Everyone from Bush on down is yelling about how drilling for off-shore oil, or destroying the ANWR to dig there is going to ease the prices at the pump we all pay for gas. People aren’t thinking. You don’t pull gasoline out of the ground. Crude that has to be converted to gas is pulled out, if they are lucky & hit the right spot.
With the refineries running at 100%, those that BIG OIL hasn’t closed to make a bigger profit, we could see some relief from the pain at the pump in how many years?
Yeah, I feel the pinch. Everyday. Because of the propensity of people to steal gas from a full tank, the tank in the van is not kept full. They put $30.00 a day in it. Into a service van that gets maybe 12 to 15 miles to the gallon. At least it can use regular gas. Unlike their motorcycles, that have to have “super” to run properly. There is the saving grace that we pay a little less than $4.00 a gallon. Not much, but it is less. And it isn’t a mini-van. You ever tried to put sewer equipment into a mini-van? Plus tools, shovels, ladders, pipe, & other bits of stock. It’s a big van, & comes complete with the obnoxious back-up warning noise.
Part of the pitch to open ANWR is the smaller footprint drilling leaves with today’s technology. Uh huh. How about the destruction to the wildlife that live there? I believe it would be indirect damage to them, direct damage to the habitat they live in. They wouldn’t be damaged by the trucks belching out diesel fumes, or the planes & their exhaust? How about the careless people who are everywhere?
Investing in solar or wind power is a preferable option, but that too is years away, thanks to the fossil fuel proponents that have inhabited Washington for so many years. Fuel cells could have been worked on, but the money that could have gone for that has gone into someones pocket instead. Or to fight a senseless war.
A comment was made to me yesterday that at least we have a business based on a “useful” trade, something that’s always needed. Plumbers. No, it isn’t glamorous, but they’re always needed. Too bad that between the jobs being sent overseas, the vehicle plants that are being closed because nobody can afford a new gas hog, & the rising of all other costs, they can’t afford anything but emergency services. So we’ve felt the loss of business too. Even some of the commercial work, as the big corporations are trying to save money.
I don’t know that there is an immediate solution to the pain at the pump. I seriously don’t think there is. We can send people to the OPEC nations with our collective hat in hand, & it won’t do any good. They (OPEC) like the money they are raking in. They will lower their price only when their product use has lessened. Given the industrial growth in China & India, I don’t see that happening. I even saw on the news somewhere that the Chinese government is subsidizing the cost of gas, so the end consumer pays only part of the cost. They aren’t paying full cost for what they use, hence they have no reason to slow down using it.
We need to invest in technology to lessen our use, once & for all, of fossil fuels, & end our dependence on them. Stop destroying the planet & all the inhabitants, just to use oil & coal.
I got here by googling on Billy Mays. I don’t care if he was handing out $100 bills in the town square, I wouldn’t take anything from this tool. But now that I’m here… It’s too bad that our oil is in all those foreign countries — Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran. The obvious answer here is to invade and take OUR oil.
[...] think that Karen pretty much summed it up here. [...]
AS SEEN ON TV!
I trust that Tom is being sardonic.
In other news, I notice a huge irony that someone would come to your place by googling Billy Mays.
I will not let you live that down.
It’s stuck to you like Gorilla Glue.
Do you environmentalists just get a warm feeling knowing there’s this untouched area of the world even though nobody ever goes there? Kind of a “if a tree falls in the woods” sort of question.
Should we boycott oil from other areas like Canada, Venezuela or Saudi Arabia because of the eco-damage also?
I’ve seen the oil fields in West Texas. I’ve seen the refineries in Houston, & tried to breathe the air there. That’s what the proponents of fossil fuels want to expand, no matter what the damage to people, after all the wildlife is obliterated. All for the love of the dollar.
Man was originally given dominion over the animals that were put here before we were. Not the right to destroy them. Destroy their habitats, destroy them. It’s happening here all the time. People insist on building in “the wilderness” then kill the wildlife that was here before the developers who are in search of the almighty dollar.
How about changing the fossil fuel thinking to something that’s not only renewable, (NOT food based) but is clean too? Such as wind, hydro-electric, or solar. If that happened, the only losers would be the fossil fuel stock holders in search of the dollar.
Developement of clean, renewable energy would end this country’s dependence on imports, wouldn’t it?