re: #238 lostlakehiker

Yeah, we could drill ANWR and get some oil. We probably should. The pipeline there is already built, and it was very expensive, and if we don’t get new oil to feed it, it’ll freeze up. It’s a bad idea to write off expensive infrastructure.

But drilling baby drilling won’t make much difference. ANWR is a drop in the bucket. World oil prices won’t even wiggle.

Long term? The problem is now a near-term problem. Oil supplies are going to be tight from here on in, and that’s putting to the side a problem that cannot really be put aside: there’s no safe place to put the CO2.

The only point of drilling would be that in order to build the new wind/solar/nuclear infrastructure we must quickly put in place, we have to use oil. For the time being, even the best policy involves large scale use of oil as a motor vehicle fuel and as feedstock to the chemical industry.

Yeah. It’s very easy to dismiss anyone who opposes ANWR drilling as a naive, but there is no bloody point to pretending that just drilling will solve our problems. We need a plan. If ANWR needs to be part of that, we can discuss it, but just fantasizing that a little more oil will see us through is silly.