That doesn't mean it "won't help substantially".
A 10% raise in your salary will help substantially, I would assume. However, "relative to your long term needs" it's not very much. Relative to the national GDP it's even less. Relative to the national GDP summed over 100 years it's even less than that.... You can play this game forver if you keep dividing by larger and larger numbers....
Where the heck did this idea come from that unless an oil-source will Power The Entire Nation For A Century (or however long), we *shouldn't get the oil from there*? Truly bizarre.
[why we're not getting oil] Sure. It's not true. Well, maybe true, if you have a different definiton of "much" than I do.
Apparently I do. To you, anything less than Will Power The Nation For A Century, is "not much". I'm talking more realistically.
On the flip side, if the reserves in, say, ANWR, are really "not much", I gotta wonder why the opposition to drilling there. Ok fine it's a teeny tiny amount under a teeny tiny patch of land. Who could possibly object to allowing some foolish company to start drilling there then?
I said it's not a substantial long term solution, and it's not. Note that I didn't say don't do it. It's not a hard distinction to make, if you try.
Good, then we both agree, let's do it.
Sorry for my confusion, caused by the fact that into a discussion about Whether we should drill in ANWR, you brought up this stuff about it not being a long-term solution. That made it seem like you were disagreeing (because otherwise, it's a complete non sequitur). So I guess I don't know why you brought in this extraneous issue of whether it's a "long term solution" into the discussion. No one was claiming it was in the first place. What people are saying is, Let's open ANWR (and other places like it) to drilling.