zzz, I think there is a small possibility that you and I just see some things differently.

But our disagreements are not that something is wrong,

But more about how to fix it,

I'm guessing we both oppose:

Big Oil
The Military/Oil/Intelligence Armaments Industry Banking Web
American Foreign Policy
The inequality of wealth distribution in America.

And I bet we both want:

Peace
Health Care For All
Media that is Independently owned in America.
Shelter for the Homeless
And food for the hungry

I wish all progressives could remember our COMMON basic values and forget about "people places and things."

Nader, I, Morford mean nothing.

Only a mass enlightenment of American consiousness would have meaning. I believe now that television was the beginning of the death of critical thinking in America. I think we are doomed with a generation of Zombies who play video games but don't read.

And have a strange apathy, It's about we eat shit until the revolution to just come out and say it.

Good Night

Say what you will about Gore. But he is calling for an end to this in ten years.
Anymore new drilling will not come online for another ten years. There is some truth about the prognosticators, but they are seeing the wrong future. If you need any proof of that look at the stock market. The market is based on consumers, not the other way around. Consume consciously!
The consequences of Gore/or the entire "care for your planet" movement being wrong, would be that we all learn more sustainable lifestyles, ensure a decent habitat for our offspring, and learn that not all profit comes from money.
The consequences of if the anti-conservation movement being wrong is that we will see massive transformations in the environment, which affects everyone and everything on the planet. Not even the super-rich will be immune. Hellfire and brimstone come to mind…but it might have to freeze over first?

MiMiCcS,
Anyone who looks at the official oil-reserve numbers from the Persian Gulf countries can see right away that they are bogus. Their "proven reserves" figures have stayed EXACTLY the same for a decade or more. This would mean that new discoveries have EXACTLY matched their oil extraction each year. The statistical probability of that is astronomically small. The numbers reported by those governments are just "fudge factors" that have nothing to do with reality.

Individual OPEC countries had an interest in overstating their reserves, so they could get a bigger share of the OPEC "pie". After a year completes, they simply plug in a reported number for oil reserves, and decide to just use the previous year's number. If their reserves figures had any semblance to reality, they would flucuate some from one year to the next.

Peak Oil is here, like it or not. Saudi Arabia is groaning to try to get more oil produced, but big fields like Ghawar are really straining, and for all we know, might be on their last legs.

Anyone who is spreading misinformation about how we have plenty of oil for the next few decades is doing ALL of us a big disservice. This sort of "Don't worry, be happy" attitude is WHY we are so unprepared right now for the big oil shortages which are rapidly approaching.

lisa3210peace,

Calm down. No need to to resort to censoring your own curse words, that's strange behavior.

Please understand my position, am I defending Cluster bombs as you claim? Or am I trying to point out that that guilt by association is hypocritical when selectively applied?

The fact that you don't read Hearst papers does not change the fact that Morford works for them, so I don't see your point.

"Because of WHAT he writes, I feel he has integrity, in spite of the fact that he works at the Chronicle."

If you compare the writings of Morford to Nader is should be clear that Nader is far more supportive of progressive causes than Morford (these days most of his columns revolve around how much he like buying Apple products). If you compare accomplishments, Nader has decades of them, Morford has his column. Yet you completely dismiss and insult Nader's writings, work, and accomplishment because he is invested in a mutual fund which among it's many hundreds or thousands of holdings include the manufacturers of the weapons of war. But the Hearst Corporation, which pays Morford to write, gets a free pass. I won't stoop to your level and accuse you of being a fan of the Hearst Corporation (I'm no fan of cluster bombs), but how can you not see the hypocrisy inherent in your stance?

I don't know what Morford's investments are. But despite your claim that you don't use a bank, I'll bet he does, and where does the bank put his money? Into investments like Fidelity-Magellan. It makes no sense to demonize Nader for this. The problem is pervasive. By singling out ONLY Nader for this treatment (BTW are you really a Obama supporter? How does that factor into this?) your argument lacks cohesion and begins to sound like an irrational vendetta against Nader.

