Posted on 06/13/2008 5:08:06 AM PDT by Kaslin
Sen. John McCain said this week he would not drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for the same reason he "would not drill in the Grand Canyon ... I believe this area should be kept pristine."
Pristine means unspoiled, virginal, in an original state.
One wonders how pristine the Grand Canyon can be if it has roughly 5 million visitors every year, rafting, hiking, picnicking and riding mules up one side and down the other. Campfires, RVs and motels that do not conjure the word "virginal" ring around large swaths of it.
This isn't to say that the Grand Canyon isn't a beautiful place; it inspires awe among those who visit it. ANWR (pronounced "AN-wahr) inspires awe almost entirely in those who haven't been there. It is an environmental Brigadoon or Shangri-La, a fabled land almost no one will ever see. That is its appeal. People like the idea that there are still Edens "out there" even if they will never, ever see them.
Indeed, if Americans could visit the north coast of Alaska, as I have, as easily as they can visit the Grand Canyon, the oil would be flowing by now.
ANWR is roughly the size of South Carolina, and it is spectacular. However, the area where, according to Department of Interior estimates, some 5.7 billion to 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil reside is much smaller and not necessarily as awe-inspiring. It would amount to the size of Dulles airport.
Question for McCain: Has South Carolina been ruined because it has an airport?
Most of the images of the proposed drilling area that people see on the evening news are misleading precisely because they tend to show the glorious parts of ANWR, even though that's not where the drilling would take place. Even when they position their cameras in the right location, producers tend to point them in the wrong direction. They point them south, toward the Brooks mountain range, rather than north, across the coastal plain where the drilling would be.
In summer, the coastal plain is mostly mosquito-plagued tundra and bogs. (The leathernecks at Prudhoe Bay joke that "life begins at 40" - because at 40 degrees, clouds of mosquitoes and other pests take flight from the ocean of puddles). In the winter, it reaches 70 degrees below zero (not counting wind chill, which brings it to 120 below) and is in round-the-clock darkness.
A few years back, Jimmy Carter wrote of proposed drilling in ANWR in the New York Times: "The roar alone - of road-building, trucks, drilling and generators - would pollute the wild music of the Arctic and be as out of place there as it would be in the heart of Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon."
The roads are made from ice, hence constructed in winter, doing no permanent damage to the environment. As for the discordant notes such activity would introduce to the Arctic symphony, I don't know whether a falling tree makes a sound if no one is there to hear it, but I suspect that the "wild music" of the Arctic in winter is only euphonious to those - like Carter - who are not actually there to hear it.
Even in summer, people who actually live on the north coast of Alaska, like the residents of Kaktovik (just three miles north of the coastal plain where drilling might take place) overwhelmingly think good jobs in their backyard is music to their ears.
Meanwhile, is the "music" of the Grand Canyon really so pristine? Babies crying, kids chasing lizards, campers laughing, donkeys braying, cars honking: Why does this not trouble the consciences of Carter and McCain?
Perhaps it's because the analogy between ANWR and the Grand Canyon is spurious on its face. "Pristine," after all, is not synonymous with beautiful (there are ugly virgins), and "well-trafficked" is not the same as ugly (millions of people have seen the Sistine Chapel).
Indeed, before the age of environmental Romanticism had captured elite opinion in this country, such analogies didn't pass the laugh test. Both the New York Times and Washington Post editorial boards enthusiastically supported drilling in ANWR in the late 1980s. The Post noted that the area "is one of the bleakest, most remote places on this continent, and there is hardly any other where drilling would have less impact on surrounding life. ..." To say such things today is to unforgivably pollute the inane music of groupthink. And that's something even the "maverick" McCain will not do.
It might even be drinkable if a Belgium Beer company buys it :o)
“I think I understand your point, but could you elucidate please? My position is that given the freedoms to persue resource, free markets can resolve the problems.”
I’m been in this discussion several times on FR, but the pretense is that the international oil market is a free market. It’s not, and hasn’t been since the OPEC boycotts of the 1970s. And with political realities surrounding the Middle East and developing nations which export oil, the crude oil market will never be a free market.
There is no free market in crude oil, and there never will be before it dwindles as our primary energy source. And the politics in the USA also prevents it from being a free market, as we see illustrated every day recently. So, the manipulated crude market was never the answer to our energy needs, let along our need for some degree of energy independence.
And with US production potential so restricted by the concerns of environmental extremists, there’s not much hope of a better situation any time soon.
Here’s where I get in trouble on FR. Carter was right about one thing: he recognized the need for a real energy policy. Then Reagan scrapped it all and said the markets would take care of the problem. It seemed to as long as there was excess supply and the Saudis were very accommodating. But the political realities never changed, and now we’re paying the price for never adopting a real energy policy that would have mandated that we have the capacity to produce all, or some high percentage of our own needs. - The nation was of a mindset to accept an energy policy in the early ‘80s, but the opportunity was missed in favor of market solutions we’re still waiting on.
