WASHINGTON - Even before the defense funding bill hit the House floor for debate Thursday, the White House...
Obama's Oil Crisis and Americans' Pain at the Pump
February 24, 2011 - 8:29pm — Jim Backlin
Yesterday, oil prices surged past $100 per barrel. A barrel of oil cost $45 when Barack Obama was inaugurated president on January 20, 2009. In recent months, every driver in America has experienced sky-rocketing gasoline prices and most of the increases are due to Obama's left-wing anti-energy exploration policies.
It has been almost a year since the president shut down oil exploration after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico exacerbating gasoline prices at the pump. "The Wall St. Journal" editorial on January 13, 2011, reported that forecasters "predict domestic production (of oil) will fall at least 13% this year." Noone can be blamed for that except the president of the United States.
On the day Obama was inaugurated a little more than two years ago, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States cost $1.83. Yesterday, the average cost of a gallon of gasoline was $3.23, a whopping increase of 76%. On George Washington's Birthday last Tuesday, the cost of a barrel of oil increased by 8%.
If any more proof is needed that there is a worsening Obama oil crisis, it was provided this past week as the price of a barrel of oil reached the highest in Obama's presidency. America experienced an increase of $14 in the cost of a barrel of oil in just one week to $98 after the one-day surge to $100/barrel.
Last week, Federal Judge Martin Feldman handed the president a stinging rebuke for his administration's failure to act on permits for deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Judge Feldman ruled that the Obama administration has 30 days to decide whether to grant a set of 5 permits for deep-water drilling in the Gulf. In a "Wall Street Journal" article on Feb. 18, 2011, Rep. "Doc" Hastings, R-WA was quoted saying: "The president's defacto moratorium is destroying American jobs, hurting our economy and forcing businesses to move overseas."
The Obama administration's announcement on Dec. 1, 2010, that there will be a continued off-shore drilling ban on the East coast and in the Gulf off Florida for an incredible 7 more years -- all the way to the year 2018 -- ensures that Obama's oil crisis continues until his last day in office, which increasingly looks like January 2013.
The Louisiana Governor who many Americans would love to see replace Obama that January, Governor Bobby Jindal, complains: "We're now the only country in the world that isn't doing new offshore drilling." The price of a gallon of gasoline on November 2012 could well determine if Barack Obama is reelected.
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Responces
Comments
Ken Whiton
Over the years that I have been posting comments on message boards, I've noticed that there are people can't compete in a rational discussion. They begin making ridiculous claims and statements which they can't support with documentation and when they realize they are losing they retreat to personal attacks and name-calling. Rather than prove that what they say is true, They begin attacking others and calling then "Liberals." as if, just by saying the word, somehow they have won the arguement. Not so!
I stated the fact that the US has 3% of the world's proven economically recoverable oil reserves and consumes 25% of current production. One poster disagreed with me. But rather than provide us with any documentation, he spent over half of his post attacking me and others who disagreed with him. I don't need to go into detail. You can read his post for yourself.
He makes the claim, again with no documentation whatsoever, that the US has argueably the largest oil reserves in the world, but those mean people who are conspiring against us won't let us drill for it.
To refute his (undocumented) claim you can do a search for "World's Proven Oil Reserves" as I did. You can also paste these links into your browser and go from here. Note that the first one is from the US Department of Energy. If you don't trust the second link because of the word "progressive" in the title, go on to the third one, which is a collection of over 100 sources.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/reserves.html
http://www.uaprogressiveaction.com/files/u1/map01_1024_0_0.jpg
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=World's+Proven+Oil+Reserves&qpvt=World's+Proven+Oil+Reserves&FORM=IGRE#x0y0
The question now is - will the personal attacks continue unabated, will they increase, or will the attacker just disappear?
Heyutoo - "!Claro que si!" Of course, we are all entitled to our opinions. Go for it. Be my guest.
But! As I said, there are facts and there are opinions. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive but often are. When someone's opinion differs from the facts, those who have the facts have a responsibility to let the facts be known.
I wish the facts I wrote about oil reserves, location, oil consumption and pricing were not true, but they are. We are fooling ourselves if we allow our wishes and opinions to replace facts. We can't even begin to solve our problems if we don't understand the problems and their causes.
As much as some may want to blame all the world's evils on our current president, blaming him for things over which he has no control will never lead to solutions.
One writer wants to stop importing oil entirely. That's a worthy goal, one I support. The way to do that is to reduce our consumption of oil. As long as we are using many times more oil than we can ever produce we will be importing oil. Increased efficiency, increased use of alternative and renewable energy resources, better insulation of our homes, offices, factories and all other buildings, designing and retrofiting all these structures to use passive solar energy and light will make a huge difference in our energy consumption and in the end save us billions of dollars. Another plus will be reductions in greenhouse gases and harmful dirty emissions resulting in cleaner air and water.
