4 ms·

There's plenty of oil in the world. Why do we feel the need to go after every last drop in the United States? It'll still be there in 100 years, if we need it

There's plenty of oil in the world. Why do we feel the need to go after every last drop in the United States? It'll still be there in 100 years, if we need it.

ajmurmann 8y ago
Why are we still doing for oil anyways?! We are about to kill everyone on the planet with our fossil fuel addiction.
- magduf 8y ago
  Because we don't care. We want to drive our giant SUVs 2-3 hours a day so we can live in a McMansion in the exurbs, and we don't give a shit about what this is going to do to future generations. Furthermore, roughly half of Americans don't believe this is even a problem, and don't care about what any scientists tell them, because their religious leaders and favorite politicians tell them otherwise.
  - ajmurmann 8y ago
    Should we all have to be in agreement to finally take meaningful action? If we were in a space station with thin walls and some folks want to set up a shooting range for their own enjoyment we'd stop them by all means. We wouldn't care if those people believe in vacuum outside the space station or not. Might seem far fetched, but we are very much in the same situation.
    - hjek 8y ago
      > we'd stop them by all means Fully agree. This is not an issue where we just have to hope that one day someone in charge will fix it.
    - magduf 8y ago
      >If we were in a space station with thin walls and some folks want to set up a shooting range for their own enjoyment we'd stop them by all means. No, we wouldn't, nor should we. The reason is democracy: if the people in that space station have a democratic government, and more than half of them vote for leaders who promise them they can keep their shooting range, no matter how dangerous, well then everyone else just has to live with it. Hopefully, it's obvious here that democracy only really works when the citizens are smart enough to use it well. The problem is that, in many cases, they just aren't, which is what we're seeing now.
  - kk58 8y ago
    Perhaps we need economic pressure to encourage consumers to stop buying products from climate change deniers and their states.
- charliesharding 8y ago
  I know! It's ridiculous. I can't believe people still don't understand how many people will die in agony in {{ world.timeleft }}. The only solution is to wave our arms harder and faster above our heads to try and start a conversation and get others to think about who we are as a people.
  - melling 8y ago
    That's the definition of insanity! Mr Einstein would be so disappointed. In other news, Americans stopped buying sedans because they want bigger vehicles. https://www.cbtnews.com/people-arent-buying-sedans-anymore/ https://www.cbtnews.com/people-arent-buying-sedans-anymore/
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- eqdw 8y ago
  Huh just curious, do you perchance ride in cars? Or trains? or planes? Do you use electricity? Do you own anything plastic? What about metal? I think you'll find if you ask yourself these questions you will find that the answer to your rhetorical question was within you all along!
  - ajmurmann 8y ago
    It's obviously a collective action problem and thus needs a collective solution. If I stop riding my car today, nothing changes. Would I be in favor of banning everyone, including myself from using any combustion engines by January 2020? Absolutely! Would it hurt? You bet! But it would be a incredibly reasonable trade off and we'd find new ways to cope. In fact anyone who lobbies for continued burning of fossil fuels should be charged with genocide.
normal_man 8y ago
We're going after that oil too. Venezuela is coming up next. The thirst for oil, and America's willingness to take it by force all over the globe, is limitless
- mistrial9 8y ago
  This is false and shows a lack on education to say it .. It is well-documented that the pattern of 'taking oil by force' was so obvious and conflict-enhancing, that the American foreign policy, military policy, and dollar-based oil trading market participants, went to great lengths to create ways to use soft-power in international oil deals. The poster child of this approach is the Saudi Arabia oil trading partnership of decades, where the increasingly wealthy Saudi state oil company have a control and share of profits that increases over time. Read a few wikipedia articles or this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prize:_The_Epic_Quest_for_Oil,_Money,_and_Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prize:_The_Epic_Quest_for_... It is true however, that Venezuala appears to be headed to breaking this pattern. It is related to the Hugo Chaves / Cuba / SAmerican Marxism fights and there are a lot of hard liners on both sides.
  - pastor_elm 8y ago
    > In a statement, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino faulted Venezuela for the latest incident. >“The Venezuelan Navy aggressively stopped ExxonMob‎il contracted vessels operating under an oil exploration agreement with the Cooperative Republic of Guyana in its Exclusive Economic Zone,” he said, saying Guyana had the right to explore there and urging Venezuela to respect international law and its neighbors’ rights.[0] [0]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guyana-venezuela-oil/venezuela-navy-confronts-exxon-oil-ship-in-guyana-border-dispute-idUSKCN1OM0BK https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guyana-venezuela-oil/vene... Two months later Donald Trump is trying to oust Maduro for being 'undemocratically elected' while simultaneously praising communist Dictators in South East/East Asia. Yeah, has nothing to do with American oil interests.
  - hjek 8y ago
    > on both sides That sounds familiar? Oh, wait: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-defends-organizers-of-white-supremacist-rally-in-charlottesville/2017/08/15/de01ff66-81f9-11e7-902a-2a9f2d808496_story.html?utm_term=.85d72ba5b3ce https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-defends-organi...
pastor_elm 8y ago
oil is money in the ground, so leaving it there is like leaving cash under your bed. it's even worth it to burn some off just to make sure you get any at all[0] [0]https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/05/140522-gas-flaring-costs-taxpayers-in-us-report-says/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/05/1405...
5040 8y ago
Environmentally speaking, doesn't it make more sense to get oil from close-by instead of importing it from far way?
- astazangasta 8y ago
  No, transportation costs are not a function of linear distance. It's cheaper to use a developed site than to build new pipelines.
  - appleiigs 8y ago
    The post said "environmentally speaking", not economically.
- appleiigs 8y ago
  The east coast of Canada gets their oil from the Middle East. Politics prevents building a pipe across Canada.
squish78 8y ago
The United States is one of the few places with large reserves that pay oilfield workers livable wages and have decent regulations for worker safety. If it's a choice between enriching ARAMCO who pays peasant wages vs an independent US operator who can pay a middle class salary to someone without a degree, I would rather see the latter

