofy
yes there was a provision (i believe) that we dont export to anyone but isreal. but most of what youre arguing is the same smoke and mirrors the pro drillers have been arguing with since the beginning.

exactly how much do you think drilling in ANWR is really going to reduce our dependance on middle eastern oil? maybe it goes from them having both our nuts in a vise, to them only having one and a half? i think the oil reserves of ANWR have been estimated at being able to provide for all of the united state's oil needs for 6 months.

its a short term solution to a permenant problem.

HexRei: well. construction on the trans alaska pipeline started in 1975. theyre still pumping oil through it and people are still employed in the industry. i dunno what your definition of temporary is, but developing ANWR, along with creating hundreds of temporary construction jobs, will create a ton of more or less permenant jobs as well.

Mike S

04-20-2002, 03:57 PM

Environmentally destructive? How? Prove it? Seems the only example you have is north slope drilling and if thats going to be the backbone of your argument your argument is fucked.

Prove to me there is going to be environmental damage. Prove to me there is going to be damage to the herds of animals in the preserve. Are there herds of animals even calling this part of the preserve home?
If so, how do you know? How long do these migrating animals inhabit the lands where the drilling would occur? What do they do there? Eat? Fuck? give birth? what? Its dark and colder than hell 6 months outa the year there.. do the animals stay there or do the migrate southward? If so what would drilling disrupt?
What are your sources of evidence? Are the people who provided those sources of evidence objective sources or do they have an agenda? Your the one throwing terms like "environmental damage" around. Prove your point.

C'mon Doc.

Put your money where your rhetoric is.

MS

Originally posted by Doc Mahem

I find it entertaining that one of the best arguments for drilling, promoted by the right, is that it will create jobs. The irony of having get-those-bums-off-welfare, small government except for guns+bombs crowd promoting an initiative to create jobs is thick.

Is it the government's job to create jobs? If so, must those jobs be created in such an environmentally destructive way?
.

ZupanGOD

04-20-2002, 04:08 PM

Keep in mind that foreign oil is produced and shipped under less strict environmental standards than domestic oil. If your so enviromentaly sensative enough wouldn't you rather support responsible drilling than SADDAM's way capping off oil wells with a fireball in IRAQ. Alaska’s oil fields are the cleanest on the damn planet. We can extract more oil with less land there ya know? Why scatter 10's of thousands drill sites all over the US to make up for not drilling in ANWR?

The amount of the ANWR on which you would actually see any human presence – including drilling and production equipment – would equal about one child’s footprint on a 120 x 120 foot piece of real estate. Another example … it would equal about one-half of a square inch in the corner of a 9 x 12 foot rug.

The Washington Post thought it a good idea to join in the slamming of George Bush over his plans to explore for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The Post, a notoriously left-wing newspaper, went for the “awwww, isn’t that cute!” factor with a picture of a female polar bear and her two cubs. The Post told its readers that the picture of these cute bears was taking smack in the middle of the ANWR. The desired result? Readers will be outraged at the thought of disrupting or threatening the lives of these bears and will turn against the evil Bush and his energy plan.

So --- now there’s a correction! Alaskan officials knew the truth about this picture, and the Post hurried to print a correction --- which read, in part, “The file photo, taken in the early 1980s, actually showed bears on pack ice 30 miles offshore in the Beaufort Sea, about 200 miles northwest of the ANWR.”

Carelessness? Yes. Premeditated carelessness designed to promote a particular agenda? What do you think?

Alright guys I'm gonna finish watching CSPAN on today's protest in Washington D.C. these wacko's are funny.

Yawn..

-Jason

foofy

04-20-2002, 05:20 PM

Originally posted by Mike S
Ya know the funny thing is that only two entities know how much oil is up there - the oil conglomerate that did the initial research and the government and both are bound under contract not to divulge the amount so foofy next time you want to pull a bogus "estimate" out of thin air please try it on someone else.. mmk? good.
The fact is that none of the enviro-wacko groups know the amount up there so they've out and out lied about the amounts and you've bought into it. Gee foof.. ya think if they've lied about that maybe they've lied about some other "facts" concerning that frozen desert we call ANWR as well? If I remember correctly the same bogus arguments were made when they wanted to start drilling the north slope. hmmm do I see a pattern here with the enviro-wacko movement? The destruction of the environment, the "temporary" jobs argument. on and on and on. These fuckers cant convince people on the actual merits of their arguments so they resort to distortions, lies and scare tactics.

