So very true, it's a bullshit intimidation campaign led by the same people who claimed that invading Iraq would lower the cost of oil...

It also must be noted that the leased but as yet undrilled tracts also serve a useful energy company purpose. They inflate the energy extractive companies claimed petroleum reserves thereby inflating their (stock market) share prices. The current bullshit campaign is about creating additional "reserves" for the energy giants by claiming that additional leases would translate into lower prices sometime "soon" in the future. Don't get taken in by the con. It was always about them and never about the good of the consumer...

Jim Et Al,

So very true, it's a bullshit intimidation campaign led by the same people who claimed that invading Iraq would lower the cost of oil...

Jimbo: please tell us who said that invading Iraq would lower the cost of oil? I was a big believer in the necessity of deposing Saddam Hussein, but I sure can't remembder ANYBODY saying that it would lower the cost of oil.

To the contrary, it was widely assumed that Saddam would set fire and/or booby trap his own oil wells and pipelines as the invasion of Iraq started.

Jenni: you can't actually believe that any oil company is refusing to drill on "leased but as yet undrilled tracts" of land because of some complex conspiracy. Keep in mind that oil prices bounced on either side of $15/barrel for most of the 80's and 90's: it's now more than 900% higher! If $140/barrel oil isn't enough incentive to go looking for more oil, then what would you suggest that Big Oil is waiting for?

I can only think of two rational explanations:

A). They believe they are unlikely to find much oil there, based on the known geological data.

or

B). They have higher priority projects elsewhere.

or

C). They are still reacting to the rapidly rising prices (translation: projects that weren't feasible a year ago are looking more doable at $140/bbl).

Finally, I've always enjoyed Monday morning quarterbacking politics and sports: but I don't think Monday morning wildcatting is going to be half as much fun. If you think you can do a better job of finding oil, then start a company of your own and see if you can persuade somebody to invest $20 o $30 million for you to drill a couple of holes. Maybe you'll get lucky and make a bundle; maybe you'll realize that Exxon and Chevron (and all the smaller exploration and production companies) take lots of risks and drill lots of holes that never pay off for them.

I think we should use our own oil as much as possible, but the oil companies need to change their attitude. They shouldn't b making such large profits while everybody else suffers (besides their other issues).

The 800 pound gorilla in the room is that the more oil we find and drill the worse global climate change will be. We need to get off carbon-based fuels yesterday and the way down that path is by:

1. eliminating subsidies and tax breaks to carbon-based energy companies.
2. levying a carbon tax that offsets other taxes.
3. spurring investment in alternative energy research and development that does not go to the current carbon-based energy companies. (We should actively work to reduce the economic and political clout of these companies.)
4. adopting and implementing the Apollo Alliance plan as our national energy policy.

There's more we could do, but this would be a start.

mike austin: ... oil we find and drill the worse global climate change will be. JK: Let me ask a simple question: Where do I find the evidence that CO2 actually causes dangerous warming from today’s levels? Absent that evidence (and evidence that man’s emissions are increasing the CO2 levels), there is no justification to force people off of carbon energy.

I am not asking to be a smart ass, no one seems to have this evidence! But I did find the following peer reviewed papers:

“... temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide are significantly correlated over the past thirty years. Changes in carbon dioxide content lag those in temperature by five months.” (NATURE . VOL—343 '7 22 FEBRUARY 1990, pg 709; bold added)

“We propose that the recent disproportionate rise and fall in CO, growth rate were caused mainly by interannual variations in global air temperature (which altered both the terrestrial biospheric and the oceanic carbon sinks), and possibly also by precipitation. “(NATURE • VOL 375, 666; bold added)

“Over the full 420 ka of the Vostok record, CO2 variations lag behind atmospheric temperature changes in the Southern Hemisphere by 1.3+/-1.0 ka ,” (Quaternary Science Reviews 20 (2001) 583 -589; bold added)

Even RealClimate.com, run by a NASA “scientist” closely associated with, Jim Hansen said this:

At least three careful ice core studies have shown that CO2 starts to rise about 800 years (600-1000 years) after Antarctic temperature during glacial terminations. (realclimate.org/index.php?p=13; bold added) (they then go on to explain how CO2 could cause further warming after, something unknown started the warming. Of course the original, something unknown could merely continue!) Thanks JK

Hatchachoochie: please tell us who said that invading Iraq would lower the cost of oil?