There's plenty of oil in the world. Why do we feel the need to go after every last drop in the United States? It'll still be there in 100 years, if we need it.

ajmurmann 8y ago

Why are we still doing for oil anyways?! We are about to kill everyone on the planet with our fossil fuel addiction.

magduf 8y ago
Because we don't care. We want to drive our giant SUVs 2-3 hours a day so we can live in a McMansion in the exurbs, and we don't give a shit about what this is going to do to future generations. Furthermore, roughly half of Americans don't believe this is even a problem, and don't care about what any scientists tell them, because their religious leaders and favorite politicians tell them otherwise.
- ajmurmann 8y ago
  Should we all have to be in agreement to finally take meaningful action? If we were in a space station with thin walls and some folks want to set up a shooting range for their own enjoyment we'd stop them by all means. We wouldn't care if those people believe in vacuum outside the space station or not. Might seem far fetched, but we are very much in the same situation.
  - hjek 8y ago
    > we'd stop them by all means Fully agree. This is not an issue where we just have to hope that one day someone in charge will fix it.
  - magduf 8y ago
    >If we were in a space station with thin walls and some folks want to set up a shooting range for their own enjoyment we'd stop them by all means. No, we wouldn't, nor should we. The reason is democracy: if the people in that space station have a democratic government, and more than half of them vote for leaders who promise them they can keep their shooting range, no matter how dangerous, well then everyone else just has to live with it. Hopefully, it's obvious here that democracy only really works when the citizens are smart enough to use it well. The problem is that, in many cases, they just aren't, which is what we're seeing now.
- kk58 8y ago
  Perhaps we need economic pressure to encourage consumers to stop buying products from climate change deniers and their states.
charliesharding 8y ago
I know! It's ridiculous. I can't believe people still don't understand how many people will die in agony in {{ world.timeleft }}. The only solution is to wave our arms harder and faster above our heads to try and start a conversation and get others to think about who we are as a people.
- melling 8y ago
  That's the definition of insanity! Mr Einstein would be so disappointed. In other news, Americans stopped buying sedans because they want bigger vehicles. https://www.cbtnews.com/people-arent-buying-sedans-anymore/ https://www.cbtnews.com/people-arent-buying-sedans-anymore/
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
eqdw 8y ago
Huh just curious, do you perchance ride in cars? Or trains? or planes? Do you use electricity? Do you own anything plastic? What about metal? I think you'll find if you ask yourself these questions you will find that the answer to your rhetorical question was within you all along!
- ajmurmann 8y ago
  It's obviously a collective action problem and thus needs a collective solution. If I stop riding my car today, nothing changes. Would I be in favor of banning everyone, including myself from using any combustion engines by January 2020? Absolutely! Would it hurt? You bet! But it would be a incredibly reasonable trade off and we'd find new ways to cope. In fact anyone who lobbies for continued burning of fossil fuels should be charged with genocide.