Mr. Obama's policies have no recourse to facts. That's because, like Mr. Whiton's re-statement of them, Obamist arguments do not rely on facts, but on theoretical "of course" statements presented as facts. Reality takes second place to "the correct way of thinking."
These are the facts: The United States has, underfoot, oil reserves that rival the largest in the world. Before we were forbidden to recover our own assets, we were one of the principal oil producing nations in the world, and were net exporters of oil. We own, right now, enough oil to provide for all of our domestic needs for decades.
Oil, like any other product, is subject to supply and demand. Our oil prices are high because the supply is being held artificially low. Case in point: Mr. Bush simply suggested, during a price surge near the end of his administration, that he might possibly consider allowing a small expansion of drilling. Per-gallon prices at the pump dropped a full dollar, overnight.
Far from "havng no control" over the factors that keep oil prices up. Mr. Obama has direct cotrol. It is within his power to stop artificially with-holding oil from the market.
We are fifteen trillion dollars in debt, printing worthless currency to keep afloat. The only reason the published unemployement rate is below ten percent is because millions of Americans' unemployment benefits have run out and they are too discouraged to look for work. Homeless shelter occupancy--not figured into the unemployment numbers--is at record levels. Yet, here we are, with an overabundance of the world's most sought-after product sitting right under our feet, and we forbid ourselves to recover it.
This has, in my opinion, gone beyond being unwise into being actually sociopathic.
There simply is no logical explanation for what this Administration is doing to this country. And every attempt they make at one is either alternate-reality fantasizing or endless excuse-making.
Drill here. Drill now.
Think end game strategy. Our end-game strategy for oil consumption is what is critically important, not our current desires. And what is our end game? Same as in chess - protect the king and capture the others king. Right now oil is king, so we are using up everyone else’s oil first while trying to engineer ourselves away from this diminishing resource. Decades are not an endless supply of oil. It will take decades, or longer, to get off our dependence of the stuff. Oil prices are in fact driven by supply and demand. The supply is controlled somewhat by OPEC (to a lesser degree than in the past), but we are also limiting supply ourselves by not expanding the capacity of our own refineries. The volatility of the demand for oil comes primarily from the speculators buying and selling oil futures contracts which artificially creates a demand-volatility which is the primary cause for oil price-volatility. The ROE for oil companies is quite modest compared to industries like health care (another can of worms). Oil is just expensive and is getting more so as the world reaches deeper and deeper to get at what oil is left. This fact won’t change; we will just adapt to higher energy expenses by adjusting our usage and budgeting decisions and by shifting energy generation to other sources as their costs become more in line with the energy generation costs of the day. To enjoy cheaper oil for a few decades with no known plan to transition to other energy sources has the potential to put this country at the mercy of the rest of the world in the near future - not a risk I am willing to take. Lets first build a proven plan and then enjoy our own oil reserves.
Think normal life.
Maybe "decades" is a short time for a tree, but humans only get seven to twelve of them. In that time, a lot tends to happen. For instance, ten of those decades ago the world was almost entirely governed by actively reigning monarchs. The horse was still the world's primary--and most reliable--means of daily transportation. Five decades ago, we had never gone into space. Now, we're already bored with it. A decade and a half ago, my state-of-the-art PC had a sixteen megabyte hard drive. The laptop I'm typing this on wasn't even imaginable.
We don't need to worry about the transition process. If we let it, it will happen. It has already started. Out here in the "burbs," all the new carryable stuff we buy is either LED or solar, from walkway lights to Christmas decorations to flashlights. Conservatives make jokes about the Squiggle Bulbs, but we buy them, anyway--because they're just plain better. I live in a modest neighborhood, and there's a guy a couple of blocks away who has two small windmills hooked up to his house. There's a state wind-farm down toward the center of the state, that contributes to The Grid. I'm studying up on DYI solar. So are lots of others. And it isn't unusual to see active and passive solar outfitting on houses, anymore.
The problem, right here and now, is that people are being forced to choose between gasoline and food. If gas prices continue to rise, people will not be able to afford to get to work. This is in fact already happening, and if it's allowed to continue we won't have to worry about the condition of the country, anymore--it won't be here.
Youi never hear this, "Oh, no, the sky is falling! we're running out of oil!" stuff about Saudi Arabia, or Nicaragua or any of the other aggressive users and exporters whose gas costs them pennies a gallon. Only us, the world's cash cow and principal sucker.
We have bought into the idea that a petroleum field is a bath-tub full of old dinosaur blubber, and since there were only so many dinosaurs, one of these days we'll tap out alll the bath-tubs. Wrong. The reality is that oil is a renewable resource, the product of all sorts of decayed matter. We need to clean the mentality of the Great Oil Shortage Hoax of the Seventies out of the national mind once and for all, and be about getting our country on its feet again. We will then have the money to accelerate this transition, which is already underway. As it is, all we're doing is trying to run a race with our feet tied together, and congratulating ourselves for not damaging our sneakers.
