A quick political posting. Yesterday the House of Representatives actually voted to remove drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from the budget, which is awesome news. The main argument cited for drilling has been to decrease dependency on foreign oil, which seems suspect given that the same politicans are unwilling to support raising fuel economy standards, an action that would save vastly more oil than ANWR will ever produce. Spoiling one of the most amazing places I’ve ever seen for what appears to be simply a quick financial windfall doesn’t seem justified to me when better options are available.
In a similar vein, Exxon-Mobil is now the only major oil company still pushing for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Sierra Club is calling for a boycott of Exxon, something I think is worth supporting. While companies like BP are heavily investing in alternative energy sources, Exxon seems to be taking a different approach. For my part I’d rather see my $3.00 per gallon go elsewhere.
The comments link is available for anyone wanting to argue these points, but please do so with reasonable facts — the best argument I could find online about why drilling was better than raising the CAFE standards was “…raising CAFE standards would not increase America’s energy supply by a single barrel…” Drill = (maybe) find 3.2 billion barrels. CAFE = save a minimum of one million barrels each day. Anyone who can explain why drilling is the better option gets a cookie.
i think i accidentally overwrote your posting josh. i clicked a button, and then i refreshed a page, then touched my little finger to my ear, and after that your post was gone. sorry about that… for what it’s worth, even though drunken viewings of masterpiece theatre are important, i’m still gonna buy my gas from someone other than exxon-mobil. if you want i’ll write to shell & bp and see if maybe they can sponsor masterpiece theatre for you, then all will be well with the world.