Environmentalism and Integrity

Once again I find myself using a blog post as a comment response to a Facebook conversation. This works out well though as I get to flesh out my ideas and thoughts. I will for the sake of continuity of reading paste the specific comment I am responding to. If you want to view the entire thread you may view it here.

“’There is nothing ‘clean and green’ about your efforts.’ is an outright lie. Environmentalists don't promote deep water drilling. But Palin promotes deep water drilling or do you forget 2008 when they were screaming ‘drill baby drill’

None of the oil drilled in the US belongs to the US it belongs to Corporations that can choose to sell it to Americans or choose to sell it to the Chinese. “

There was also part of the original comment that stated, “Wouldn’t be a Sarah Palin article if it wasn’t riddled with half truths and outright lies.”

This was in response to a portion of a previously posted comment of mine which included the request to “Please do me a favor and point out the outright lies in her message so I can research that myself. Preferably with sources.”

I had planned to respond to this a little sooner but it happened just as I was getting ready to head out on a cruise with my beautiful wife. It has given me a bit more time to consider a portion of my response. I started thinking about the charge of an author’s article being “riddled with half truths and outright lies.” The theme of Integrity has been on my mind a lot the last several weeks. After looking at great examples of integrity such as George Washington along with several other people in history and a few that I know personally, I have come to the decision that leveling a charge against someone’s integrity is the absolute most serious charge or claim you can make against a person. It goes to the very character of one’s soul. In my opinion you need to absolutely make sure you have all of your facts lined up straight before leveling such a charge and make sure those facts are indisputably verified. In regards to the specific example cited in the quote above, I believe I have addressed it logically below as part of my response.

How an oil lease works.

You lease your land to the company that has the ability to produce, or extract, the natural resource. They typically give you a percentage of what they sell the product for. It is the same for state and federal governments. YOU control access to the land, therefore YOU own the land and all minerals contained therein. A private company is given a lease to develop the resource and they pay a percentage of the money they make for your granting them access to the natural resource. Whether a private individual or a government, you would never see a single red cent from the natural resource unless it was developed. The company “producing” the natural resource is paying you to access the resource. You own the resource. Most leases are for a specific amount of time. Most also include clauses that say you can sell the lease to somebody else if they don’t develop the resource. As you, or in the case of government, the state, has control over the terms of the lease, and can even specify the amount of time the lease is good for, YOU OWN THE RESOURCE, NOT THE OIL OR GAS COMPANY. When the lease is up, they can no longer develop that resource. I know a lot of people say, a percentage (the average is up to 25%) really isn’t fair, but considering the immense cost to develop natural resources you score pretty good. You do none of the work but get a pretty good payday at the end of the day. Besides, 25% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_and_gas_law_in_the_United_States

Objective vs Subjective

Palin’s statement that the work of “Extreme” environmental groups is not green is subjective. My college humanities class that I just completed spoke about critics in the world of the humanities and using critical skills in real life. There are two types of observations a critic uses, those that are subjective, and those that are objective. Objective observations would be the factual ones such as “the movie was filmed in black and white.” Subjective observations would be one such as “that movie was lame.” Palin made a subjective criticism there which cannot fall into the realm of being an outright lie because she was not claiming to state a fact. She was using a subjective opinion to describe her view on the results of over 30 + years of environmental lawsuits that tie up the ability of developers who have been granted leases by the government to develop our natural resources so they cannot be developed. As a result, developers have had to go further out to areas where the “Extreme” environmentalists could care less.

Extreme vs Environmentalism

I would like to think most people view themselves as friendly to the environment and attempting to be good stewards of the resources God has blessed us with. It is something that Governor Palin has addressed several times. Yes we need to be responsible, but at the same time we cannot lock everything up so we can all have feel good tingles running down us. There is a difference in wanting to be a good steward over the environment and taking those views to the extreme. That is what Palin is addressing and she is well acquainted with it. The State of Alaska has been declared ground zero for extreme environmentalism. From people attempting to blow up pipelines to filing frivolous lawsuits, they see it there. There is this article documenting “extreme” environmentalism to this essay written showcasing how “Global Warming” has been elevated to that of a religion by those on the left.