Here's one example (emphasis added by me):

Laurence Lindsey, President Bush’s senior economic advisor at the time — argued in 2002 that the Iraq war would increase oil supplies and lower prices. From the Washington Times, 9/19/02:

As for the impact of a war with Iraq, “It depends how the war goes.” But he quickly adds that that “Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits that would come from a successful prosecution of the war.”

“The key issue is oil, and a regime change in Iraq would facilitate an increase in world oil,” which would drive down oil prices, giving the U.S. economy an added boost.

All politicians and the general public have been asleep at the switch for the past 35 years. What many forget is that Prudoe Bay and the alaska Pipeline actually came about as a result of the first oil "crisis" in the early 1970's. Of course it was also privately financed and came in on budget and on time.

That aside, drilling is not the universal panacea some would have us believe. But.... it is a part of a comprehensive energy policy that the US has been sorely lacking since the mid 70's. A reasonable combination of wind, solar, tidal, nuclear and drilling will help us transition away from foreign oil AND carbon based fuels.

With directional and longitudinal drilling many fields can be opened up without risk to damage of so-called environmentally sensitive areas. Not wholesale drilling, but areas like the Santa Barbara Channel, where Coal Oil Point (wonder where they got that name) has reserves of almost a billion barrels and it is so close to the surface that it naturally seeps into the water and along the coast line.

Unfortunately, NIMBYISM is alive and well like the Kennedy's of their famous compound and even some lining up in Oregon to fight tidal energy demonstration projects.

No, wholesale drilling isn't the answer. Some reasonable drilling in the US for known deposits is part of a comprehensive energy picture.

Communism is alive and well on this blog. Stop buying gas if you hate the "big profits" the oil companies are making. I would suspect, if you were making those "big profits" in your own lives, you would not be sharing the wealth with your fellow travelers. Read what Gingrich is saying and pretend it was written by one of your Cummunist heroes like Chomsky or Paul Wellstone, and then tell us all that it is a ridiculous notion.

JK: Let me ask a simple question: Where do I find the evidence that CO2 actually causes dangerous warming from today’s levels? Absent that evidence (and evidence that man’s emissions are increasing the CO2 levels), there is no justification to force people off of carbon energy.

In an ideal world, one would investigate the evidence for all the contentious claims, examine both sides, fill in any gaps in one's knowledge, and choose a side. For innumerable reasons, this isn't practical. So, as with virtually all technical knowledge, it really comes down to: who do you trust? The majority of the world's climate scientists or the institutes backed by the oil, gas, and coal industries? For me, this is a no-brainer.

(I understand that we can't "get off carbon-based fuels yesterday" or even anytime in the next few decades, if ever. Still...)

But, on a more philosophical level, taking drastic steps now to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels is really the conservative approach, isn't it? If we take these steps and we're wrong, then the oil is still there to drill and it becomes part of a greatly expanded energy mix. As very significant pluses, we've reduced our dependence on foreign oil; we've created many thousands of good-paying jobs in the U.S.; we've reduced our balance of payments; we've reduced indirect funding of terrorist groups; we've decentralized our energy infrastructure; we've (hopefully) reduced the power and influence of the current energy cartel; we've stimulated the development of new technologies that will have enormous ripple effects on our society moving forward into the future; and we've helped to heal some of the tremendous ill-will that we have created with much of the rest of the world in the past 50 years.

If the alarmists are right and we have not done enough, then the results are catastrophic beyond imagining. If ocean levels rise even to the moderate-worst-case levels, millions of Americans will be forced to move to higher ground. Hundreds of thousands (millions?) of homes and businesses will be flooded and will have to be rebuilt somewhere else. I dare say that this will be orders of magnitude more disruptive to our economy and our way of life than a crash-conversion to a less carbon-based energy infrastructure. Multiply this worldwide and the economic losses are what - tens of trillions of dollars? Imagine all those people in Bangladesh having to move to higher ground. Where are they going to go...

If we wait for definitive proof that even the deniers must finally accept, it will possibly be too late.

