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Oil Drilling not the answer, says Moran - Washington DC Alexandria Nonpartisan | Examiner.com
GOP bills would open Virginia and other areas to offshore drilling - latimes.com
U.S. bills would allow oil, gas drilling off Virginia
As you may or may not have heard the Feds will likely be softening restriction on off shore drilling. These are just three articles with some insight to what may or may not happen with the proposed bill. The justice department is also leading a team to investigate fraud and corruption within the oil industry. I'm personally for offshore drilling for two reason
1) GAS IS TOO EXPENSIVE, gas is continuing to increase. Increasing everything from food to travel MY PAY ALSO IS NOT INCREASING TO COMPENSATE THE INCREASE in price(THATS MORE PERSONAL THOUGH LOL)
2) Virginia is in dire need of INDUSTRY especially Hampton Roads.. Coal and Tobacco bad rep, the military is down sizing, East Coast ports are not thriving like the West( so much imported Asian goods), and tourism will never cut it we are not Florida.
While those are my personal reason I also feel like the United States as a whole need to invest in it future and decrease the demand for foreign oil by any means necessary. Clean energy is defiantly a must, but with no clear cut alternative to oil we have to work with what we have. I know the cons are infinite such as continuing to fuel the pockets of oil giants and the Gulf disaster, but a solution must soon be met for tension over oil is much too high. I would honestly love to see the oil and natural gas industry exploit Virginia's natural resources as long as the state benefits and of coarse with regrades to the safety of Virginia waterways and citizens. I think this thread is more fitting in the Hampton Roads forum. Sorry about the links above you can access them through the first thread on the Virginia thread " Drilling Virginia Shores....Yah or Nay? ".
I actually kind of like the fact that oil prices are going higher and higher. That may pave the way for more public transportation type access instead of driving gas guzzling machines around that aren't even fuel efficient or neccessary. A vehicle should be a recreational commodity moreso than anything else. Public transportation should be invested into as a whole to save billions of dollars in vehicle costs, taxes, gas and pollution. Sure, it's a nice thing to have, but if there's sufficient public transportation, what do you need a vehicle for? Let's make bike riding more probable in the area too. Let's move away from destroying the environment for the sake of our comfort. I'd be disgusted to see drilling off the coast of any state. The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was truly a defining moment for me to stand against that garbage. The oil giants are keeping other research at bay to milk oil for all of it's worth in their lifetime. What do they care about the environment or what we think. Screw them.
I actually kind of like the fact that oil prices are going higher and higher. That may pave the way for more public transportation type access instead of driving gas guzzling machines around that aren't even fuel efficient or neccessary. A vehicle should be a recreational commodity moreso than anything else. Public transportation should be invested into as a whole to save billions of dollars in vehicle costs, taxes, gas and pollution. Sure, it's a nice thing to have, but if there's sufficient public transportation, what do you need a vehicle for? Let's make bike riding more probable in the area too. Let's move away from destroying the environment for the sake of our comfort. I'd be disgusted to see drilling off the coast of any state. The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was truly a defining moment for me to stand against that garbage. The oil giants are keeping other research at bay to milk oil for all of it's worth in their lifetime. What do they care about the environment or what we think. Screw them.
Ditto.
Off shore drilling is a BAD idea. If anyone thinks otherwise they should really take a trip down to ground zero in LA, etc. Don't buy the touchy feely, "We're great!" BP paid commercials. It's garbage.
By the time any oil starts flowing we could have built hundreds of miles of rail lines, or simply brought back the electric car that oil companies played a dirty role in killing just a short decade ago.
The technology for alternatives is here, it has been built before and it can be built even better today.
Risking our environment is too costly of a risk. Maybe once we establish life on another planet I'll reconsider, but as of now, this is all we've got... screwing it up once can have lasting consequences for years to come. I'm not willing to put myself in that risky situation and I'm not prepared to let our future generations be put in risky situations like that, either. They deserve better and we deserve better.
Off shore drilling is a BAD idea. If anyone thinks otherwise they should really take a trip down to ground zero in LA, etc. Don't buy the touchy feely, "We're great!" BP paid commercials. It's garbage.
By the time any oil starts flowing we could have built hundreds of miles of rail lines, or simply brought back the electric car that oil companies played a dirty role in killing just a short decade ago.
The technology for alternatives is here, it has been built before and it can be built even better today.
Risking our environment is too costly of a risk. Maybe once we establish life on another planet I'll reconsider, but as of now, this is all we've got... screwing it up once can have lasting consequences for years to come. I'm not willing to put myself in that risky situation and I'm not prepared to let our future generations be put in risky situations like that, either. They deserve better and we deserve better.
Couldn't have said it better. Although, this is an interesting read:
Drill of a Lifetime: Five Facts Before You Decide on Obama's Offshore Plan | TakePart - Inspiration to Action (http://www.takepart.com/news/2010/04/01/offshore-drilling-know-before-you-decide - broken link)
"It will be a decade before we get the gas.
Even if drilling were to start tomorrow, experts say it would be up to 14 years before consumers can pump that gas at a station. Even then, many wonder how much of a difference domestic oil would have on price. The oil market is a global one; so even if the U.S. has more of it, prices will still be driven by the international supply. According to a 2004 Time magazine study, domestic drilling would decrease costs by 3.5 cents by 2027.