Drill here. Drill now.
Easter Blessings--
Fr. Jim +
Fr. Jim Rosselli+ "Aslan is not a tame Lion." -C.S. Lewis
Don't worry, be happy. Jim, you may be comfortable betting this country's future welfare on "We don't need to worry about the transition process. If we let it, it will happen", but I don't think that concept will pass the muster of our national strategic planners. I think they are more inclined to side with concepts like "plan for the worst and hope for the best" and "never run out of plan". The financial community even bombards us with cautionary statements like "past performance is no guarantee of future results". Now, one potential end game scenario: if we draw down our domestic oil reserves at a faster rate than the rest of the world's supply, it would require us to transition to these more expensive renewable forms of energy production at a faster rate than the rest of the world. This will increases our production costs across virtually all industries. Increased production costs will increase prices for the goods produced. Increased prices for goods produced will make America less price competitive in the world's marketplace. Less competitive means fewer goods sold internationally, as well as in our own country. Fewer goods sold means production cuts followed by economic recession or even depression. Now we could put tariffs on imports as a Band-Aid, but that incites other countries to act likewise, further reducing demand for our products. Not a good end game scenario, we already have enough wage-pressure induced into our cost of production because of this world economy we now rely on. But you are right in saying ""We don't need to worry about the transition process. If we let it, it will happen" becauce the United States will stay on top of the "end game" and come out a winner if our God is willing. If it is not His will, then no matter for those that remain in His will.
"Wait! The sky is falling!" is not any more productive a stance than "Don't worry, be happy." Actually, it less productive in potens than Chicken Little's actual advice, which was: "Run! The sky is falling!"
Everything you say about planning is true. Your description of the elements of a plan is sound. We have no argument, there. However, in the real world of men, "planning" can as often be used as an excuse to delay action as it can as a means of enabling it. The gap between planning and action can be a formidable one, full of obstacles. Most of those obstacles are artificial, placed there by people jockeying for either political or financial advantage, or both. So, "a plan that everyone agrees upon" is (a) almost imposible to get and (b) if gotten, will be so shot through with compromise and accommodation to extraneous baggage that it will be at best sluggish and at worst disastrous. Just look at the asinine pap that comes out of House-Senate conferences.
All the technology to bring everyone in the country off The Grid and have them driving seventy-mile-a-gallon internal combustion vehicles already exists. It existed in 1973, as anyone fortunate enough to have retained back issues of Mother Earth News can testify. If everyone co-operated, we could start changing over immediately, and have most of the hard parts accomplished in a year.
The problem is, everyone won't co-operate. The local natural gas suppliers will prevent an entrepreneur from doming and piping a local garbage dump to recover methane, by buying the officials who issue the permits. The plans for the 70 MPG engine conversions are long bought-and-buried. We get Popular Mechanics coming out with a space-age-looking, small impractical vehicle that will get as much as fifty five miles per gallon, within ten years!!!, when we could be getting better than that, today, out of the pickup truck in the back yard. In fact, Mother's researchers were running vehicles at their research center on methane gas that was generated from pig manure! Try to do it now, and you'll be in violation of patent.
Again, to wait for a plan everyone can agree on is to guarantee mediocrity. On the other hand, to insist, "Yes, but we need a plan," in response to someone who has just finished proposing one is either (a) disingenuous, (b) unaware that what has been offered was, in fact a plan or (c) unwilling to recognize something as a plan which does not accord with one's own.
Progress does not come from central planning. That was abundantly proved by the Soviet Union and the Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter Administrations. Progress comes from competition, as different plans meet, mingle and bang up against each other in the marketplace of ideas and achieved results. That is the very process that made our country the greatest nation in the history of the world, and the one to which we should eagerly entrust our future. Fifty years of increasing reliance on government central planning has done nothing more than stifle initiative, burying people with ideas under cubic yards of make-work regulations while cultivating vast acreages of liability lawyers eager to pounce on anyone who looks like he's making some money.
Here's a plan: Drill here, drill now. Make money. Create breathing room. Use the most sought-after commodity in the world, which we have in abundance, to get ourselves out of debt and get our private sector (which is where jobs come from) up and running, again.
The alternative energy guys are part of that private sector. What they have to offer is attractive. If people were working, and had some money, they'd buy it. I would much rather have a roof full of solar panels, a couple of wind-turbines in my yeard and a little greenhouse attached to my house, than pay NIPSCO (who are, by the way, excellent conventional energy providers) as much per year as I earned on my first job. I would love to be off The Grid, for three reasons: (a) nature is sacred. It's the handiwork of God and an icon of His active character, and I don't see any virtue in messing it up any more than we have to; (b) Not paying energy bills gives me more cash in hand; (c) I like being self-sufficient.