As for your charge of "Union Busting", first recall that Nader is one of the most active defenders of Unionizing at for-profit businesses alive in America today. And that Nader's response was ". "I don't think there is a role for unions in small nonprofit 'cause' organizations any more than ... within a monastery or within a union" itself, he said. "People shouldn't be in public-interest groups unless they believe in it and are ready to work for it." I happen to agree, but even if I didn't, it is vastly overreaching to condemn his whole career on that basis.

I understand your disgust on this issue. I share it. But what I can't understand is that if you apply these standards to society - we are all guilty. So why single out Nader? I know, you are already reaching to write that you don't use a bank, drive a car, are off the grid, and certainly don't work for Hearst or invest with Fidelity-Magellan. But you never answered my question, do you pay taxes? And one more question? Do condemn everyone driving a car or using a bank?

ubrew12, your numbers are bogus. You are welcome to prove me wrong.

your numbers

1960s: 47 gigabarrels/year
1970s: 35 gigabarrels/year
1980s: 24 gigabarrels/year
1990s: 14 gigabarrels/year
2000s: 4 gigabarrels/year

Total discoveries 1078 giga barrels, according to you from 1960

http://www.bp.com/productlanding.do?categoryId=6929&contentId=7044622

My numbers

Total Consumption in this period (1960-2007) 1135 gigabarrels (conservative extrapolation of data from 1960-1965)

Proven reserves increased 350 gigabarrels to 1390 gigabarrels (conservative extrapoltaion from 1980 to 1960). In 1980 proven reserves were 667 gigabarrels.

Total oil consumed plus increased reserves 2525 gigabarrels. Your off a little buddy.

Also, you left out probable reserves 730 gigabarrels, and expected undiscovered oil 940 gigabarrels. Thats 50 years supply at current consumption, or 25 years at double our consumption.

from [Reserve Growth Total and Undiscovered, 1995-2025; U.S. Geological Survey, World Petroleum Assessment 2000, website [http://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-060/]. Estimates of Regional
Reserve Growth: Energy Information Administration, International Energy Outlook 2006, DOE/EIA-0484(2006) (Washington, DC, June 2006), p. 29.

Keep in mind, these numbers come from those connected with the oil industry who might have a conflcit of interest in keeping the numbers low

Recent oil discoveries int he last year (1 gigabarrel = 1 billion barrels of oil)

2008 Petrobras' most recent oil finds off the Brazilian coast are of the same order as the massive and newly discovered Tupi field, the chairman of Brazil's state oil company said in an interview published on Sunday. Tupi has estimated recoverable reserves of 5 to 8 billion barrels.

2007 An oil researcher in Iraq said that Iraq has approximately 530 geological complexes of potential oil reserves and that up to one hundred and fifteen sites have recently been drilled for that have reserves of around 311 billion barrels of oil, Iraq Directory reported.

He went on to say that in addition to this 415 locations which are yet to be explored are thought to have an estimate of around 215 billion barrels.

[Iraq is currently listed as having only 115 gigabarrels of proven reserves]

2007 PetroChina Co.'s (PTR) recent major oil discovery in Jidong field, Bohai Bay, China, is estimated to contain probable reserves of 2.2 billion barrels, a government official said Tuesday, and is expected to produce 200,800 barrels a day of crude oil within three years, a source close to the field's operations added

2008 Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said on Sunday that Iran has discovered a new oil field in the southwest province of Khuzestan with in-place reserves of 1.1 billion barrels. The field, which is located near Andimeshk in Khuzestan, holds an estimated reserve of 233 million barrels of recoverable crude oil, state television quoted Nozari as saying.
The oil discovered in the new field is light crude with an API gravity of 33 degrees, the Iranian oil minister said.