While groups like Green Peace have moved farther to the extreme side in completely limiting and locking up even good land use, one of its cofounders, Patrick Moore had this to say about Nuclear Energy. In the same article he discusses the lack of dependability in using energy sources such as wind and solar. Because Mr. Moore has turned against the more “extreme” environmentalists and suggested common sense approaches to some of our energy and environment concerns, in true Alinsky fashion they have turned on him.

Domestic vs International Development

You mentioned that the oil companies can sell to the Chinese if they want to. That is very true. I could sell my Toyota corolla to the Chinese if I wanted to. Because of the terms of the lease, the developer can sell to whomever they want. However, most developers prefer to sell to locations that are much closer to where they are extracting the resource. Less cost involved. It’s a tenet of basic economics. That is why the Chinese are pursuing their own leases and production capabilities. Coincidentally they just inked a HUGE lease deal with Cuba. The Chinese will drill in the same waters that are affected by the current spill and based upon their STELLAR work safety record I am sure the Chinese will develop it much more environmentally friendly then we do our own resources. So, China will develop what they need for themselves and who is left to buy their surplus, oh yeah us. Not only will China control all of our national debt but they will control a large portion of the oil we then use.

Decreasing Consumption

This one is very simple. In order to decrease consumption of something you have to produce a viable alternative. Otherwise demand for the original product will never go down. Once again, it’s basic economics. How can you decrease the demand for oil if you do not have a viable alternative to it? Some alternatives have been looked at, but none of them are to the point where they can decrease demand because they are either too expensive or do not produce a true economic benefit for the consumer, i.e. save them money. Once an economically viable alternative is found, developed, able to be produced at a low enough cost that people can afford it, you still have to develop a national infrastructure to make use of it. I am a believer in developing and using alternative sources, but it is something that has to currently be a long term goal as neither a cost effective alternative nor the infrastructure exist to carry out such a plan. In regards to oil, you also have to look at all the things that are made from petroleum products. Even if we all drove rainbow powered cars you wouldn’t even make a dent in petroleum consumption. You would need to eliminate something like plastic. This means, no IV bags, no IV tubes for the hospitals, no Vaseline, etc. It means no effective packaging method to keep food fresh and inexpensive for the public, no tvs, no computers, no radios, pretty much most of the products used by the public would have to disappear or use less cost effective and less safer alternatives to meet that demand. Here is a partial list of items made from oil.

http://www.ranken-energy.com/Products%20from%20Petroleum.htm

Energy and the Environment are subjects I have tackled here, here, here, and partially here.

As always everyone, keep yourself informed and don't be afraid to speak out.

Energy Independance

It was interesting to hear somebody who has no plan to use great sources of clean energy, like nuclear, tout it in a speech which essentially was a bold faced lie. Yep, that is what you are getting out of the President and his progressive friends in Washington. More on that in a minute.

One of the biggest ongoing issues that creeps up now and then is energy independance. It seems the only time we pay attention to it is when oil prices go up. Then they have hearings on capitol hill, they grill the oil companies, and put on a big dog and pony show. To what end? All so they can look like they are doing something and keep the status quo. As soon as the energy prices naturally start to fall a bit, the public stops the complaining and moves on because they no longer see it as an issue.

The thing with energy is that it has to be addressed. Real solutions have to be implemented by people with the cajones to do it right. That is your standard issue with politicians, they don't want to stand up for anything unless it gets them immediate election returns.

So, how do we go about creating energy independence? Why do we need to do it?

How about we start with the why's first. We import a vast amount of our energy supplies. At least in the forms of oil and natural gas. This obviously adds to the cost of the end product. If we developed it ourselves it would be cheaper. Just a simple rule of economics. Many of the countries we get our oil from don't like us very much. Even if they feign affection. This presents national security implications. Besides, wouldn't it be better to keep all that cash in our own country? Our energy demands as a nation will continue to go up. That is just a natural consequence of an expanding people and a growing nation.