There are lots of people like me, and there are plenty of professional communicators who could (and do!) effectively sell alternative energy. Out west, whole warehouse-complexes are run by solar energy. Some office buildings in New York City are equipped with solar panels. Hydroelectric power is a major source of power for The Grid. Wind farms are becoming extremely effective. Here in Indiana, geothermal energy is becoming very popular, and passive solar techniques have been used since before anyone ever called them that.
All of these things are products, and the people who make them want to sell them. They have business plans, which will compete with other business plans, and the best ones will prevail. That's what I meant when I said the matter is "in process." Far from excluding planning, it assumes the most efficient and effective form of planning.
None of it will happen, however, if we ignore or fantasize about our present situation. That situation is that we have reached the point where we are no longer sustainable under the status quo. In battle, if you're outnumbered, there comes a point where you can't hide, anymore, and there's nothing more to huddle about. You either have to move or die. When you move, you rely on proven methods of movement. The odds are that you will either gain the advantqage now or live to gain it later.
We are now, at this moment, as a nation, in a battle for our survival. The forces that are against us outnumber us: we cannot, continuing to operate the way we presently operate, avoid the total financial collapse which is imminent. We need to move, and the proven method of movement is to make money. Not manage other countries' money. Not sell other countries' products. Not borrow ourselves even more deeply into an already-unrecoverable debt posture. Make money. If we do not do that, now, we will not be able to do anything at all, for we will cease to exist.
I do not think God would have us stand by and let that happen. There is no virtue in suicide.
Easter Blessings.
Fr. Jim +
Hey Jim lets compromise. " The sky is falling but don't worry, be happy" You sir, are a passionate man for this country and it is a crying shame there are not a lot more like you in this once great nation. I applaud you for your sincere concern and I agree with the entrepreneurial views you express because they are in fact a “gift from God” that helped made this country a great nation. There is an old saying I got from my dad "believe half of what you see and nothing of what you read". My guess is that saying came out of the days when there was little to no oversight on what newspapers could print as news; and there are a couple papers at the grocery check-out counter that would still fall into that category I am sure. Point is, your assumption point that I quote here:
"All the technology to bring everyone in the country off The Grid and have them driving seventy-mile-a-gallon internal combustion vehicles already exists. It existed in 1973, as anyone fortunate enough to have retained back issues of Mother Earth News can testify. If everyone co-operated, we could start changing over immediately, and have most of the hard parts accomplished in a year.
The problem is, everyone won't co-operate. The local natural gas suppliers will prevent an entrepreneur from doming and piping a local garbage dump to recover methane, by buying the officials who issue the permits. The plans for the 70 MPG engine conversions are long bought-and-buried. We get Popular Mechanics coming out with a space-age-looking, small impractical vehicle that will get as much as fifty five miles per gallon, within ten years!!!, when we could be getting better than that, today, out of the pickup truck in the back yard. In fact, Mother's researchers were running vehicles at their research center on methane gas that was generated from pig manure! Try to do it now, and you'll be in violation of patent."
In my opinion, this is not factual information. If this kind of innovation can be suppressed in a free society like ours, then there is no hope for this country or any free society. There is way too much money to be made in this technology (if it is cost efficient) for the entire world to "hide it" from entrepreneurs. It does sell magazines however and I do respect your opinions.
CHRIST IS RISEN!
Hi, Rchard--
Thanks for the kind words.
I don't know how old you are, but I was a functioning adult in 1973--twenty-eight years old, in fact--and I was a New York City kid, Manhattan born and bred. So, naturally, I was a regular Mother Earth News reader! I dreamed of the day when, free of The City and its zoning (and space) restrictions, I could have some acreage and Live The Dream. 22 years later, I got my shot. I moved my wife and daughter and our two cats to rural Pennsylvania, where I discovered the harsh (and for the neighbors, hilarious) difference between dreams and reality.
But, you see, I met people who could do amazing things with their hands. I was awe-struck, for instance, by the technology the Amish have been able to develop without electricity. Farmers would smile indulgently as they showed me jaw-dropping things--things I never even dreamed were possible in my 50-Year-Old Urban Knowitall life.
Richard, it takes nothing to bury an idea. All you need to do is buy the patent. It's no big deal. Bill Gates is famous for it. Then, you do periodic upgrades which you trumpet as the "latest technology," but you phase it, so you have something left for next year--and the year after that--and the year after that...
Mother Earth News wasn't your basic magazine looking to boost circulation, back then. They were self-sufficiency crusaders, who had a research and development center completely dedicated to alternative technologies. And their stuff worked. Of course, in order to get it to work, you had to, also. That discovery fueled the great "return to the cities" of urban escapees who had visions of cows milking themselves while they laid around in hammocks sipping apple juice and smoking the lawn while the crops grew.