2008 Iran's Central Zagros region may contain up to 50 billion barrels of oil, the oil ministry's official Shana Web site reported Wednesday, citing a senior oil official. Fereydoun Salehi, who manages exploration plans for the Iranian Central Oil Fields Company, said seismographic and geological studies show the Central Zagros region as having numerous large oil fields, Shana said. Salehi said the region also has several oil traps with a projected capacity of 50 billion barrels of oil, according to Shana.

[This is almost 50% more than it's current proven reserves]

2008 The Bakken oil play stretches across Montana, North Dakota and into Southeastern Saskatchewan. We're talking about some potentially massive reserves of oil, too. The amount of oil in place has been estimated between 271 billion and 503 billion barrels of oil. Although that is only referring to total oil-in-place, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) field report released on April 10, 2008, estimated there are up to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil on the U.S. side of the Bakken.

[earlier estimates by Leigh Price who died in 2000 suddenly despite being in his 50's and in great shape was said to have had a far higher estimate with oil at only 20 dollars a barrel , but his report was pending peer review at the time and the USGS refused to issue his draft due to rules]

This is not even close to being a complete listing.

Even using the USGS conservative estimate for Bakken, thats way more than the 4 gigabarrels that shoud have been discovered, it's well over 500 giga barrels discovered and prices have increased 140%. Mr Market is juiced.

zzz, hello; One thing unrelated to his investment that makes me loathe him is this fact:

A long time ago Ralph had a huge staff of underpaid workers manning banks of phones soliciting money from everyone in America with a telephone.

These drones tried to organize be paid better and treated like people.

Ralph Nader 'busted' this attempt to oraganize. Fired everyone and locked them out of their offices.

That's called union busting. It's against American workers. It was so anti-progressive as to be comedy.

He's a f******A*****

Not to mention the Cluster Bombs. Brother.

Good Evening zzz,

I don't read Hearst Newspapers.

But I read Common Dreams, and the articles of Mark's, like this one arguing against drilling in the ANWR have been forward thinking in my opinion. Beacause of WHAT he writes, I feel he has integrity, in spite of the fact that he works at the Chronicle. A rag.

I Contrast this with Nader who represents himself as THE REAL PROGRESSIVE but who has around a half million in Fidelity/Raytheon=Cluster Bombs.

This is the most heinous, ugly killing maimer of children on the planet.

If you don't find that horrible, hypocrital and utterly lacking in integrity, I can't help you. Your defending hurting children at that point.

So ya see, I kinda like Mark; his articles I've read here on CD ream the system, expose it.

And I think Ralph is Scum, for helping hurt children.

Defend investing in cluster bombs zzz.

lisa3210peace,

You've previously written that Nader is "scum" for holding investments in Fidelity-Magellan.

Why isn't Mark Morford also "scum" for working for a Hearst newspaper? A paper which (amidst other offenses) frequently ran stories advocating war in Iraq. Morford is one of their top columnists and brings readership to the paper.

"Scum" is not what I would choose call either of them (Morford's a dumb ass), but I'm just trying to follow your logic as it applies to guilt by association. How do you justify this?

If Every Paper in America,

Had an article like this, every day for a year,

America would be a decent place to live again.

Mark Morford; Thanks for the Article. How is Joel Selvin?

>> I am in no way an outdoorsy type, man who could not lose their breath at the sights in Alaska, who?

No doubt Alaska a beautiful place and its wilderness should be protected. But can we not say the same about the Appalachians, the Amazon Rainforest, the high desert, the prairies.?

Imagine the grand Canyon all strip malls and tourist meccas, or dug up for uranium, or the peace River country clear cut for its logs?

As many have pointed out, we have a problem in that we have too many people and with those too many people we have decided that consuming the enviroment is the way we will all prosper.

Yet , as overpopulated as we are with Human beings, this earth of ours can still support very many more and do so without being degraded to some Asimov version of a Trantor , a world of pavement and buildings and industry from pole to pole.

It means a transformation of how we think of property and of wealth and of goods.

I know the bulk of us on these boards are "progressives" and know what I am trying to get at, but I would suggest a book called "The Ecology Of Eden" which I found very illuminating.

