Florida has been battling environmentalists for at least 10 years over off-shore drilling. It's there, it's needed, and can be done with relative protection of our beaches. Same goes for Anwar. When we have long gas lines again and are all riding bicycles with little baskets to the grocery store (if there's any groceries!) then maybe America will get serious about drilling. And there's not a single alternative fuel/energy option that's been proposed that someone hasn't come up with a reason not to pursue it.

If you think the war in Iraq is completely about *oil* then tell your Congressmen to get busy on the home-front. Then we won't have that excuse to be there. (I, personally, do not...

Florida has been battling environmentalists for at least 10 years over off-shore drilling. It's there, it's needed, and can be done with relative protection of our beaches. Same goes for Anwar. When we have long gas lines again and are all riding bicycles with little baskets to the grocery store (if there's any groceries!) then maybe America will get serious about drilling. And there's not a single alternative fuel/energy option that's been proposed that someone hasn't come up with a reason not to pursue it.

If you think the war in Iraq is completely about *oil* then tell your Congressmen to get busy on the home-front. Then we won't have that excuse to be there. (I, personally, do not believe that is the main reason we are there. One of them, but not the main one.)

Both would be short term solutions. Fossil fuels are:

a) finite,

b) are tied to the global economy in such a way, that an increase in production in the U.S. would be a drop of the bucket (especially with China and India growing consumption rates)

c)Are pollutants, both in its raw form as well as its processed forms

d) There is a severe lack of refinery capacity in the U.S. which drives the cost up even more

e) Most of the future oil exploitation zones are either in existing conflict regions which would then have said conflicts fueled (no pun intended) by oil or in hard to reach places. This would certainly keep the price per barrel up.

So ANWR and increasing Gulf coast production ar...

Both would be short term solutions. Fossil fuels are:

a) finite,

b) are tied to the global economy in such a way, that an increase in production in the U.S. would be a drop of the bucket (especially with China and India growing consumption rates)

c)Are pollutants, both in its raw form as well as its processed forms

d) There is a severe lack of refinery capacity in the U.S. which drives the cost up even more

e) Most of the future oil exploitation zones are either in existing conflict regions which would then have said conflicts fueled (no pun intended) by oil or in hard to reach places. This would certainly keep the price per barrel up.

So ANWR and increasing Gulf coast production are not the silver bullets promised by the oil industry.

The U.S. will never be able to produce itself out of foreign dependency of oil by drilling in ANWAR and the gulf coast. You will just be degrading our environment while making some more millions and billions for oil barrons.

The US can produce its own energy needs through solar energy alone which doesn't even take into account geothermal, switch grass ethanol, wind energy, kinetic motion energy (produced from waves). Not to mention how much oil consumption we would be saving if we increased the fuel efficiency of our transportation fleet.

Senators Kyl (Arizona Republican) and Senators Reid (Nevada Democrat) debated the issue of solar energy and there was no debate about it's feasibility of...

The U.S. will never be able to produce itself out of foreign dependency of oil by drilling in ANWAR and the gulf coast. You will just be degrading our environment while making some more millions and billions for oil barrons.

The US can produce its own energy needs through solar energy alone which doesn't even take into account geothermal, switch grass ethanol, wind energy, kinetic motion energy (produced from waves). Not to mention how much oil consumption we would be saving if we increased the fuel efficiency of our transportation fleet.

Senators Kyl (Arizona Republican) and Senators Reid (Nevada Democrat) debated the issue of solar energy and there was no debate about it's feasibility of supplying our nations energy. It just ended with Senator Kyl stating he didn't want those ugly solar panels in his state. Senator Reid adroitly responded that the solar panels would be dispersed across the country.

Cannot support nuclear energy. Let's every other country in the world claim that they need it for their energy independence. It's just a bad idea when we have other alternatives. There are currently 13 Arab countries (and Israel as well) proposing to use Nuclear Energy because oil reserves are going to disappear.

Better get on the renewable energy bandwagon folks.

First of all, I'd like to thank all the clippers for putting their opinions forth in an articulate intelligent manner. I think Jafta has especially given her positions in a courteous manner considering she is the only one in this post with a differing opinion.
Sorry it took me so long to respond but I was doing bills, cleaning (i'm obsessive, *LOL) and getting ready to go to Mass this evening (*SHOCK*, I actually do go to Mass and consider myself a disciple of Christ), and getting ready to start a new job Monday which I'm excited about.
Energy is so fundamental to human activity that the future of our civilization largely depends on preparing for a post-oil world and I can't stress that poi...

First of all, I'd like to thank all the clippers for putting their opinions forth in an articulate intelligent manner. I think Jafta has especially given her positions in a courteous manner considering she is the only one in this post with a differing opinion.
Sorry it took me so long to respond but I was doing bills, cleaning (i'm obsessive, *LOL) and getting ready to go to Mass this evening (*SHOCK*, I actually do go to Mass and consider myself a disciple of Christ), and getting ready to start a new job Monday which I'm excited about.
Energy is so fundamental to human activity that the future of our civilization largely depends on preparing for a post-oil world and I can't stress that point enough. The other clippers pointed our alternative sources to oil but it's not just transportation and energy, but agriculture, food, water and plastics that are entirely dependent on oil. Is the Bush Administration aware of all of this? Of course they are. They knew the middle east is where the prize ultimately lies. If you want to know why the Bush administration has been spending money, cutting social programs, and starting wars like there is no tomorrow--there is your answer. As far as they are concerned there is no tomorrow because we do have a desperate situation on our hands. What if the Bush administration was honest with us? Ha! Half the nation would refuse to believe them and the other half would panic. The struggle against this war goes far beyond this war. So why should we care if the oil barons are making millions? Because it is called imperialism (steal their stuff and sell it yourself). You might be familiar with it from history. It's how the poor nations got to be so damned poor in the first place with the super rich doing the very best out of that crooked deal.

Plus jatfla your husband could drive to work in an electric car if the oil lobby wasn't so powerful in Washington.

You're probably already aware of the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car" but if not it's a very revealing documentary.

Why doesn't solar make more headway? Check out the legislation of the last Republican 109th Congress.

In the new energy law, the U.S. Congress lavished tax breaks on its usual fossil-fuel favorites -- there's $1.6 billion in tax credits for new coal technology, $1 billion for gas distribution lines, another $1 billion for oil and gas exploration costs, $400 million for oil refineries, and so on.

These tax credits keep oil and gas artificially l...

Plus jatfla your husband could drive to work in an electric car if the oil lobby wasn't so powerful in Washington.

You're probably already aware of the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car" but if not it's a very revealing documentary.

Why doesn't solar make more headway? Check out the legislation of the last Republican 109th Congress.

In the new energy law, the U.S. Congress lavished tax breaks on its usual fossil-fuel favorites -- there's $1.6 billion in tax credits for new coal technology, $1 billion for gas distribution lines, another $1 billion for oil and gas exploration costs, $400 million for oil refineries, and so on.

These tax credits keep oil and gas artificially lower than it should be, preventing competition. With oil companies making record profits these incentives make no sense at all.

Another reason you should be concerned is that our continued dependence on oil guarantees that our military forces will be deployed in oil producing regions whenever instability rears it's head. Not just the Middle East, but Nigeria, the Bay of Guinea.

The price we pay for gas doesn't reflect it's true cost because no one figures in the military costs to provide the security to ensure that it keeps flowing. Neither in dollars or human casualty.