How do we create energy independence? It really is a two pronged approach. All you hear about in the media and the noisemakers is green energy. While I agree that we need to be responsible in our energy development and that fossil fuels won't last forever, I don't buy into the "climate change" hysteria. We have talked about it here before. All the brouhaha continues to be further and further discredited. That being said, we need to fast track and develop the natural resources we have right now and continue to explore and discover more. This will allow us an energy source that is homegrown while we work to develop economically viable energy alternatives. You cannot just cut off one and use government funds and mandates to develop the other. For a good example, look at Spain. For every green job their government funded, the economy lost 2.2 other jobs. That comes out to a net loss of 1.2 jobs.

There are several energy sources we can tap. We have great reserves of oil and natural gas in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. Don't be fooled by all the pictures of polar bears and elk prancing across grasslands. ANWR is like the deserts of Nevada with no plants or animals, just a bunch of ice and snow. It might make the snow fairies mad, but we need to develop it. Governor Palin showed a great use of tapping the resources in Alaska responsibly through the private sector. Not only have they expanded exploration and production for both oil and natural gas, they are in the midst of building a natural gas pipeline to bring all that energy to the rest of us. The environmentalists can complain all they want about pipeline projects decimating the ecology along their paths, but the facts show that life expanded along the current Alaska Oil Pipeline after it was built.

There are responsible ways to drill offshore. We are the best at environmentally safe ways of exploiting our natural resources. We need to free up the offshore areas so we can drill. If the state of California would learn from Alaska and allow more development off the coast, they would have a lot more money coming in instead of getting ready to file bankruptcy in April. You are not talking about rigs right on the beachline a mile off shore. You are talking about platforms several miles offshore. Hardly an eyesore. Plus, we are more responsible than any other country in the world when it comes to energy development. It would be safer for the trees and animals here than exploiting those resources in some third world country with no controls.

There are also great shale reserves in the mountain west. The technology has improved by leaps and bounds and continues to do so allowing us to extract this oil. It is reported that these shale reserves hold more oil than the fields in the middle east. They have also found vast reserves of oil in the upper midwest.

The great thing about tapping all of these sources is that it creates JOBS. It creates long term jobs for people in all sorts of fields. It also decreases the economic cost of energy. Of course, along with the increase in domestic production we also need to increase our refinery capacity so we can eliminate the costly bottle neck between the fields and the consumer.

As I mentioned, we all know that fossil fuels won't last forever. They may last us a couple hundred years or whatever, but we need to have a plan. One of the great sources of renewable and clean energy is nuclear. By ramping up our nuclear production it would once again create jobs, lower the cost of energy, and we would have a continuous supply. There was a great post about nuclear energy and the President's SOTU remarks posted today. It pretty much sums up that little topic mentioned at the beginning of this post. There was also this week some good discussion on Yucca Mountain.

While we wait for the cost of solar power to come down and finding the illusive spot on the earth where it is sunny 24/7 365, we need to use the resources we have been blessed with. They will tell you that it doesn't matter because those sources of energy won't be able to hit the market for like 10 years. That is one of the problems. Somebody needs to step up and say lets get going so we aren't having this same conversation 10 years from now. Also, the reason it takes so long is that the government creates too much red tape and beuacracy to get through, besides all the litigation from the environmentalists to do it. That is why it takes 10 years. For the companies that are just sitting on their leases. Tell them to start producing or you will revoke their lease and sell it to the highest bidder. They did that in Alaska and it worked wonders.

Car companies are working on viable alternatives to gasoline for vehicles. Some of the most promising work has been done with fuel cells. It would be a clean source of fuel. The biggest hurdle to overcome once they design a good cost efficient model, is the need for new types of stations to refuel your vehicle at.

Overall, the energy issue is something that can easily be solved by the free market. Companies are not going to push out a vehicle or product the people are going to hate. They will develop energy resources closer to their biggest consumers if given the opportunity. Other countries such as China seem to recognize this which is why their energy development is going full bore. They are even working with companies to drill oil in the Gulf of Mexico, our backyard.

Remember to keep yourself informed, and don't be afraid to speak out.