June 13, 2008
Can't Drill Our Way Out Of It
At first blush I didn't much care for the response that we "can't drill our way out of" high gas prices, but then I read the full text of Sen. Obama's remarks and was somewhat mollified. But then I thought for a moment, and I was back to thinking the remarks are wrong:
"If we reduce our consumption of oil, that's what will reduce gas prices, the presumptive Democratic nominee said in a one-on-one interview with The Post-Crescent during a campaign stop in Kaukauna."There's really no other way of doing it."
"We can't drill our way out of the problem because there's just a finite amount of oil out there and you have got increasing demand from countries like China and India."
Ok, so what's my beef. Well for one thing, back when I took my Econ 101 class from a Marxist I learned that both a decrease in demand and an increase in supply will lower cost. So to say that a decrease in consumption (i.e. demand) is the only way is flat wrong. But I was temporarily molified by his modifier that there's just a finite amount of oil out there. And then I thought and realized that there is just a finite amount of anything out there (wherever you draw your boundary since ultimately the Universe is a closed system) so really the only time that makes any sense is if you are currently up against a limit in your ability to increase supply.
Are we there? No way, not with all the oil in the US that is politically out of reach, and the refining capacity we don't have because of political considerations, and the inefficiency in the government oil producers which control most of the oil right now, we could increase supply without much difficulty. So in the short term, i.e. my lifetime, we can in fact "drill our way out of it". In the long term, the economics of something else will make more sense than oil and we will switch over to that. Again and again.
So while I wait with anticipation for solar energy to get cheap and efficient enough to power all our energy needs, I say drill away.
Civic Hubris or Keep Your Opinions To Yourself
So I'm at Google News about to search for an article to link for the entry I want to write and I have to read about the flooding in Cedar Rapids - last summer when we went to Northern Tier a good chunk of the drive through Iowa was along the Cedar River - and I come across this:
Most of downtown Cedar Rapids was underwater. That includes City Hall, the county courthouse and jail, all of which, in acts of civic hubris, were built on an island in the middle of the river.
Um, so "in acts of civic hubris" is part of a straight news story now? And from the New York Times, which is located on Manhattan, which is an island in the middle of two rivers. Funny, did the New York Times call New Orleans an act of civic hubris, seeing as how the parts of it that flooded from Katrina are below the river they are right next to? I just want to know what the standard is for civic hubris.
June 6, 2008
Today's Quote: A Trio From Mencken
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong."
"The men the American public admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."
"I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time."
--------------- H.L. Mencken (I'm guessing after a politician was nominated to run for President)