Let us get away from GDP and per capita income, and GNP...and the paper value of a home, or a stock to describe or measure our worth or the wealth of our nations. An Alaska, or a Canada or a Congo is far "wealthier" with its habitat intact, its enviroment unspoiled, then it is with everyone driving around in Cadillacs to the next Seven Eleven for their next slurpee fix.

They better leave Alaska be. My 31 year old daughter was born there and I need her, she needs to see it before it's all gone. I know its nothing as I remember it, my street was dirt and I had to wear hip waders to go across the street during brek up time to buy a few things. Right outside of Anchorage, when some sort of fish were running, you'd just take your net drop it in the water and pull out loads of fish. I am in no way an outdoorsy type, man who could not lose their breath at the sights in Alaska, who?

New Oil Discoveries:
1960s: 47 gigabarrels/year
1970s: 35 gigabarrels/year
1980s: 24 gigabarrels/year
1990s: 14 gigabarrels/year
2000s: 4 gigabarrels/year
People burn thru 30 gigabarrels/year, up 30% from 1998. With total reserves of 1000 gigabarrels, we'll burn through that in 20-40 years.

Siouxrose - thanks for trying to help me through my funk. I just get to the point where I don't see any way out. A duped populace has been voting against their own best interests, their very lives, for years, until in today's money-take-all system their vote no longer matters. I fear the entrenchment of neoconservatism/unregulated capitalism is too complete for any logical reversal. American just seems too far gone, and I am frustrated and angry.

Peace.

"Did anyone else notice how the price of oil dropped yesterday when it was announced that the U.S. would meet with an Iranian diplomat?"

Correlation is not causation. The world market for crude oil is incredibly complex, and commodity exchanges serve as clearing houses for all the information and emotion.

Did anyone else notice how the price of oil dropped yesterday when it was announced that the U.S. would meet with an Iranian diplomat?

Doubtless, it will go back up today on news that Condi Rice hasn't changed the preconditions for negotiation at all.

All this talk of "sending a signal" to speculators by opening up ANWR and other U.S. drilling sites... but why not send the signal that would REALLY bring oil prices down-- announce to the world that the U.S. is cool with Iran developing nuclear power as long as it continues to be overseen by IAEA. I swear that would take $50 off the price per barrel in one day.

First of all, many know that proven oil reserves have increased from 600 billion barrels in the 70's to 1.3 trillion barrels today. How did this happen?

You see, when a given well starts to produce less oil, you stick a straw in the ground in an area of probable reserves, which are much greater than proven reserves, to find a new producing well and add it to your proven reserves to replace or even add to your depleted proven reserves.

In addition, you anticipate future needs, and search for new reserves with exploratory drilling. When you find new reserves, you may extract the oil and add it to proven reserves, or you cap it and and put it on the books as probable reserves and hold for future use.

It's a never ending cycle that has gone on for 125 years. Oil exploration today will not produce additional oil today. Large discoveries will of course affect futures prices. But given that the main reason for high oil prices is speculation and the irrational fear of peak oil, and that supply is adequate for current demand, drilling for more oil will not affect the price. But as I already explained, that does not mean we should not drill for more oil, since this is where the oil 10-20 years down the road will come from.

And certainly, since oil is not an infinite or renewable resource, alternatives should be sought. That was known 30 years ago. It's known today. The fact their is no apparent urgency to do anything should be telling you something.

And consider this. Bush could have gotten the rights to drill in these areas when he was popular and had a Republican congress. He did not pursue it then. Why? Because Big Oil does not want the rights to drill and find even more oil when they have too much oil. If it was known how much oil we really had, we would have oil at 15 dollars a barrel. Our wars in Iraq and threats/sanctions against Iran are about the oil. But we want to control the oil to suppress oil production. Iran just found a huge new field, but due to sanctions is unable to significantly increase production anytime soon.

"Consider the residents of Lime Village, Alaska, an isolated Denaina Athabascan Indian community where gasoline prices have hit $8.55 a gallon."