And how is my statement smoke and mirrors? Facts please foofy to back that up?

MS

you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today mikey? always so antagonistic.

anyway. the us department of the interior and the us geological survey both have estimates for the amount of oil contained in ANWR. so im guessing the "enviro-wacko"s as you so humorously name them have about as good an idea of how much oil is there as everyone else.

its true that there is some skewing of how we should interpret the data depending on who's presenting it, but other than that i dont think there should be any worries.

http://www.anwr.org/features/pdfs/ANWR_estimates.pdf has some estimates up there if you wanna take a look at what they have. although the site has an obvious bias so you might want to take that into account.

further, im not sure why youre preaching to me about the temporary job and environmental damage thing since, as ive stated, i dont buy into it anymore than you apparently do. did you read my posts or what?

and the "smoke and mirrors" i was referring to was about ANWR really reducing our reliance on foreign oil. i suppose its possible (upon further thought and research) that ANWR could reduce or possibly even eliminate the need for saudi oil or iraqi oil since the document i found claimed we imported 700,000 barrels a day from them, and its possible ANWR could produce up to 1.5 million barrels a day if it was on par with prudoe bay..

but its certainly not going to put a significant dent in our need for foreign oil period. we'll still be importing the majority of the oil we use and we'll still be kissing OPEC's ass hoping they dont raise prices.

Justin

04-20-2002, 05:44 PM

Originally posted by ZupanGOD

Doc that's very short sided for you to say. The government is not creating the jobs.. common you know that.

If I am in control of a building and allow you to run your business from within, did I create your job? Or did I allow you create jobs within the building I control?

-Jason

I think you're playing semantic games. Admit it, if this was an initiative promoted by democrats, not involving oil and not involving a transfer of wealth from the public sector to the private., you'de be all over it. In a negative way, I mean.

Justin

04-20-2002, 05:51 PM

Originally posted by ZupanGOD

The amount of the ANWR on which you would actually see any human presence – including drilling and production equipment – would equal about one child’s footprint on a 120 x 120 foot piece of real estate. Another example … it would equal about one-half of a square inch in the corner of a 9 x 12 foot rug.

Two Thousand Acres
By Paul Krugman | New York Times
March 1, 2002

According to my calculations, my work space occupies only a few square inches of office floor. You may find this implausible, but I'm using a well-accepted methodology. Well accepted, that is, among supporters of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Last week Interior Secretary Gale Norton repeated the standard response to concerns about extensive oil development in one of America's last wild places: "The impact will be limited to just 2,000 out of 1.9 million acres of the refuge." That number comes from the House version of the Bush-Cheney energy plan, which promises that "surface acreage covered by production and support facilities" will not exceed 2,000 acres. It's a reassuring picture: a tiny enclave of development, practically lost in the Arctic vastness.

But that picture is a fraud. Development won't be limited to a small enclave: according to the U.S. Geological Survey, oil in ANWR is scattered in many separate pools, so drilling rigs would be spread all across the coastal plain. The roads linking those rigs aren't part of the 2,000 acres: they're not "production and support facilities." And "surface acreage covered" is very narrowly defined: if a pipeline snakes across the terrain on a series of posts, only the ground on which those posts rest counts; bare ground under the pipeline isn't considered "covered."

Now you see how I work in such a small space. By those definitions, my "impact" is limited to floor areas that literally have stuff resting on them: the bottoms of the legs on my desk and chair, and the soles of my shoes. The rest of my office floor is pristine wilderness.

There's a lesson here that goes well beyond the impact of oil drilling on caribou. Deceptive advertising pervades the administration's effort to sell the nation on its drill-and-burn energy strategy. In fact, those of us following this issue can't see why people made such a fuss about the Pentagon's plan to disseminate false information. How would that differ from current policy?