Each year the U.S. imports approximately two billion barrels of oil from OPEC nations. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates no more than four billion barrels of oil are available off the Atlantic coast. That means we might curb the amount of oil we import, but not for long."
1) We’ve been drilling offshore for years. The state of Louisiana has been drilling offshore since 1947 and currently rakes in about $1.5 billion annually from these operations. In 2009, the state had a total of 1,365 drilling permits, 12 of which were allotted for offshore drilling.
Despite the potentially devastating environmental impacts of offshore drilling, such as habitat destruction, "It's absolutely worth it," according to Garret Graves, head of the Louisiana Governor's Office of Coastal Activities.
RE: $1.5 billion- What exactly has that done for LA? It ranks almost dead in the middle for GDP from the states, it has some of the worst schools in the nation and it's infrastructure is dismal.
No state should aspire to be LA unless they want to stagnate for years to come.
I think not drilling now is just delaying the inevitable. The world needs oil in the future and aint no one gonna care about the environment when the world is nearly out of oil. While I think a lot should go into finding better energy sources, we need to be realists and prepare for if we still need oil in the future.
I think not drilling now is just delaying the inevitable. The world needs oil in the future and aint no one gonna care about the environment when the world is nearly out of oil. While I think a lot should go into finding better energy sources, we need to be realists and prepare for if we still need oil in the future.
A realist about what? A realist that big oil pushes out alternatives like electric vehicles? A realist that car companies push/ed out mass transit lines?
What exactly are we being a realist about besides that we're selling ourselves like cheap prostitutes to major companies that are destroying the one environment we have, all in the name of profit?
Maybe you want to wear a breathing mask outside or boil your water before drinking, but I don't.
If you don't care about the environment, buy a one way ticket to China; I'm sure you can find a river on fire that you can sit and watch for entertainment.
I do too believe we are just delaying the inevitable the demand for oil is remarkable. We all have learned from the Gulf disaster, but alternate energy is non existent in todays' world. The world has continued to produce products that run solely on fossil fuels, and who do we have to blame OURSELVES. Americas thirst for oil will never be quenched we continue to build bigger and wider. The ideals of mass transit died long ago with the rise of the Suburbs, and mass transit in Hampton Roads is a JOKE. HRT bus routes are barely used by folk outside of inner city communities, the light rail is delayed and no other city will jump onto the band wagon. So Hampton Roads (Norfolk) now has a light rail for show more than for solution. The street car and bus era has faded cities are WAY too sprawled nowadays. It may be true that we are eating out the hands of oil giants, but electric vehicles seem like a fad more of a novelty item than a realistic solution. The environment will continue to worsen whether we continue to use oil or not the cleanest way to produce electricity is Nuclear and the world is so afraid of it. Solar which is decades if not centuries away from being a viable energy producing candidate so we burn coal or trash destroying the environment anyway so i see it more as pick your poison.
Don't get me wrong i would love to see more mass transit or energy alternatives. But when my vehicle maybe in the shop or down I look for multiple rides from friends or family long before I would even consider taking a bus to work or school or mall or anywhere for that matter. Buses are not convenient and I feel as if 90% if not more of the American population is guilty of the same.
Buses are not convenient and I feel as if 90% if not more of the American population is guilty of the same.
You're opinions are a bit different than my own which is fine, but I would like to comment on this. I'd have to disagree. The fact is that most of the world's population lives in major metropolitan areas, including the American population. And it's in these metro areas that public transit exists, which in most cases (including our own!) is more than just a bus system. More often than not, a metro transit system will consist of a fleet of buses accompanied by LRT, commuter rail, ferries, etc.
So while buses may not be convenient for your specific situation here in Hampton Roads, to say that 90% of Americans are in the same boat as you is a bit much.
"Transportation accounts for more than 30 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. According to the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), public transportation in the United States saves approximately 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline and about 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. Yet only 14 million Americans use public transportation daily while 88 percent of all trips in the United States are made by car—and many of those cars carry only one person." Public Transportation - Fast Track to Fewer Emissions and Energy Independence
Maybe not 90% but 88% is pretty close and in an area like Hampton Roads I'm sure it is atleast 90% if not more. To be honest i know first hand about HRT i rode HRT for years in high school and in college and I've continue to ride the ferry at least once a week. The ferry is very convenient especially during tunnel traffic hours but its also inconvenient when I'm leaving a bar on Granby at 12am and the ferry service has ended. The bus routes are very inconvenient especially after the hours of 6pm and 9 pm for most areas in Hampton Roads. I live in Portsmouth and have once considered bus routes to my former job in Virginia Beach but the closet bus stop is a mile or two away from my job and that bus route stops at 9 and some nights I would leave after 9pm...... I'm all for public transit and I'm a huge supporter of LRT and commuter rails but lets be honest most communities will not support LRT, commuter rails, and buses for three reasons.
1) Not as convenient as car
2) Cost
3) Safety, as in the belief that mass transit gives crime a quick route straight into your civilized neighborhood.
Last edited by Kevin_R; 04-28-2011 at 10:38 AM..
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