This would be "Arguing from the Extreme".

WC DEVINS: Excellent (5:54) posting. As to the 2nd one, in a sense, a certain percentage of Americans are experiencing a political version of "Stockholm Syndrome," or perhaps we can explain by the Lakoff description of those who adhere to the strict father model. What I'm getting at is for that segment if things get worse, they will see it as God punishing them and the need to live by, and FORCE OTHERS to live by, stricter and stricter authoritarian protocols. Dead rules.

Years ago, I'll say probably 1993 there were hearings held in the Florida Keys on the issue of off shore oil drilling. Over 100 citizens (including me) took the microphone, some were involved with tourism trades that relied upon clean waters, others were advocates of environmental (protection) groups like Reef Relief. Notes were taken, and I think the entire thing was probably retained on video. We felt we made an impact as the idea of drilling off the coast of Florida where fragile reef systems furnish fish to the oceans, and where the coral reefs are already endangered due to a bleaching affect that comes from global warming. Bush would sell his mother to a corporation for a small profit. There is absolutely NOTHING this group won't barter with, and NONE of it belongs to them, nor were they ever LEGALLY elected. I wonder if the Supreme Court justices who put these dangerous psychopaths into office have any difficulty sleeping at night?

While I agree that the current crop of Democrats aren't worth spit, I believe we would have seen the country moving progressively LEFTward if we had had Democratic presidents the last thirty years. Just as the piratical Republicans were able to move each successive argument regressively rightward, Democrats would have been able to move them leftward. Cleaner air, water, healthcare access, living wages, etc, would have sold the man in the streeet. Our ideas are simply much better for more people. It would have been the Republicans moving left to keep up with the Democrats, rather than the death spiral we have now.

Is it too late? Can we start the leftward drift with Obama? It doesn't look like it. Everyone who got snookered by Obama was just too blind to see reality (and everyone still snookered by Nader is in the same boat). I'm almost at the point of considering a Republican president for four more years - four years in which gas prices, housing deflation, skyrocketing food costs, lack of medical care, plundering of the treasury, crippling national debt, endless wars and a couple more Katrinas might finally force the oppressed to rise up and maybe, finally, demand what the left has always fought for. It could happen. Couldn't it? Maybe...

Capitalism and free market economics without ethics have brought us to where we are now. And by ethics I don't mean holier than thou fundamentalist Christian hypocrisy. I mean, really caring about our impact on the planet and other human beings--and being willing to re-arrange our lifestyle in order to minimize this impact. Those who say" It's the nature of the beast, it'll never happen" are giving themselves a huge back door to keep living their profligate wasteful greed based lifestyle. And so it goes on. I feel like I am watching a bunch of sharks in a feeding frenzy, making huge profits hand over fist for no other reason than they like to go shopping--for big ticket items. The downfall of America's economy will be due to our addiction to shopping for useless stupid plastic crap. When the beast dies, the sharks will starve, and so be it.

gotov wrote,
Dear Mr. Mark Morford,
You sir, are a DUMB ASS. In kind of a shrill, shrieking kind of way. It's a real waste that our country affords you the right to vote.

jakenewton wrote,
"You sir, are a DUMB ASS."
Why?

Well start by reading this column where Morford blindly dry humps Obama and calls him enlightened.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/06/06/notes060608.DTL

I think DUMB ASS is appropriate, although perhaps too polite.

How about Mark Morford is SO DUMB (how dumb is he?) that he doesn't realize he's supporting a candidate with policies that are both fascist (i.e. spying) and imperialist (i.e. the wars).

And the democratic complicity of Pelosi.

Morford says: "Asking why the oil companies are eager as rabbits on meth to gouge further into the planet is a bit like asking a surgeon why she wants to operate...It is, quite simply, what they do."

WRONG! They DO NOT drill.

What they do is suck up ACCESS to every potential fossil fuel source, buy out and kill every mileage-improvement and alternative to the internal combustion automobile engine, and LIMIT the supply of fossil fuel so they can make a profit. And now it is an obscene profit. Finding more oil would only make them less rich.