Remember that this latest push to open up ANWR for drilling follows on the heels of an attempt to portray a plan to do nothing much about global warming as a major policy initiative. What else has the administration said about its energy plans that isn't true?

Top of the list, surely, is the claim that drilling in ANWR is a national security issue, the key to ending our dependence on imported oil. In fact, the Energy Information Administration's preferred scenario says that even a decade after development begins, ANWR will produce only between 600,000 and 900,000 barrels of oil a day -- a small fraction of the 11 million barrels we currently import.

Then there's the absurd claim that ANWR drilling will create hundreds of thousands of jobs -- a claim based on a decade-old study by, you guessed it, the oil industry's trade association.

But the most nefarious aspect of the administration's energy propaganda is its persistent effort to link energy shortages to environmentalism -- an effort that, it's now clear, has often been consciously dishonest.

For example, last spring Dick Cheney lamented the fact that the U.S. hadn't built any new oil refineries since the 1970's, linking that lack of construction to environmental restrictions. I wrote a column last May pointing out that environmentalism had nothing to do with it, that refineries hadn't been built because the industry had excess capacity. What I didn't know was that several weeks earlier staffers at the Environmental Protection Agency had written a scathing critique of Mr. Cheney's draft energy report, making exactly the same point. The final version of the report, by the way, doesn't say in so many words that clean-air rules cause gasoline shortages -- but it conveys that impression by innuendo.

For now, it's possible for diligent citizens to cut through these deceptions -- for example, you can read on the Web what the U.S. Geological Survey actually has to say about oil reserves in the Arctic. But I keep wondering when the administration will shut down those Web sites. After all, under John Ashcroft's new rules, agencies are no longer instructed to release information whenever possible; they're supposed to refuse requests to release information whenever there's a legal basis for doing so. And honest assessments of oil reserves in environmentally sensitive locations might be useful to terrorists -- you never know.

Justin

04-20-2002, 06:04 PM

Originally posted by Mike S
Environmentally destructive? How? Prove it? Seems the only example you have is north slope drilling and if thats going to be the backbone of your argument your argument is fucked.

Prove to me there is going to be environmental damage. Prove to me there is going to be damage to the herds of animals in the preserve. Are there herds of animals even calling this part of the preserve home?
If so, how do you know? How long do these migrating animals inhabit the lands where the drilling would occur? What do they do there? Eat? Fuck? give birth? what? Its dark and colder than hell 6 months outa the year there.. do the animals stay there or do the migrate southward? If so what would drilling disrupt?
What are your sources of evidence? Are the people who provided those sources of evidence objective sources or do they have an agenda? Your the one throwing terms like "environmental damage" around. Prove your point.

C'mon Doc.

Put your money where your rhetoric is.

MS

Goddamn, political posts are time intensive. :D Anyway, I attended a talk given by a woman who actually lives there, from the tribe that is against the drilling.

She said that carribou herds were not affected in other drilling sites in a Alaska because they all had plains further to the south to breed on instead. In the case of ANWR, tho, there is a mountian range directly to the south, so the herds couldn't retread any more south.

Facts? Links? Well, I did a web search, and everything I found that supported my case could be easily written off as biased. The problem is, its the same for you guys too. On the odd chance that an entity not inherently politcal supports one of our cases, it's just showing its bias. Like all political issues in this modern day, discourse is a post-modernists wet dream. There are no facts, no right, no wrong. It's all relative.

Thus, after admitting I don't know jack, here's why I'm still against drilling: where does it stop? Once we run out of oil, we'll develop an alternative. In the meantime, how much will be destroyed in the search of oil? Couldn't we just draw the line sooner, and further the development of alternative energies? The mantra of capitalism is consume until you can consume no more, then find something else to consume. Why must we always consume till the very end?

ZupanGOD

04-20-2002, 07:09 PM

Originally posted by Doc Mahem

I think you're playing semantic games. Admit it, if this was an initiative promoted by democrats, not involving oil and not involving a transfer of wealth from the public sector to the private., you'de be all over it. In a negative way, I mean.