Burying things successfully doesn't mean "the end of the country" at all. It is in fact how business is done all the time. Your shoes will wear out in a couple of years. Your suit will go out of fashion. Your toaster will stop working. Your light-bulbs, even the squigglies, will burn out sooner or later. It isn't like they have to. All of that is deliberate, and has been since the mid-1950's when manufacturers discovered "planned obsolescence."
Your kid just bought a college textbook for a hundred and fifty dollars. Last year's edition is on sale at alibris or eBay for fifteen bucks. Maybe. The two are identical, except for some minor changes, none of which have anything to do with new data. There's also a new CD enclosed in the back, that is equally devoid of new data.
The Military has a research facility called "Dreamland." They could just as easily call it "Star Trek." Some of their stuff won't trickle down into the publicly-available technology marketplace for maybe--if we last that long--twenty years.
That's why I'm such a fan of individual initiative and entrepreneurship, Richard. It was wildcatters, not Major Oil Companies, who built this nation's great store of wealth. Bill Gates was a kid in a garage when he was the most innovative computer guy ever. Now he rules the roost, and it costs more for a system that actually does less for you than Windows 95 did.
As Vito Corleone famously said, "It's nothing personal, it's just business."
Paschal Blessings, my friend--
Fr. Jim +
Fr. Jim Rosselli+ "Aslan is not a tame lion" --C.S Lewis
More oil from Canada! We import more oil from Canada (200 million barrels/yr) than from Saudi Arabia (160 million barrels/yr). We also import oil from Mexico (160 million barrels/yr). Sort of changes the picture doesn't it?
Ken Whiton: Facts vs. Opinions
You may be more knowlegable than I and I commend you for that. Hopefully all of your facts are factual. Maybe my statement of "none if us is wrong or right" was mis-stated, and I thank you. However, the freedom to express my opinion does not make it wrong. I don't understand why our country, which God has richly blessed, remains dependent on other countries for oil??
This is my first time on this blog. In a nutshell, I have learned very quickly that being on here takes away from things that are more important in my life. Why get frustrated and lose my peace over this subject?? My hope and prayer is that our country would turn to the Lord and seek Him diligently because He holds all the answers to everything. My sincere hope is that you have a fantastic day in the Lord!
JTDixon1108: The truth you are describing is the one and only Jesus. Maybe we should all seek Him and he will give us the truth to everything in life...something to think about if you haven't tried it yet. Have an awesome day in Him!!
Dear HeyUToo:
I don't understand why you don't understand. It's simple. We are importing so much oil because we USE far more than we produce (or possibly have in our control). Further, we have had a complete lack of leadership in Washington for some time on these issues. Prior to this administration we had not one but TWO oil men in the White House; no leadership away from oil there! When our current president wants to fund alternatives to oil, the Republicans start screaming, "economy"! and "Drill, baby, drill!" as if we are going to drill our way out of this thing given that there is a finite amount of oil in the ground. We must DECREASE our use of oil with the goal of using it for only certain applications; uses where we may have no alternative energy source.
Further, Mr. Whiton is very informed on the issues and is clearly a person who is atypical in this near-sighted community; God bless him! I've enjoyed reading his intelligent arguments and descriptions of various issues surrounding our energy issues.
As far as Christ being the truth, I totally agree. The wonderful thing about belief in Christ is that we don't have to "check" our brains at the door; he expects us to use the intelligence he gave us as we are "created in His image"; intelligent beings (well, most anyway). He, The Truth, also gave us the RESPONSIBILITY in Genesis to CARE FOR the earth. What have we done? We've plundered and pillaged it; raped it's forests and resources for selfish gain and polluted areas to the point that they can no longer be inhabited. Do you remember his warning in The Revelation of St. John the Divine? "I will destroy him that destroys the earth"! Most Christians are either not aware of this verse of fail to comprehend it, choosing to feel entitled rather than responsible; blissfully ignorant rather than informed, believing the lies of politicians vying for their votes, using social issues to gain power (so they can implement their true agenda of greed) rather than reading and believing the Word.
I apologize for my minor digression but you cannot separate issues; they are all related. Failing to see that our energy policy (or lack thereof) is connected to politics and campaign contributions by oil companies is believing a lie. Failing to see that they (oil companies) favor one party over the other to do their bidding is willful ignorance.
I'm aware that I don't always have the "whole truth" for various reasons, none of us do. But, we are, as Christians, to use our brains WITH our faith. If we start doing that much better than we are currently, we can come up with better solutions than what is being handed to us by EITHER political party.
Hi, JT--
There are some places where you have been misinformed, or under-informed:
It's simple. We are importing so much oil because we USE far more than we produce (or possibly have in our control).