Of course, a real energy policy would have involved developing our own domestic crude resources until viable alternatives were developed. So, the left prevented that and some on the right pretended markets would provide the solutions. They haven’t so far.
And, here we are at $140 per barrel and $4.00 per gallon as a solution.
Reign them in tweak them but believe me someone from a country who suffers from this you will never reverse them because politicians from all parties will fear that the masses will revolt if they take away what they see as privileges.
Do not let it get any more of a foot hold it has already got Obama and his ilk must be stopped.
The Only Posative thing about the Idiots in Govt. who resist Drilling, is that They and all Democrats in America will also suffer the results of their stupidity...
All the Morons who follow the High Priest Al Gore and Drink His Co2 kool-aid...will have to pay the same as We do at the Gas Pumps.
They not only will destroy the economy for Us, But they will destroy it for themselves.
I have read that there is already wells there, drilled in the 1980’s and capped off, ready to pump oil now. and that there is enough Oil in ANWR to stop our dependency on Arab oil for 60 Years.
Gas should cost $1.49 a Gallon But Democrats are destroying the American Economy and the Stupid Sheeple of that Party deserve what they voted for.
Thank you for your thoughts.
The price of gas has far more to do with the falling value of the dollar than the availability of oil.
Of course, nobody wants to discuss that.
I like that term so much I don't know where to begin...
I’m not saying the potential from ANWR is trivial.
I’m saying the potential from ANWR is being abused into overblown rhetoric.
Yes, it would help.
For now, its value seems more symbolic for political purposes than actual for commercial purposes.
We have listened to these excuses for decades.
This is where you begin to touch on the epistemological solipsism of the enviro-weenie leftist. In some it is so profound as to be a mental illness (how many times have you shaken your head in complete and utter astonishment at leftist "logic").
Just as the enviro-weenie can't establish anything like a rational comparison between his life (or our lives) and the lifespan of the Earth, so can he neither understand that his polluted urban landscape is a tiny flyspeck on the face of the continental U.S. To the enviro-weenie, it's the Bronx or South Boston or LA from sea to shining sea, with small wilderness enclaves that must be protected against the raping and pillaging of big business and particularly by Republicans and George Bush.
These are the same monomaniacs who believe Valdez AK is symbolized by a dead fish (in fact it's one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world), and that polar bears are becoming marooned on icebergs.
Ask an enviro-weenie to take a cross-country flight and report back on the number of Wal-Mart parking lots they spotted from the air, versus farmland, forests, and open country. It will train them to exercise the powers of proportion.
The Alaska Pipeline is presently at half capacity and could only move 500K to 1M BBL per day more from ANWR.
That’s not trivial, but neither is it “the solution”.
I agree entirely that ANWR has more of a symbolic value, which is really the shameless mendacity of the enviro-weenies versus the very pragmatic and factual concerns of most Americans, in this case the larger issue of domestic drilling.
As with global warming, it’s the struggle of lies against truth.
“For now, its value seems more symbolic for political purposes than actual for commercial purposes.”
But my point is there will be NO one solution, so we need ANWR and five or six more of similar potential output, or more likely dozens more smaller finds to come into productivity.
It is symbolic, but it’s also one of our two or three biggest known crude oil fields.
If the natural gas and ANWR were developed at the time, 1976, it would be past tense, would have been flowed along with Prudhoe and blown out the tailpipe by now and there still wouldn't be coal to liquid plants.
“In some it is so profound as to be a mental illness (how many times have you shaken your head in complete and utter astonishment at leftist “logic”).”
All true, and I think it serves as a substitute religion for some who reject traditional beliefs, but still need the sense of purpose of religious beliefs, so they become world savers and set out to save the world from the plunder of man.
Some are just plain nuts who must have something to make them feel important and to give their lives some grandiose meaning.
I once saw a web page I believe sponsored by the state of Alaska and it showed the actual drill site and a four direction view and it was rocks as far as you can see in every direction, another story from an Alaska paper I think said the Russians were paying the enviros to sue the US government using the environmental laws to block oil exploration. A couple of weeks ago I heard a representative who had recently flown over the drill site said their was not even a blade of grass growing within 70nm miles of the site. So much for grassing Caribou.
I would like to be able to vote for this old coot in November, only because the alternative is unspeakable. But every time he uses this insufferably insulting and stupid statement, I remember why I keep pitching his fundraising letters in the trash.
I don't expect MCCain to be exceptionally intelligent. Just a bit above average in judgment will do. But this ignorant obduracy garnished with assinine arrogance is simply indigestible.
ping to a pre-tea party semi-prophetic quote u made ibn 08... ha!
The remaining North Slope oil is somewhat heavy, and hard to make flow through the Alaska pipeline. ANWR oil promises to be light crude that will flow easily. Mixing the two will allow the heavy crude to be transported more easily.
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