There are Union-Dems who like it becuase it will mean more power for the unions. Well beyond the fact that this will create jobs. That's the truth isn't it? America needs to start moving in the direction of more domestic production and that's the undisputed truth, so let's not drill in ANWAR so we can instead setup 10's of thousands of wells across the US instead to meet the production that would have been met with ANWR.. Wow what a better idea. <G>

Ohh I almost forgot.. like Unions, big oil reaps the benefits as well.

-Jason

Mike S

04-22-2002, 12:46 AM

I guess what really burns me about this subject in particular is that there are with out a doubt legitimate issues that should be addressed concerning drilling in ANWR but, as far as I can tell, none of them have been. Instead the anti-drilling crowd has relied on distortions (pictures of polar bears the would supposedly be affected - but really wouldn't) and fear mongering (referring to the environmental effects at the drill site as being another valdeez fiasco) And in the end there has been no serious discussion as to how it would be possible to attempt it. For the green crowd it is a zero sum game. And I agree with you that there should be greater emphasis on alternative energy sources and I believe there is allot of work in that area. Unfortunately we cant make those things happen overnite. Change on that scale is phased in gradually as the technologies are proven and can come on line. You cant market something half assed and expect it to be accepted and profitable. Untill these technologies come on line we have to deal realistically with our current energy situation as well as strategically as a nation. Right now its insane to allow ourselves to be as vulnerable as we are to some of those lunatics running certain OPEC countries not to mention how unstable the entire middle east is for a plethora of reasons...something many think is only going to get worse. With or with out our help.

And personally I'd just assume do as little business as possible with that rats nest of tin pot dictators and religious fanatics over in the middle east. The best thing that could happen over there is that we quit propping those dirt bags up with all the money we spend on their oil and they eventually have to answer to their own people.

Sometimes it seems this vulnerable situation is exactly what the greens want us in - Because we cant drill off the west coast, we cant drill off the east coast, they dont want us in ANWR and it looks like they want to stop any rocky mountain exploritory drilling as well. (but its a-ok for the Arabs to drill their deserts silly?)

If they think this strategy is going to miraculously speed up alternative energy sources coming online they're dreaming. It could very well cause us to be in a very bad strategic situation as a country. I wonder if they've considered how negative the public backlash against them will be if this ever happened?

MS

Originally posted by Doc Mahem

Goddamn, political posts are time intensive. :D Anyway, I attended a talk given by a woman who actually lives there, from the tribe that is against the drilling.

She said that carribou herds were not affected in other drilling sites in a Alaska because they all had plains further to the south to breed on instead. In the case of ANWR, tho, there is a mountian range directly to the south, so the herds couldn't retread any more south.

Facts? Links? Well, I did a web search, and everything I found that supported my case could be easily written off as biased. The problem is, its the same for you guys too. On the odd chance that an entity not inherently politcal supports one of our cases, it's just showing its bias. Like all political issues in this modern day, discourse is a post-modernists wet dream. There are no facts, no right, no wrong. It's all relative.

Thus, after admitting I don't know jack, here's why I'm still against drilling: where does it stop? Once we run out of oil, we'll develop an alternative. In the meantime, how much will be destroyed in the search of oil? Couldn't we just draw the line sooner, and further the development of alternative energies? The mantra of capitalism is consume until you can consume no more, then find something else to consume. Why must we always consume till the very end?

186k\sec

04-22-2002, 09:31 AM

Yea well than forward progress in anything never happens. Let's not increase the railroad system a drunk amtrak driver might cause yet another accident. Let's not increase the number of gas trucks becuase they might cause an accident and leak fuel all over. Do you see where I sm going with this?

yeah, i see where Jason, its called "nowhere"
sure, i agree, we cant avoid risk in* necessary* development, but whenever possible, preventive planning & precautions can & should be incorporated - are you aware of a "clean-up" plan for the next major oil spill, or even a budget to finance it?

A BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL
The depleted superfund

3/4/2002

*MAYBE IT'S TIME to call in Erin Brockovich. It is clear that someone has to take up the cause of all the people living near toxic waste sites that are not being cleaned up because Congress and the Bush administration refuse to tax industry for decontaminating sites.

The country might have thought it solved this problem 22 years ago when Congress created the Superfund. The Superfund was designed to provide money to clean up sites where the responsible party was out of business or could not be identified. Much of the fund was to come from a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries.

But the tax expired in 1995, and Congress has not renewed it. In this year's budget the administration says it will not reauthorize the tax, which raised about $1 billion annually. The Bush plan is to have the ordinary taxpayer take up the slack for industry. By 2004 the administration would have the taxpayer pick up the entire cost of the fund, compared with 21 percent in 1994, when the industry tax was still in effect.

Because the fund has shrunk and the administration is not asking for enough general revenue money, it is not taking on all the sites it should, including some in New England, or addressing them as quickly as it should.

The Clinton administration managed to get more sites cleaned up than the Bush administration has, but it was unable to get Congress to renew the tax, which had previously been renewed under both Ronald Reagan and the senior George Bush. Advocates of toxic waste removal have worried that pushing for the tax on Capitol Hill would give critics of the Superfund law an opportunity to gut many of its provisions. These include clauses on the liability of companies that are responsible for contaminated ground or water.

The law is not perfect. Under its terms, for instance, the EPA has claimed damages from small businesses in New Hampshire that sent waste oil to a firm that improperly disposed of the oil and created a toxic waste site. But correcting problems like this is difficult when congressmen in thrall to polluting industries might drastically weaken the law.

In its early years, Superfund managers were often criticized for cleanup operations that were unduly slow and expensive. But greater experience and better technology have improved efficiency.

What the Superfund needs now is the money to do its job. During the last years of the Clinton administration the fund still had enough money from accrued taxes and recovery actions to complete about 80 cleanup projects a year. Last year the figure was 47, and the projection for this year is 40. This means that millions of Americans will be needlessly exposed to toxic wastes while industries escape $1 billion in pollution taxes.

186k\sec

04-22-2002, 10:02 AM

We invade Iraq. Opec goes into a tizzy fit. Bush opens certain areas for drilling.

Granted it takes time to get anything out of those preserves but to make his point all he has to do is show how at the mercy of foriegn oil we are..and if opec does what I think it will do he'll have no problem..and rhetorically how certain dem pols want to keep us that way to put their re-election at risk or even better to guarentee they lose.

Its a slam dunk actually.

Laugh it up... I am.

yeah,
that is laughable Mike,
its America's own fault we are at the mercy bent over a barrrel when it comes to our oil addiction......(no pun intended, but i think that is pathetically hillarious!)
we arent going to attack Iraq, so Bush can 'open certain areas for drilling'
that would ensure his departure in '04..

The government estimates that at least 5.7 billion barrels and possibly as many as 16 billion barrels may be recoverable from the refuge, although how much will be pumped will depend on the price of oil. Environmentalists argue that ANWR has no more than 3.2 billion barrels, not enough to dramatically ease the country's reliance on imports.

Drilling Anwar for a speculative six months supply of oil 10 years from now will not do anything to enhance our energy security. The national security drumbeat was an attempt to exploit the tragedy of Sept. 11" to overcome opposition to opening the refuge

boredstiff

04-22-2002, 10:43 AM

one of the superfund sites lagging far beyond safe levels of progress is the willamette river, yes the same one that you have to cross to get anywhere in portland. And also a source of much water for the columbia which goes into our beloved oceans after being filtered by the toxic sludge left behind by big money aluminum smelters and ship builders.

booboo69

04-22-2002, 10:56 AM

Mike, you really seem to have a beef with the greenies, because I don't think I've ever seen you give them credit for even an intelligent thought. Not everybody is as stupid as you'd like them to be.

Now, as for a legitimate arugment against drilling, how about this. ANWR was set up to protect the land and wildlife. Key word being protect. Wilderness areas are meant to be totally 100% untouched by development. If ANWR is opened to the oil companies, that defeats the whole purpose of having the preserve in the first place. If Bush open's ANWR, perhaps he should open Mt. Rainier National Park too, or Yosemite, or Everglades. Where does it end?