Have they built any new cracking and refining facilities, which even the oiliest Republican says we need, with all their profit? - NO!

Have they tried drilling on the millions of Federal acres (your land and mine, not theirs) to which they own the drilling rights? - NO!

Shouldn't this be the boon which Reaganomics promised? Invest in Korporate Amerika and they will invest in us? Give them the tax breaks, the wage breaks, the deregulation, keep unions off their backs and we will all benefit from good corporate citizenship, wasn't that what we were sold?

A few of us smelled the oil in that Morning in America, but we were overridden by the Gipper's minions of the diabolical and the duped. We smelled it when Reagan opened the treasury to Big Everything. We smelled it when they moved their tax bases off-shore so they could avoid their social contract with America. We smelled it when Cheney's Halliburton and others illegally did business with "terrorists" in Libya, Iraq, Iran and elsewhere during the embargoes. We smelled it when two oil-sotted Texas millionaires took over this country.

And now what we smell is the stink of death and the putrification of our Constitutional United States, brought on by the Republican politics of greed, the Republican policies of Reagan, the Republican excesses of Bush, and the Republican tyranny of Cheney.

"Perhaps I'm missing something."

Yea, MM, you are - you're missing the fact that brainwashing nuts like Limbaugh and Hannity and FOX and the rest have over 20 million daily followers who believe any lie spoken.

This week, it was, to quote: "Thank God for George Bush - he finally lifted the ban on offshore drilling."

And, unlike "liberals" and "progressives," said 20+ million followers pester their "representatives" loudly and often while "we" scratch our heads and say things like, "Perhaps I'm missing something."

I heard an interesting point about getting the Alaska oil down to the lower 48. We would need a new pipeline. It would take years to build. Once built it would be a terrorist dream. No way to guard hundreds of miles of pipeline. One bomb stops the flow for days. The heated oil congeals into vasoline and can't be pumped again until it thaws in the summer.
Sorry no oil today. Come back in 6 months.

Consider the residents of Lime Village, Alaska, an isolated Denaina Athabascan Indian community where gasoline prices have hit $8.55 a gallon.
So much for 'drilling' our way to cheap gas.

jakenewton:

You're right. However, with less demand for oil through better use of alternative energy in automobiles and homes, we can drastically reduce the amount of oil we have to pull out of the ground and eventually ban its use as an energy source altogether. Although it will take some time, zero point energy systems will change everything - including the power structure on this planet. Check out...

http://www.theorionproject.org/en/

If you don't drill now you will not have it when you need it. The truth of the matter is we don't need our government to do anything about gas prices. This is one case I believe the market will do what it should. All those so called American Corporations that have been buying all that Washington influence, IE GM :). Well lets just say they are going to have less buying power in the future. The ramifications of the high prices will smack the dumb ass rub-me-cans up aside the head soon enough. Let them go to ANWAR, no roads,pipelines,no electricity or extra electricity. Yea that will be quick. Lets not mention our whole tax basis in this country is based on the fact that each consumer(hate that) will buy a car(pay taxes), fuel that car(pay taxes), tag that car(pay taxes), repair that car(pay taxes), and drive that car to places they will buy things or services(pay taxes).

Yep yep. Less people buying cars,fuel and going places means LESS collections. Cars that don't require a taxable fuel oops no collections. But most government institution couldn't even wait for the money to be collected so they borrowed it(Bonds). which now they have less money to pay it back. Sad days are ahead my friends. It is not the fall of America but the rise of everybody else

Peace

Thanks Nevertheless, I wasn't quite sure of the correct punctuation of the plural Yaris

"Leave it in the ground, and start making the switch to alternative energy sources immediately."

I don't think big trucks or airplanes are going to be able to use alternative energy anytime soon.

