Gas is well over $4 a gallon in most places in California — and soaring elsewhere as well. But are such high energy prices good or bad?
That should be a stupid question. Yet it is not, when the Obama administration has stopped new domestic offshore oil exploration in many American waters, curbed oil leases in the West, and keeps oil-rich areas of Alaska exempt from drilling. Last week, President Obama went to Brazil and declared of that country’s new offshore finds: “With the new oil finds off Brazil, President [Dilma] Rousseff has said that Brazil wants to be a major supplier of new stable sources of energy, and I’ve told her that the United States wants to be a major customer, which would be a win-win for both our countries.”
Advertisement
Consider the logic of the president’s Orwellian declaration: The United States in the last two years has restricted oil exploration of the sort Brazil is now rushing to embrace. We have run up more than $4 trillion in consecutive budget deficits during the Obama administration and are near federal insolvency. Therefore, the United States should be happy to borrow more money to purchase the sort of “new stable sources of energy” from Brazil’s offshore wells that we most certainly will not develop off our own coasts.
It seems as if paying lots more for electricity and gas, in European fashion, was originally part of the president’s new green agenda. He helped push cap-and-trade legislation through the House of Representatives in 2009. Had such Byzantine regulations become law, a recessionary economy would have sunk into depression. Obama appointed the incompetent Van Jones as “green-jobs czar” — until Jones’s wild rantings confirmed that he knew nothing about his job description “to advance the administration’s climate and energy initiatives.”
At a time of trillion-dollar deficits, the administration is borrowing billions to promote high-speed rail, and is heavily invested in the federally subsidized $42,000 Government Motors Chevy Volt. Apparently the common denominator here is a deductive view that high energy prices will force Americans to emulate European centrally planned and state-run transportation.
That conclusion is not wild conspiracy theory, but simply the logical manifestation of many of the Obama administration’s earlier campaign promises. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu — now responsible for the formulation of American energy policy — summed up his visions to the Wall Street Journal in 2008: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” I think Chu is finally figuring out the “somehow.”
President Castrati's "administration" is giving 2 billion to Brazil for oil drilling-exploration-et cetera...someone, anyone say this is not the case...for if it is then not only is it no balls but it is also no freekin' brains!!!
"The administration’s energy visions are formulated by academics and government bureaucrats who live mostly in cities with short commutes and have worked largely for public agencies."
Cities can't have short commutes; only commuters themselves can. Dr. Hanson understands English grammar. Look carefully at the sentence above. It's purposely vague. The subtle message being sold to readers is that people in general who live in cities have short commutes. That is false for a vast and growing segment of the urban workforce.
Just like the use of the word "utopians" in the next sentence. No one's a utopian. Some people are trying to make a more perfect union, but anyone who is trying knows we will never succeed, because we're all just human beings. But Dr. Hanson would like to let you think that some people are utopians. Ask yourself why a guy with all these credentials chooses to write with a pen in his hand and a dog whistle in his mouth.
Sir:
In the 1970's, by the simple application of a few million flag decals, the conservatives stole the march on patriotism from the left. In the current era, the left is gaining the inside track on greenness via the application of panda decals.
Conservatism is founded on conservation, I mean to say, that’s OUR panda. With the climate-change lefties in disarray, let us stop carping about their wrong-headedness and stand up for thrifty, responsible conservation as if it were central to our being.
Isn't "man-made disaster" the Obama Admin's new name for terrorism? So the Obama admin is, by it's own definition of this term, a bunch of terrorists here at home. This policy of man-made disaster is an attack on the American people. By the way, the American people are the only people that Obama is not afraid to attack. He has the American people under assault on many fronts, we are fighting against his taxes, ObamaCare, high gas prices, high electric bills, we are fighting for drilling and the jobs that come with it. Obama is the enemy of the American Public.
Gee Mike B -- your narrow use of the term utopian distracts from your point -- which seems to be that so long as motives are pure (aka, trying to make a more perfect union) then unintended consequences be damned. What makes the use of current energy sources unpure ?
A dictionary definition of utopian also includes "impractical schemes for social improvement".
Where is your evidence that it is bad for society to use fossil fuels available now until other so-called "green" technologies are proven ?
The short term cost of human suffering and misery due to unnecessary price increases in anything remotely requiring fossil fuels is irrelevant to forging ahead with your pure motive of creating a perfect union ? That is impractical at best and malevolent at worst.
The Global Warming movement is also in shambles because real scientists decided to do some real science (instead of the playstation science prefered by the AGW crew) and found out that there was never anything to the CO2 scarecrow.
Yes, Mr. Hanson the world now knows the MMGW(Man Made Global Warming) promotions of Al Gore and his sycophants are false and the "movement is now in shambles".
Tragically, this movement has caused and continues to cause, globally, a huge amount of economic and related damage.
Prime example is the CAP&TRADE system 10 Northeastern states are operating under called RGGI(Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Obama said, "under his cap&trade system electric rates would skyrocket".
New York State under RGGI cap&trade has the highest electric cost in the nation. NYS under its hundreds of pages of its "Climate Action Plan" has created a huge bureaucracy. NYS has to "pull the plug" on RGGI and dismantle the system.
The state of New Hampshire has voted 2to1 in favor of "pulling the plug", New Jersey is in the process of doing the same.