Mike Austin: In an ideal world, one would investigate the evidence for all the contentious claims, examine both sides, fill in any gaps in one's knowledge, and choose a side. For innumerable reasons, this isn't practical. So, as with virtually all technical knowledge, it really comes down to: who do you trust? JK: Have you even bothered to look at any facts? 1. How does the FACT that, timewise, temperature leads CO2 affect the conclusion that cutting CO2 will control temperature? 2. How does the fact that the warmers have failed to make accurate predictions affect your faith in them. (And it IS faith that you are exhibiting.) Just 20 years ago NASA’s Jim Hansen presented congress with a prediction of dramatic future warming. It shows today’s temperature from 0.2 to 0.6 degree higher then 20 years ago. Guess what? Today’s temperature is lower than 20 years ago by the best data we have.

Mike Austin: The majority of the world's climate scientists or the institutes backed by the oil, gas, and coal industries? For me, this is a no-brainer. JK: You mean great scientists like Al Gore who is raking in millions in speaking fees. And more millions in profits from his green investments? And who stands to make millions more trading carbon credits. Or perhaps you mean big time alarmist Jim Hansen who got a $250,000 prize from John Kerry’s wife’s Heinz foundation? Or the myriad of other warmers who are getting fat on the $5 BILLION annual government grants to study climate (most of which would go away if they actually told the truth about climate.) Yep a no-brainer.

Mike Austin: If we wait for definitive proof that even the deniers must finally accept, it will possibly be too late. JK: And what proof would you accept that you have been letting the wrong people think for you?

So sad to see an American refuse to think. You would have been right at home in Germany in the 1930s or Cuba or N. Korea today. (That is a hint where a nation of non-thinkers ends up.)

Thanks JK

2. How does the fact that the warmers have failed to make accurate predictions affect your faith in them.

It doesn't. The vast, vast majority of predictions never come exactly true, and the more specific the prediction, the lower the likelihood of its coming to pass.

You may be right and you may have the facts on your side. As I pointed out in my post - and you apparently glossed over - if you're right and we've taken steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then the outcome is still good. If you're wrong and we've done nothing, then the results are potentially catastrophic.

Scientists argue about "facts" all the time. It's their primary activity. It doesn't diminish their work in the slightest. They understand that these arguments will eventually lead to a consensus. On the subject of climate change, there is a consensus in spite of the problems you point out with the "facts".

My point is that working to reduce our carbon footprint is a good thing in and of itself, even if you're right and most of the world's climate scientists are wrong.

JK: You mean great scientists like Al Gore who is raking in millions in speaking fees.

Do you have any idea how idiotic you sound? Al Gore didn't make this stuff up. He consulted and read the work of real scientists, not the ones who work at the oil industry-funded think tanks. You know this, or should, if you're a "thinker". What's the point of this comment?

So sad to see an American refuse to think. You would have been right at home in Germany in the 1930s or Cuba or N. Korea today. (That is a hint where a nation of non-thinkers ends up.)

You're a real class act...

Mike Austin: It doesn't. The vast, vast majority of predictions never come exactly true, and the more specific the prediction, the lower the likelihood of its coming to pass. JK: A hypotheses that cannot make successful predictions is JUST PLAINWRONG. The warmers can’t make successful predictions therefore they are wrong. Simple. Basis of science.

Mike Austin:... if you're right and we've taken steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then the outcome is still good. JK: Since when is wrecking the economy “still good”? Make no mistake the draconian measures you are buying into will destroy millions of people. Its, just that the people you are letting think for you haven’t told you this yet. Or do you look forwards to Oregon losing up to 47,000 jobs, a loss of up to $7000 per household and a loss of over $7 BILLION in Oregon’s gross product? (per NAM, 2007)

Mike Austin: On the subject of climate change, there is a consensus in spite of the problems you point out with the "facts". JK: Consensus? PROVE IT. BTW Naomi’s paper is easily proven wrong, so do don’t try to it.

Mike Austin: My point is that working to reduce our carbon footprint is a good thing in and of itself, even if you're right and most of the world's climate scientists are wrong. Does this mean the you subscribe to Maurice Strong’s delusion: “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t our responsibility to bring that about?”

Mike Austin: Al Gore didn't make this stuff up. JK: Actually he DID make that stuff up. For instance, a Britich court found that he exaggerated a bunch of stuff. Link to the decision: newparty.co.uk/articles/inaccuracies-gore.html

Mike Austin: You're a real class act... JK: Thanks.

Thanks JK