Please navigate to this website to sign the online petition asking Congress to (merely) open "exploration of proven energy reserves".
The exact quote of the request is:
"We, therefore, the undersigned citizens of the United States, petition the U.S. Congress to act immediately to lower gasoline prices by authorizing the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries."
This was the personal addendum to the forwarded request. I have removed all of the personal details.
My personal back story.
When I first arrived with my family in [somewhere] in April of 2000, the price of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.35.
I was followed into the 'Jiffy' gas station...by [a] photographer. The following morning [in the newspaper], my photo appeared on B1, during an unusual downturn in local gas prices, 10% lower than they were in [somewhere else] one day before.
At the time I knew gas prices were only destined to rise higher, who could have guessed that the prices would be just below $4.00 per gallon a mere 8 years later!!
We found that that environmental concerns (dire predictions of irreparable harm) were not only addressed with the drilling of Prudhoe Bay and the Alyeska Pipeline, but ultimately grew the migrating Caribou herds. Deafening silence could be their only response.
Plans to drill in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (A.N.W.A.R.) have much-enhanced plans to protect animal, vegetation and scenic wilderness resources over and far beyond those that succeeded beyond wildest estimations when the Alyeska Pipeline was completed in 1977. [For more firsthand facts, visit: http://www.alyeska-pipe.com/Default.asp]
Please consider a rational scientific approach to your own personal search for Truth in this matter. Do not become entangled in your genuine desire to do something good for the environment, while our worst enemies only celebrate our apparent paralysis, while reaping in vast wealth that serves only to fund our demise.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion even if I disagree with it, but I feel it's disingenuous to say that my opinion is "entangled" in my own "genuine desire to do something good for the environment", thereby automatically implying that my own opinions count for nothing because they are they somehow cannot be separated from my emotions, which by the way, is a purely feminine quality and one not fit for real men. This a good debate tactic, one that states it's opinion and simultaneously discredits the opposite while implying that I may be some kind of sissy-man, but it doesn't get us to any forward-thinking solutions or even compromises. Also, the evidence that I am being provided to make the informed decision that I would need to make in order to sign such a petition is questionable. I would be hard-pressed to believe everything that I read at the website that is owned by the company that runs the Alyeska Pipeline.
In the long run, there is more to think about with this issue than the construction of a pipeline, it's environmental impact, and our wallets. There is also the very real problem of carbon emissions and global warming. As far as I'm concerned, anyone in the professional scientific community who disagrees that the issue is real is either a corporate shill or has been bought by the current administration. Our previous method of fossil fuel dependency is no longer valid. We must move forward. We have the technology NOW to abandon fossil fuels and improve the prospects of our future family's lives, but it will take the efforts of the whole world to step in and do something about it. In the U.S., it will take the government's eliminating the safe legal havens for the oil companies. With the condition of the market, why are they still seeing record profits? We had an electric car on the roads a decade ago, the EV-1, but it was quickly and mysteriously squashed. If we want to talk about signing petitions, how about the U.S. catching up with the rest of the world and signing the Kyoto Protocol. We cannot be so arrogant as to think that we can decide the fate of the entire planet unilaterally. We are not the rootenest tootenest cowpokes on the block.
If I haven't made it abundantly clear, I will not be signing any petitions for what I think is an irresponsible and short-sighted Band-Aid solution.
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3 comments:
Who do you think you are, thinking for yourself? :-)Only tangentially related, I found < HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/us/30grease.html?em&ex=1212379200" REL="nofollow">this story<> in the NY Times quite interesting, particularly since I had never heard of "yellow grease" nor had I considered such a thing to be useful as an alternative energy source!
Right on! You've got my vote! ;-D
Thanks vernicus. Interesting article. I must say, as someone not in the restaurant or grease recycling business, I find it difficult to care, especially if the grease is finding its way into the engines that the article mentions. But, I can understand the troubling feelings that thefts like that can cause, especially if they are indeed stealing something that isn't just being thrown away.
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