(no subject)
Now who's unwilling to shift his views based on the facts on the ground?
McCain needs to stop acting like if we just fill our oceans with oil rigs it will solve our problems and we'll have cheap gas immediately. It seems obvious to me that drilling in an area that's never been drilled before or has been drilled lightly would involve a great deal of research and trial-and-error. By the time that we see any tangible benefits, gas might very well have doubled in price. Besides, considering how much oil is already on the market the decrease in the price of a gallon of gas would probably be on the order of pennies rather than dollars. Worse yet, we would be opening ourselves up to environmental disaster. It's fitting that McCain was kept from visiting an off-shore rig because of Hurricane Dolly, because we saw in the aftermath of Katrina just how much one of those things can leak when it's destroyed by the weather. The only people who will benefit from what promises to be a huge example of corporate welfare are the oil companies, while ordinary people will see little if any benefit and will be stuck with the economic and environmental disasters that will be created.
As Obama states, what we need is a policy that discourages the market speculation that has freed oil prices from any connection to supply and demand while increasing funding to find a permanent solution that will get us off of our dangerous oil addiction instead of just increasing the supply. Think about how much less gas could cost if everybody drove hybrids (provided, of course, that we eliminated speculation). Now think about how much less it would cost if everybody drove cars that didn't require fossil fuels to run. The great thing about alternative fuels is that pretty much everybody wins. Car owners win by not having to shell out $4 a gallon to the greedy oil companies. Our children and grandchildren win by getting to live in a world that's just a little bit less polluted. America wins by taking money away from regimes that sponsor terrorism, exploit their own people into fanaticism, and make us that much less safe. The only people that lose are the oil executives that have screwed us over and destroyed the world for the past fifty years, and they've won enough already.
McCain needs to stop acting like if we just fill our oceans with oil rigs it will solve our problems and we'll have cheap gas immediately. It seems obvious to me that drilling in an area that's never been drilled before or has been drilled lightly would involve a great deal of research and trial-and-error. By the time that we see any tangible benefits, gas might very well have doubled in price. Besides, considering how much oil is already on the market the decrease in the price of a gallon of gas would probably be on the order of pennies rather than dollars. Worse yet, we would be opening ourselves up to environmental disaster. It's fitting that McCain was kept from visiting an off-shore rig because of Hurricane Dolly, because we saw in the aftermath of Katrina just how much one of those things can leak when it's destroyed by the weather. The only people who will benefit from what promises to be a huge example of corporate welfare are the oil companies, while ordinary people will see little if any benefit and will be stuck with the economic and environmental disasters that will be created.
As Obama states, what we need is a policy that discourages the market speculation that has freed oil prices from any connection to supply and demand while increasing funding to find a permanent solution that will get us off of our dangerous oil addiction instead of just increasing the supply. Think about how much less gas could cost if everybody drove hybrids (provided, of course, that we eliminated speculation). Now think about how much less it would cost if everybody drove cars that didn't require fossil fuels to run. The great thing about alternative fuels is that pretty much everybody wins. Car owners win by not having to shell out $4 a gallon to the greedy oil companies. Our children and grandchildren win by getting to live in a world that's just a little bit less polluted. America wins by taking money away from regimes that sponsor terrorism, exploit their own people into fanaticism, and make us that much less safe. The only people that lose are the oil executives that have screwed us over and destroyed the world for the past fifty years, and they've won enough already.