Anyone interested in FIXING the oil addiction here, or is it more important to "get back" at BP?

[newtothegame]

From a Yahoo! article I was reading this morning:

"BP — and its Deepwater Horizon partners — including Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL - News) — have a lot of questions to answer. They may have cut corners. They have apparently not been candid about the size of the leak. They certainly seem to have mismanaged the crisis.

Yet the real question isn't why this disaster has happened. It's why it doesn't happen more often.
A mile under water it's pitch black and the pressure is 150 times greater than on the surface. No one had any contingency plans.

BP wasn't drilling down there for its own amusement. As long as we demand oil, and we refuse to allow more drilling where it would be safer, this is going to happen."


When I look at the pictures of those animals, I get pissed at BP. REALLY PISSED. I want them to pay. But an even more powerful driving emotion is the desire to keep this from happening again.

I realize that some people here don't want to have any discussion that doesn't focus on how bad BP is, and that's fine, if you need to hate BP to get your rocks off. But the reality is, we've contributed to this situation ourselves, by demanding oil but in an even louder voice DEMANDING THAT IT NOT BE DRILLED AND COLLECTED ANYWHERE NEAR US.

We're certainly not going to allow more drilling where it's safer; that much has been made clear from the protests against continental drilling over the last 50 years. The "not-in-my-backyard" syndrome. Thus, we HAVE to get over this addiction, and NOW, or else we're asking for this to happen again. And again. And again.

[mike_c]

1. one would think that we could do both....

I'm just sayin'.

[MineralMan]

2. Well, that's a heckuva good idea.

Listen to President Obama's speech this evening. I think you'll hear a renewed call for extensive progress in alternative energy options. Whether that kind of initiative can make it through the Congress, though, I don't know.

Congress is a frequent stumbling block for President Obama's ideas. It's very frustrating. The President can do little without cooperation in Congress. Very little in areas like energy policy.

[JuniperLea]

3. Fixing is more important...

getting back at BP is just a side effect...

I'm hearing a lot of push from Obama in this regard... if only someone in Congress would help him out.

[End Of The Road]

4. It's the MILITARY. How are you going to wean the DoD off oil?

Our military is the largest purchaser of oil in the world.


Perhaps it is our patriotic duty to use as much oil as we can, as quickly as we can, to force a halt to U.S. aggression in the world?

:sarcasm:

[dionysus]

5. the military uses a shit ton of oil, but to say it's just them that's the problem is absurd.

[End Of The Road]

6. Did I say it was JUST the military??

Don't think so.

But as long as the military demands oil, we'll be drilling and spilling.

[Dogtown]

7. Punishing the malefactors.

That's a very big part of future prevention.


OIL has been let off the hook far too often; hence, their reckless disregard.

[TexasObserver]

8. It's more important to hold BP responsible.

[damntexdem]

9. False dichotomy.

We need a long-term plan for sustainable energy.

Deep-water drilling needs to be stopped. And if ever allowed in the future, it should be AFTER the tech is up to both prevention of catastrophes and response to those not prevented -- quite a big "if."

BP needs to be prosecuted for its criminal negligence; and it must be made to pay all of the costs that can be monetarized.