That's true. Both the production and control situations, however, are artificial. They are things we are doing to ourselves, and things which we can instantly remedy.
clearly a person who is atypical in this near-sighted community
Liberals habitually confuse invective with data. Mr. Whiton is not "informed" because he repeats the current cant. This community is not "near-sighted" because it does not agree with him. Intelligence is not "atypical" here, simply because you cannot find loads of people who agree with you (or Mr. Whiton). Neither intelligence nor, for that matter, reality, has anything to do with what is or is not "politically acceptable" thinking. In fact, one definition of reality is "That which is what it is, and remains so regardless of anyone's opinion about it." Liberals consider cleverly-presented defiance of reality a benchmark measure of intelligence. They consider such behavior "daring," as distinct from, say, silly.
the Republicans start screaming, "economy"! and "Drill, baby, drill!" as if we are going to drill our way out of this thing given that there is a finite amount of oil in the ground.
Actually, for my money, far too few of the Republicans are screaming "drill, baby, drill," because post-American globalism is an unhealthy presence among Republicans as well as Democrats.
The fact is, we indeed can "drill our way out of" our current predicament. We have, arguably, the most abundant petroleum reserves on the planet. More than Saudi Arabia, in fact. At one time, back when we allowed ourselves to be, we were the principal oil producing nation on earth: a net exporter, with all our domestic needs met. That was back when we were a sane and Godly--and therefore prosperous--nation.
As for the "finite resource" business, oil is a renewable resource. The earth manufactures it from decaying organic matter, and more is made every day.
As for damaging the environment, it is we ourselves who confine our drilling to the coasts, where there is the potential for spills, when we could just as easily (and less expensively, with no risk at all to the environment) drill on dry land.
Bottom line: it is irresponsible--to the point of actual sociopathy--to have an abundance of the world's most sought-after commodity under our feet while we allow our nation to be destroyed and our people to starve. We cannot pay the money we owe. There is no magical tooth fairy who is going to put fifteen trillion dollars under our pillow one night because we have all read our copy of "Walden" like good little boys and girls, and worn our "Republicans Are Icky" tatoozles all day. We have a commodity we can produce and sell, to the detriment of no one and the benefit of many, which is able to get us back on our feet. It is irresponsible and shameful not to do it, simply for the sake of deference to a soundly-debunked (but loud) theoretical stance.
Prior to this administration we had not one but TWO oil men in the White House; no leadership away from oil there!
That depends on which "oil" you're talking about. The "oil men" oif whom you speak were also, as was Mr. Clinton and as is Mr. Obama, post-American globalists with no ideological stake in the energy independence of the United States. Neither do they have any personal stake, for their family fortune is tied up in the major oil companies, who make more money, with less risk, simply using us as a cash cow. Easing domestic drilling restrictions was talked about a lot under the Bushes, but in fact the restrictions were tightened.
The current Administration is owned by George Soros, Wall Street's legendary "Gold Bug." Mr. Soros is perhaps the most skillful gold trader in history, and certainly one of the most skillful commodity traders overall, but gold is his specialty. The weakness of the dollar is enriching Mr. Soros to a degree that is incomprehensible to mere mortals, and the dollar is weak precisely because we are not producing any of our own wealth and are massively in debt. Drilling for our own oil would solve both of these problems, and you can be sure that this Administration (and anyone else he can buy) will staunchly oppose domestic drilling until Mr. Soros feels his portfolio is sufficiently divested.
We've plundered and pillaged it; raped it's forests and resources for selfish gain and polluted areas to the point that they can no longer be inhabited. Do you remember his warning in The Revelation of St. John the Divine? "I will destroy him that destroys the earth"!
Thank you for pointing up this passage! In fact, "Those who destroy the earth" (Rv 11:18) are those whose wickedness and apostasy will finally have weakened the "spiritual cement" of the world to the extent that it can no longer hold together. We are seeing warnings of this, now. To be sure, misuse of the resources we have been given is one of the ways in which we are often wicked.
Nature is sacred: the handiwork of God, it is an icon of His creative nature. There is no virtue in damaging it. Using it and its resources, however, does not constitute damage, for these resources have been placed here for us. The teleology of ecologicist pristinism is the suicide of man, something which is cheerfully admitted by them. It is also the teleology of the demons.
We need to remember that man is also sacred: is, in fact--unlike nature, which is an icon of God's creative activity--the icon of God, Himself. Ecologism says we are a virus infecting the planet, and must be restrained. God says we are the crown of His creation, and that He has given all things into our hands. Stewardship of the earth does not have anything to do with the current, satanic, notion that we cannot be permitted to use its resources. God's Word on the subject is:
Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the air, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only youi shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood." (Gn 9:1-4)
In the New Testament, even the prohibition against blood is removed, as Peter is instructed that he is free to eat whatever is put before him (see Acts 10:9-15).