normal_man 8y ago

We're going after that oil too. Venezuela is coming up next. The thirst for oil, and America's willingness to take it by force all over the globe, is limitless

mistrial9 8y ago
This is false and shows a lack on education to say it .. It is well-documented that the pattern of 'taking oil by force' was so obvious and conflict-enhancing, that the American foreign policy, military policy, and dollar-based oil trading market participants, went to great lengths to create ways to use soft-power in international oil deals. The poster child of this approach is the Saudi Arabia oil trading partnership of decades, where the increasingly wealthy Saudi state oil company have a control and share of profits that increases over time. Read a few wikipedia articles or this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prize:_The_Epic_Quest_for_Oil,_Money,_and_Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prize:_The_Epic_Quest_for_... It is true however, that Venezuala appears to be headed to breaking this pattern. It is related to the Hugo Chaves / Cuba / SAmerican Marxism fights and there are a lot of hard liners on both sides.
- pastor_elm 8y ago
  > In a statement, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino faulted Venezuela for the latest incident. >“The Venezuelan Navy aggressively stopped ExxonMob‎il contracted vessels operating under an oil exploration agreement with the Cooperative Republic of Guyana in its Exclusive Economic Zone,” he said, saying Guyana had the right to explore there and urging Venezuela to respect international law and its neighbors’ rights.[0] [0]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guyana-venezuela-oil/venezuela-navy-confronts-exxon-oil-ship-in-guyana-border-dispute-idUSKCN1OM0BK https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guyana-venezuela-oil/vene... Two months later Donald Trump is trying to oust Maduro for being 'undemocratically elected' while simultaneously praising communist Dictators in South East/East Asia. Yeah, has nothing to do with American oil interests.
- hjek 8y ago
  > on both sides That sounds familiar? Oh, wait: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-defends-organizers-of-white-supremacist-rally-in-charlottesville/2017/08/15/de01ff66-81f9-11e7-902a-2a9f2d808496_story.html?utm_term=.85d72ba5b3ce https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-defends-organi...

pastor_elm 8y ago

oil is money in the ground, so leaving it there is like leaving cash under your bed. it's even worth it to burn some off just to make sure you get any at all[0] [0]https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/05/140522-gas-flaring-costs-taxpayers-in-us-report-says/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/05/1405...

5040 8y ago

Environmentally speaking, doesn't it make more sense to get oil from close-by instead of importing it from far way?

astazangasta 8y ago
No, transportation costs are not a function of linear distance. It's cheaper to use a developed site than to build new pipelines.
- appleiigs 8y ago
  The post said "environmentally speaking", not economically.
appleiigs 8y ago
The east coast of Canada gets their oil from the Middle East. Politics prevents building a pipe across Canada.

squish78 8y ago

The United States is one of the few places with large reserves that pay oilfield workers livable wages and have decent regulations for worker safety. If it's a choice between enriching ARAMCO who pays peasant wages vs an independent US operator who can pay a middle class salary to someone without a degree, I would rather see the latter