Drilling for more oil in ANWR and off both coasts is stupid to the nth degree. Oil is a total loser. Leave it in the ground, and start making the switch to alternative energy sources immediately. I think we all know this. At least half of our country recognizes that Oil is over - finished! Probably another twenty percent recognize that oops, something seems wrong here, we're paying a lot to run our cars and houses, and the air that we breathe is filthy. That leaves thirty percent of the popultion who are so mindless or ignorant that they can't see their own looming destruction. There are things that the rest of us can do to make a difference. All it takes is understanding and commitment. Check out the Orion Project, and help to make it a reality. Satya

http://www.theorionproject.org/en/

I think ANWAR is a red herring and maybe offshore as well. There's not much there and the cost is far, far greater than almost anywhere else the Oily Cabal can drill.

Hey, Tundra Tony, I think you mean Yarises, Priuses and Civics.

I don't know what to believe. The Republicans say it is because Dems won't let anybody drill. The Democrats claim it is because the Repubs trashed our dollar while trying to secure the Iraqi oil. Both of them say it is because of the speculators, and the speculators say it is because we keep threatening Iran. The US Government says it is because OPEC is acting like a cartel—imagine that. Saudi Arabia claims it is because the US is using too much oil—first time I have ever heard of a supplier complaining about a customer buying too much. The US Government also blames Iran, China, and India for subsidizing their domestic gas consumption—I don't think our subsidizing of personal jets in the 2008 Economic Stimulus Act set a very good example. India is certainly to blame—they're letting Tata Motors market their new $2,499 Nano to the billions of slum dwellers of the world. Now I ask you, what business do those people have owning a car? Fox News claims it is because of them Muslims in the Middle East who hate us. The petroleum geology types claim it has something or the other to do with the peak of Hubert's curve, whatever the hell that is, and that there is at least as much petrol in the ground as we have put into the atmosphere—and not to worry except for the fact that it was the easy half we took out first. Then there are them Eco Wackos who claim the problem is that we have been Hummerized, McMansioned, and taught to eat food flown in from the other side of the world while we watch American Idol.

Myself, I think we better get our butts up to ANWAR and start drilling. It is a two-fer—the caribous that the enviros are worried about can be killed, butchered, packaged, and air freighted down here to help feed our people. By the time we get finished draining that coastal plain of the oil and meat, the next Big Oil Bonanza, an ice free Arctic Ocean, will be right off shore waiting for us—by then the recently listed Polar Bear should already be extinct and just one more problem business won't have to deal with.

And after that? I'll call in to Rush's show and get right back to you—surely there will be something just over the horizon.

www.StudentsForTheEarth.org

Gw North, I understand your point. I actually agree that the wilderness of Alaska should be protected and the transformation of Alaska from what it is now may be a good thing but the shame is in the hardships that many of the families that live here now will have to go through.

>>The real shame is that many people will be forced to leave Alaska because of the cold and the expense of heating fuel.

That might not be a shame. Alaska would revert to wilderness and the peoples that live there of the type who do not try and recreate her in their own image.

Pavement and shopping malls in Alaska. Somehow it just seem right.

Probably pointless to say so but I disagree with gotov, I found Morford's article very appropriate given the circumstances many in the US are facing. I live in Fairbanks AK and many Alaskans are clamoring for ANWR drilling. All the while the SUVs and V8 trucks that were once extremely popular here are rusting in dealership parking lots. In that I think we will see the progress we long for. Most Americans will yearn for the days of cheap gas for years to come but when faced with the reality of the world as it is, Fairbanks (and I imagine many places in the continental 48 states) is seeing more and more small Toyota Yaris', Prius', Civics and even a few smart cars have appeared, not to mention Vespa scooters and other smaller forms of conveyance. It will only be because of economic necessity that most people will change and therein lies the silver lining of these gas prices I think.

The real shame is that many people will be forced to leave Alaska because of the cold and the expense of heating fuel.

"You sir, are a DUMB ASS."

Why?

Dear Mr. Mark Morford,

You sir, are a DUMB ASS. In kind of a shrill, shrieking kind of way. It's a real waste that our country affords you the right to vote.