Another Man's Opinion

A Gulf Oil Spill Update May 3, 2010

CNN is running an online poll: Should the U.S. continue offshore drilling despite the risks? The answers are currently running 61% yes and 39% no with 331,000 votes in.

Now mind you, if we drill all areas of the coasts, east, west, Gulf and Alaska, the total haul would only be a bit over a million barrels a day. We currently use over 20 million barrels of oil a day in the U.S. It’s not like this is going to solve the energy problem or even seriously slow it down, though it might make a lot of money for the oil companies. Last month, the world produced 73 million barrels of crude oil a day. It’s not going to save you money either as oil is now a global commodity.

Just tourism in coastal areas generates over $60 billion dollars per year. That number may seriously be impacted with oil on the beaches. I won’t get into environmental — look at the economics. I lived in one of these areas for several years and it is a tremendous resource to the states and the nation, not to mention the many foreign visitors.

I’m a big fan of nature and the outdoors though you wouldn’t know me as a tree hugger. It blows me away that with what’s going on right now, at 5,000 barrels a day still dumping into the Gulf and no good way to stop it, that this percentage of people still are in favor of drilling there. Somewhere here there is a failure to communicate. Either I’m missing it or a lot of others are. The ignorance may not going away until the kids are playing in the sandy oil slicks. Go bathe a bird.