You rightly point out that arrogant misuse of our charge over the earth has resulted in irresponsible, sinful behavior. It is just as sinful, for it denies God's Word to us, to pretend that charge does not exist, or that God "muist have meant" something other than what He plainly said. You mention reason. Our reason is given us not as a counteractive to God's Word, and certainly not as equal to it, buit as a tool to help us become more obedient to it.
Beware of the ease with which we can be fooled by a secular morality that says we are, "a malign influence on a pure nature, and must always take care to feel guilty about that," or something, because it counterfeits holiness. Masochism does that, while offering the added attraction of a subtle, sensual self-centeredness. It is a convincing counterfeit, and one the Fathers have warned against since the beginnings of the Church. The "We're in charge and we can do what we want" attitude is frankly and obviously off-base. It is arrogant, and our conscience, once matured, tends to be easily brought up short and moved to repentance by our arrogance Masochism is not so easily detected, because a mature conscience is called to humility and masochism plausibly masquerades as humility.
So, yes, we agree on the sinfulnes of misusing nature. We need to be vigilant, however, and guard against letting the arguments and attitudes of the secularists take any sort of hold upon our growth as Christians. I say, "vigilant" because secularism and paganism are always seeking to corrupt the Faith, and--since they are both spiritual endeavors--falling for it is easier than one would think.
lies of politicians vying for their votes, using social issues to gain power (so they can implement their true agenda of greed) rather than reading and believing the Word.
My friend, you have just described, succinctly and handily, life on earth.
Easter Blessings--
Fr. Jim +
Fr. Jim Rosselli+ "Aslan is not a tame Lion."
JTDixon,
You are exactly right about the human condition in America, and the rest of the world for that matter. Saying we have had no leadership in the Whitehouse for our energy policy is a bit overstated. The reality is we have a lot of folks with a lot of intelligence trying to solve this one and have been doing so for a long time. Do not let political dogma fool you. The fact that there is no good answer does not mean the problem is being ignored. I am no expert on the subject, but I do understand economics. The fact is we are in a global economy and compete to produce and sell goods at competitive prices, not only to ourselves but also to the rest of the world. A big part of the cost of production is energy. The cheapest energy is coal, and we burn a lot of it with plenty to spare for now. Oil is relatively cheep compared to the other sustainable options. You want to see how much more expensive, switch to one of them for your house and you will see. To think that we can just shut the doors to the rest of the world's products and customers, switch to these more expensive sources of energy, and just sustain ourselves is also not realistic and downright dangerous for home land security. If we price ourselves out of the export market guess how many more jobs will be lost in this country. Plain and simple, our energy policies are held captive to the economic competitors of the world. Don't let self-serving politicians determine how you think, they all are full of half-truths and no different than the moral condition of this country you so eloquently described. Chances are we fabricated this global warming scheme in order to convince the rest of the world to change over to renewable sources of energy, not to save the planet as they say, but to allow us the ability to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil! Shhhhhhhhhhhh!!! keep this one quiet it seems to be slowly working.
I appreciate your opinion. Isnt' it great we live in a land where we can express ourselves freely? Neither of us is right or wrong.
its is sad that everything is increasing, prices of goods are soaring high. there must be something the government can do. America is not the only place affected by the increase. so does other part of the world. this is sad :( , people in poor countrys will suffer more from this problem.
"Change allows me to grow into a better, more positive me!" - http://www.livepositivity.com/
Facts vs. Opinions: Heyutoo: "Neither of us is right or wrong." ??? Yes, there are opinions. There are also Facts. Perhaps you will be kind enough to tell me specifically, what I wrote that is not Factual. I can document everything I wrote. If you have any information that tells a different story I would like to see it.
Respectfully, the idea that people of opposing opinions are neither right or wrong is an interesting concept; sounds like relativism to me.
One thing I've found with people of the "conservative" opinion is that they don't require any data, facts, or concrete evidence to support their opinions and they still believe they are "right". When faced with facts, science, or hard data, they say, "well, we can agree to disagree" rather than admitting that they just MIGHT BE WRONG! God help us! Isn't it WISDOM to seek the truth? Didn't Jesus say the TRUTH WILL MAKE US FREE?! Why do we not seek the truth rather than clinging to our opinions? We've moved into a time of trading a search for truth with "truthiness" and "I believe what I believe because I believe it"; another "W" quote!
The truth is, there is a finite amount of oil in the ground and it will end some day. Why should we wait until it ends before we start running our country on something else like the unlimited source of the sun, wind, waves, agricultural waist, algae, etc.? Do we really want that kind of chaos, wars, and expense?
