One aspect of the current race for president that I feel very strongly about deals with drilling for oil, whether it be on the continental shelf, or in the ANWR in Alaska. To me, there is no reason not to do this, but there are multiple sides to each argument.
Environmentalists use the acronym "ANWR" to define the 19.5 million acre refuge will be developed for energy. Actually, the area at issue covers only 1.5 million acres and it is termed the "10-02 Area" refering to a section legislation expanding ANWR -- the Alaskan National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which designated land for "oil and gas exploration." Only 2,000 acres of the 10-02 Area are to be used for the permanent "infrastructure", that meaning the pipelines, oil wells, etc. The10-02 area is neither a refuge or wilderness, and definitely not that "pretty" despite constant claims by the environmentalists.
The United States Geological Survey has estimated ANWR holds a mean estimate of 10.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil. I heard the statistic on the radio show I worked for this summer that that would be enough oil to supply us for at least 50-75 years.
I'm not saying that we need to completely rely on oil, because obviously it is a limited supply that absolutely can't be relied on. I'm saying that it doesn't do anybody any good just sitting there not being used. Assuming that my statistic is correct, it would give us that much more time to come up with other alternatives to be distributed to the public. I'm also not a fan of huge gas prices.
Finally getting to my article that I found on the Drudge Report several days ago, it shows that we can atleast get some temporary relief from prices, get some money back, and buy more time for more alternatives, and get people to get these alternatives. There are some people that don't have easy access to gas and the such, and there is a good quote in this article about that.
"Sam Shields, who lives in the Kuskokwim River town of Bethel, said the state money is desperately needed in his community, where he recently saw a whole chicken selling for $23 at the local grocery store."
and
"When it gets real cold in winter, it can take five gallons of fuel for heating overnight," said Wanda Sue Page, who lives in the Arctic village of Noatak, where residents pay more than $9 a gallon for gasoline and nearly $10 a gallon for heating oil."
To sum up my argument, I'll finish with the final line of the article, which shows that the money that these people are getting is going to go right back to where it came from.
"Everyone around here was happy to hear how much we're getting," he said. "Mainly everybody here is saying they're going to use it on fuel."
Bibliography
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D930QBHGA&show_article=1 -main article
http://www.aim.org/guest-column/drill-anwr-realism-over-emotion/ -stats and numbers on ANWR
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I agree with your post. We need to start drilling for oil anywhere that it is possible. I know that we are looking for alternative resources but there will always be uses for oil. Also we need to start worrying about our future. I keep hearing people say that drilling is not going to help our problem that we have now. Well what about tomorrow. If we dont start sometime are kids will be facing the same problems!
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