Fortunately Obama's Federal cap&trade has been stopped but he is now trying to do the same by taxing and regulating energy under his EPA. Senator Inhofe and Con. Upton are working on leg. to stop the EPA from doing this. It needs to be supported.
Mr. Hanson, your title "Man Made Energy Crisis" could be shortened to MMEC. One could say false MMGW propaganda caused a MMEC!
The academics, government bureaucrats and the public sector unions don't care about the real working class. The elites can buy all of their necessities, oil, meat, plastics, fruits and vegetables from the working class of China, Brazil and India. Therefore the elites can have their cake and eat it too!
"Let us stop carping about their wrong-headedness and stand up for thrifty, responsible conservation as if it were central to our being."
Oh, but we have, for about two decades. And now, we are stuck with $4/gallon gas, idiotic lightbulbs that take a team of nuclear physicists to mop up when they break, impossibly-high airfares, absurd electricity costs, and the humiliation of seeing former Menschen driving Smarts and Leafs.
Mr. Hanson is right, and it pains me to see how many otherwise logical people don't get this.
Until a viable, practical energy source is found, fossil fuels are the lifeblood of the nation. I haven't heard ONE rational argument as to why we shouldn't tap our own vast resources--oil, natural gas, coal, etc.--to the max.
See, more expensive energy costs are not a necessary condition for "ending our addiction" to oil or any other detestable, focus-group tested nostrum. They are just a way to make a family's salary go a much shorter way. Period.
I'm sick and tired of central planners putting their thumbs on the scales of labor and basic commodities--whether this be through taxation, bans, regulations, moratorium, insane minimum-wage laws or any other means. And I'm even sicker of people who applaud these actions, like good lemmings.
To go to Brasil and buy oil when we are sitting on millions of barrels under our own soil is yet one more Kafkian absurdity from this most absurd of administrations. We should be drilling for, using and selling oil, not buying it from a third-world hellhole, for chrissake.
Thank you, Obama, for my $80 weekly fill-up, and thank you, fellow citizens for putting this clown and his Birkenstock-brained ilk in power. That Obama does not have an approval rating in the single digits by now is proof that this nation is sinking under the weight of its own intellectual sloth.
So, a certain element, certainly our current Administration, wants higher prices on fossil fuels and hence on gasoline/diesel fuels. For arguemnt's sake and for the moment, we'll give the benefit of the doubt that proponents for large energy cost increases (and for severe curtailing of the exploitation of fossil fuels within our borders) maintain that there are benefits to go along with this course of action. They might anticipate benefits to our society, our economy, our welfare, our future as a nation. Perhaps even benefits to the "world community."
So what we MUST DEMAND is that these benefits be brought forward- what are the arguements? Where are the reasonable predictions backed up with good numbers, and verified examples of such benefits, where or if they exist? Why is it a boon in ANY WAY to increase the cost of energy in our country? For instance, why would we want to emulate the cost of gasoline in Europe?
I have not seen ANY coherent and well laid-out arguments for such policies, other than the RUSE of stemming the tide of MMGW or climate change. It appears that that is the ONLY arguement in favor of hiking the cost of fossil fuels, indeed the cost any fuel that creates carbon dioxide.
If so, then we can debate on that platform, and I believe there is yet much to be said on that. If there are other arguments in favor of hiking energy prices- bring them hither, by all means! Show me the Money! Where's the BEEF?
My stance (you may notice) is "Close the book on the foolish ruse of MMGW, and then halt the deliberate spiral to foolish under utilization of energy sources within our own borders."
Giving or loaning $billions to BRAZIL so that they may explore THEIR oil reserves is unforgiveable, indefensible, and reprehensive in light of the Administration's work to shut down harvesting our own resources.
The only way to understand Obama and his irrational (to us) actions is to realize his mission is to destroy America. At his present rate of success, this will be completed by the end of his first presidential term.
I can't wait until I am forced to start riding my bike 25miles one way with 3 children in tow to get my groceries. Perhaps I could buy a smart car and hold my children on my lap. At least then I could breastfeed while driving. Instead of my once a week trip into to town I will go every day since all I will be able to fit in my trunk is a loaf of bread. Wait, how stupid am I, I should buy a chevy volt... oh right it costs $40k, if that was in my price range I would have just bought a house in the city at wildly inflated prices.
The debate on this issue is most often framed in the believers vs non believers of global warming. Well here is a fresh perspective, I don't care if it is true or not, feeding my family and heating my home is more important than saving the earth. If Al Gore wants to give up his elite lifestyle and take up living in a yurt then maybe I would think about what he has to say. I am not against being good stewards of the Earth, I am just sick of this being shoved down our throats by people who are living a standard of living well above average. It would be one thing if the free market was determining these changes or if oil was really scarce. If people go hungry because of this act of social eugenics, then Obama and his cronies have blood on their hands. This will hurt the poor the most, those who struggle to heat their homes and put food on their table. Remember there is a cutoff line above the handout threshold, these people, the lower middle class will suffer most.
We have to recognize that, no credit to the Administration, exploitation of the Bakken Prospect is underway, amd there have beeen and will be more marked increases in our domestic oil production. Infrastructure investment supporting this activity (e.g., facilitating pipelines, refinery construction on the northern plains) would be a sensible policy and should affect domestic retail prices. In a sense, the market has worked its way around the Administration's obstacles so as to give us an opportunity for significant economic advance.