Mike S

04-22-2002, 12:01 PM

My beef isnt with the greens who work together with other interests to create the best possible outcome. I detest the extreme enviro-wacko's that come off more like religious cult memebers. or better yet like born again christians because they have this absolute, "my way is best and i know whats best for you and I'm gonna shove it down your throat" mentality. And I hear what your saying booboo but lets find out just how much of an impact drilling will do. Bottom line is that ANWR belongs to the entire country and should be used to benefit us all in a manner that best preserves it yet is still productive. I'd rather us responsibly exploit every domestic asset we have to get as close to self sufficiency as possible, while fazing in new energy technologies as they come on line, than to rely on who we currently rely on.
I would exploit the oil/natural gas reserves off our coasts, in the gulf of mexico, in the continental US as well as in ANWR.

The Pathetic thing is that even if a vast majority of the American people wanted to do all that and if it could for the most part be done with a minimal impact on the surrounding environment, the extreme greens would do their best to tie it all up in and kill it through litigation in order to shove their eviro-dogma down our pie holes.

Why we've allowed ourselves to become so reliant on and therefor entagled with the freakshow that is the middle east when we dont have to be so much so is just beyond me.

and booboo if ya really want to see how moraly and intelectually bankrupt allot of the extreme wacko greens are read into how vehemently they are going after the guy the wrote "the skeptical environmentalist". a book by an environmentalist that dubunks allot of the enviro-wackos scietific "facts" the green-cult uses to justify allot of what they want to impose on us..
Spinsanity and Reason as well as Junkscience online have done extensive articles on the specifics the greens attempt to use to villify the guy and convince people he's "evil". turns out the great majority of the information the greens are putting out regarding him and what he wrote in his book is totaly or partially wrong or even completely fabricated. Whats even more shocking is WHO is doing the lying and what publications and organizations they represent.

MS

Originally posted by booboo69
Mike, you really seem to have a beef with the greenies, because I don't think I've ever seen you give them credit for even an intelligent thought. Not everybody is as stupid as you'd like them to be.

Now, as for a legitimate arugment against drilling, how about this. ANWR was set up to protect the land and wildlife. Key word being protect. Wilderness areas are meant to be totally 100% untouched by development. If ANWR is opened to the oil companies, that defeats the whole purpose of having the preserve in the first place. If Bush open's ANWR, perhaps he should open Mt. Rainier National Park too, or Yosemite, or Everglades. Where does it end?

Mike S

04-22-2002, 12:28 PM

No we wont attack Iraq specifically so we can open up certain areas for drilling..thats nuts..but when we do go to take Saddam down I'm sure the only places we'll be operating out of over there will be kuwait, Isreal and the gulf. Maybe one or two of the smaller gulf states we currently use for resupply..but thats it. I have a hard time believing Saudi Arabia would let us use its territory.
And its not a stretch to assume after we invade Iraq certain members of OPEC might react in a manner thats not in our best interest and that they might continue to do so long after we've removed Saddam and installed another government in Iraq. So its not too much of a stretch to see us having to tap into other sources of crude because of that.

But who knows... anything is possible.

MS

Originally posted by 186k\sec

yeah,
that is laughable Mike,
its America's own fault we are at the mercy bent over a barrrel when it comes to our oil addiction......(no pun intended, but i think that is pathetically hillarious!)
we arent going to attack Iraq, so Bush can 'open certain areas for drilling'
that would ensure his departure in '04..

The government estimates that at least 5.7 billion barrels and possibly as many as 16 billion barrels may be recoverable from the refuge, although how much will be pumped will depend on the price of oil. Environmentalists argue that ANWR has no more than 3.2 billion barrels, not enough to dramatically ease the country's reliance on imports.

Drilling Anwar for a speculative six months supply of oil 10 years from now will not do anything to enhance our energy security. The national security drumbeat was an attempt to exploit the tragedy of Sept. 11" to overcome opposition to opening the refuge