It is a beautiful spring day in Washington. This is a nice respite from the horrors taking place in Japan and the ever-growing nuttiness of D.C. politics. Enjoying the weather provides a nice alternative to listening to the news or reading the newspaper.
The flood of nonsense in the traditional news outlets just continues to grow. At the top of the list is the steady stream of senators or members of Congress whose response to higher gas prices is to insist on drilling in every square inch of environmentally sensitive territory in the country. This is supposed to reduce our dependence on imported oil and lower the price of gas. Both sides of this assertion are absurd.
According to the Energy Information Agency, the United States has proven reserves of 22.3 billion barrels of oil. Given our current rate of consumption of 6.9 billion barrels a year, U.S. reserves could meet our demand for oil for less than 3.5 years. That means if we could somehow drill here, now, and everywhere, we could be energy independent until the middle of 2014 and then we would be 100 percent dependent on imported oil.
Of course, we cannot suddenly suck all the oil out of the ground at once, it takes time to explore and drill wells and then the oil must be drilled out over time. If we decided that we want to destroy every last national park and coastal region, we may be able to increase production by 1.0-1.5 million barrels a day in 5-10 years. At the high end, this would be a bit less than 2 percent of world supply.
Given normal assumptions about how demand responds to price, we would be very lucky to see a 6 percent decline in the price of oil. This means that in the most optimistic "drill everywhere" scenario we would save less than 20 cents from our $4 a gallon gas. More likely the savings would be less than half this size.
In other words, when a politician says that they want to end environmental restrictions on drilling in order to end U.S. dependence on foreign oil or bring the price of gas down, they are speaking utter nonsense. The correct response of a reporter to such assertions would be to say something like: "Senator, you know that the United States does not have nearly enough oil to be energy independent or to substantially reduce the price of gas."
However, you won't hear this response from outlets like National Public Radio or the Washington Post. Instead, they will just allow politicians to make absurd statements about energy independence and lower prices and treat them as though they are reasonable positions in the public debate. They will often add their own framing comments explaining to their audience that the issue is one between concerns over energy independence and concerns over the environment.
When major news outlets make wrong and damaging statements about a company like General Electric or Microsoft, they can count on angry and threatening phone calls from company lawyers. Unfortunately, there is no one in Washington with a comparable interest in protecting the environment, so these absurd statements get passed along in major news outlets unchallenged.
Politicians routinely make similarly absurd statements about Social Security, implying that the program and the country are about to go broke. Of course both claims are obviously untrue. According to the Social Security trustees, the program can pay all scheduled benefits for the next 26 years with no changes whatsoever and even after that date can always pay close to 80 percent of scheduled benefits. Instead of our children being broke, average wages are projected to be more than 40 percent higher in 2040 than they are today.
This means that when a politician whines about Social Security or the country going broke, the correct response from a reporter should be "Congressman, you know that the program is fine for more than a quarter century into the future," or "Congressman, you know that our children and grandchildren will on average be far richer than we are today."
Unfortunately, you won't hear reporters making these corrections either. Fortunately, there are groups like the Social Security Works, the Campaign for America's Future, and the Institute for Women's Policy Research that do correct bad reporting on Social Security, so there is at least some limit to how bad it can get.
However, the country is unlikely to see competent reporting on these and other topics that are central to national political debates until new media outlets, like Truthout, The Huffington Post and ProPublica, mature further and displace the traditional outlets. The latter still play far too large a role in setting the bounds for acceptable political discourse. The sooner we see the transformation of the media the better. Until then, maybe we can at least enjoy the weather.
Tommy Stadlen: Climate Revolutions
Rocky Kistner: One Gulf Oil Spill Source Found But Slicks May Be Spreading
Robert Reich: The Republicans' Big Lies About Jobs (And Why Obama Must Repudiate Them)
Ok, short form. I believe you mislead your readers on the facts about our oil reserves, status of our social security, and backed those up with some links to proof to that fact.