If you add up the TRUE cost of a gallon of gas, you would have to include all the military cost in defending our reserves around the world, the transportation, the repairing the environment, the loss of useful land, among others. Some scientists place the true cost of a gallon of gas in America somewhere between $15 and $30 a gallon (probably depending on whether you want to include the interest on the national debt for our financed military operations). Again, this is not President Obama' creation but many who have gone before him. President Carter TRIED to start weaning us from oil but we rebelled and now we're paying the price for our excesses. The costs will only increase!
Ken hit the nail on the head here. The only statistic he did not state is: at the world's current rate of consumpsion, how long will the world's oil supply last? This is a changing number as new oil fields are continually being discovered, like the huge find off the coast of Brizal just reciently. So these new discoveries are a constant game-changer. We will never know when the last oil field find happened until long, long after the frantic searches begin and prices skyrocket. When that occurs we had better have mastered the alternative energy sources and only then begin to rely on our remaining (horded) oil reserves. That day is certianly comming because oil is not a renewable energy source.
It is truly nice to see some thoughtful responses on here from informed people. I'm offended at the Coalition writer who would lay the oil crisis at the feet of President Obama, failing to mention the oil crisis we had under Bush. When "W" was President, I was paying up to $4.50 per gallon for my diesel! There were no riots in the Middle East causing the problem then; it was speculators running wild on Wall Street and running up the prices of fuel artificially without any government control or oversight. Instead of fixing the problem, Bush went to his Saudi friends who turned him away. Shame on the CC for publishing such a dishonest and falsely leading piece! My mother always taught me that a half truth is a lie; TAKE A LESSON Christian Coalition! Stop being so arbitrarily pro-Republican and start telling the truth! Part of our oil problem is that we are still dependent on a fossil fuel and the Republican "fossils" in Washington can't stop catering to the oil companies who put them there and start properly funding alternative energies that we create or harvest right here at home. We're enslaved to those who have the oil; talk about that!
It is truly nice to see some thoughtful responses on here from informed people. I'm offended at the Coalition writer who would lay the oil crisis at the feet of President Obama, failing to mention the oil crisis we had under Bush. When "W" was President, I was paying up to $4.50 per gallon for my diesel! There were no riots in the Middle East causing the problem then; it was speculators running wild on Wall Street and running up the prices of fuel artificially without any government control or oversight. Instead of fixing the problem, Bush went to his Saudi friends who turned him away. Shame on the CC for publishing such a dishonest and falsely leading piece! My mother always taught me that a half truth is a lie; TAKE A LESSON Christian Coalition! Stop being so arbitrarily pro-Republican and start telling the truth! Part of our oil problem is that we are still dependent on a fossil fuel and the Republican "fossils" in Washington can't stop catering to the oil companies who put them there and start properly funding alternative energies that we create or harvest right here at home. We're enslaved to those who have the oil; talk about that!
You are wrong about oil prices!
The President of the United States has nothing to do with the price of oil. Producing more oil in the US does not lower the price.
Oil is sold on a worldwide market. The price of oil is set by OPEC. Remember them? OPEC is controlled by Saudi Arabia which has the largest oil reserves in the world. The US has 5% of the world's oil and consumes 25% of the world's production. What the US does has absolutely nothing to do with the price of oil. No oil company in the world is going to sell oil at less than the market price. Producing more oil in the US will not lower the price of oil in the US.
George W. Bush, late in his second term, went to Saudi Arabia to ask (beg?) them to increase production and thus lower prices. They refused! Saudi Arabia manipulates the price of oil by increasing or decreasing the amount they produce. This allows the Saudis to set the price wherever the want and there is nothing we can do about it!
How about we drill off our our shores and not remain dependent on others?? The explosion last year in the Gulf was horrific, but why throw the baby out with the bath water?? This country is a slave to the middle east for oil, why not use what is in our own backyard...
That's a great idea! Not! Only one problem: remember the 5% figure I gave you which is the percent of total world oil reserves in the US? Don't forget the 25% figure that is the percent of world oil production that we consume. Do you see the dilemma we are in with those two numbers?
I hope it's clear to you that as long as we continue consuming 25% of world oil production while owning 5% of world oil reserves we are forced to import oil. The first step to solving our energy problem is to get rid of the idea that we can "Drill, Baby, Drill" our way out of our problem. The next step is to realize that as long as we are addicted to oil (George W. Bush's phrase) we will be addicted to foreign oil.
We have no control over the 5% number. It is what it is. We can't change it. What we can change is the 25% number. The next step to take is to stop the $14,000,000,000 (That's $14 BILLION)) subsidies we hand out to the oil companies every year and put that money into renewable and alternative energy research, development and production. That is how we achieve energy independence.
One more problem with your "solution." When the rest of the world has 95% of the world's oil reserves and we only have 5%, why would we want to use up all of our oil now. Shouldn't we be leaving our5% alone and saving it for when we really need it? Shouldn't we be using up all the other guys' 95% first?