Now, I'll just say I truly hope more people understand the size and scope of the issues we face as a nation... misrepresenting facts and ignoring the harsh real world rules of nature will not change anything.
We do need to keep pushing for more renewable energy, AND we need to push for access to our proven 1-2 trillion barrels of oil reserves to act as a stop gap until the technology catches up.
According to the Energy Information Agency, the United States has proven reserves of 22.3 billion barrels of oil. (the link is in the "22.3 billion barrels of oil")
Given our current rate of consumption of 6.9 billion barrels a year, (Link is in the "6.9 billion barrels a year")
even after that date can always pay close to 80 percent of scheduled benefits (link is in the "80 percent of scheduled benefits").
Instead of our children being broke, average wages are projected to be more than 40 percent higher in 2040 than they are today. (Link is in the "40 percent higher in 2040")
Currently there are thought to be 1.2trillion barrels of proven oil reserves in the world. The US (ranked 12th) has less then 1/10th of the oil reserves that Saudi Arabia (#1) has, and about 1/6th that of Iraq (#2) or Canada (#3).
This means if you change existing laws the amount of oil can go up if congress allows drilling or oil extraction in places currently blocked. We have 6 trillion barrels here in the US, with about 2 trillion recoverable now. http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/npr/Oil_Shale_Resource_Fact_Sheet.pdf
Like a lawyer you've parsed words to mislead the public.
And like our government you are hiding the true nature of Social Security. I could write pages about how there is no trust fund, and yes, the OMB Director reports the trust fund is solvent until 2037 This is a lie.
The OMB’s told the truth back in the Clinton administration when the Director outlined how the “balances” are nothing more than a “bookkeeping” device. “They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits.”
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy00/pdf/spec.pdf
In other words, the Social Security trust fund contains nothing.
It is now taking in less money then it pays out. By any standard this is broke.
America’s combined energy resources are, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service (CSR), the largest on earth. They eclipse Saudi Arabia (3rd), China (4th) and Canada (6th) combined – and that’s without including America’s shale oil deposits and, in the future, the potentially astronomic impact of methane hydrates.
We elect people who represent the interest of 1% of the population that buys them. This is our "representative" democracy and there is nothing imaginary about it. Our representatives do what they are paid to do. If you want real change, you will have to do a lot more than vote for another Democrats or Republican.
The Preamble to the Constitution say everything done in this nation is to "perfect this union" but to allow the rich to gouge the poor is violation of the preamble and their oath of office. Not only is it violation of their oath it is treason (Article 3:3) against the United States and it's people. Article 2:4 should be implemented forthwith as http://www.change.org/petitions/eliminate-capitalistic-military-regime is designed to do.
It's too bad "free speech" applies to lies. If politicians could be held legally responsible (and don't tell me "voters" are their accountability) or even monetarily accountable for the damage they cause, they'd sing a different tune.
The same for news outlets. Their lies are protected by "free speech", or because they are about public figures they can say nearly anything they want.
Troubling.
There was a time not long ago when the crazies would make their crazy assertions, and the adults would create policy best for America's citizens. That time is gone, and the crazies have taken over, and create policies best for America's elite, which is quickly turning into a ruling class.
A lot of pushback will be needed to turn this tide. I sure hope we can one day find a leader that is able to get the fight started.
We pay for energy, and nobody I know is taking long Sunday drives anymore, or running around turning on every light in the house. The fact is that 300 million people will consume lots of energy just to live. Trying to meet that need with oil is insane, and changing light bulbs goes only so far. Oil props up horrible regimes and funds terrorism. Coal strips our mountains and turns our air to poison. We have been missing the boat with fuel cells, hydroelectric, wind and solar for too long. Our survival is at stake here, and our government seems not to notice.
100% correct that any domestic oil will not be sold at a lower price to Americans. But by the time anyone figures this out, the public lands will have been leased out and the big oil conglomerates will be snuggled into place, and there's no removing them then.
Fanned and faved.
When people finally catch on to the fact that ultimately we will be better off working with alternative energy and public transit, rather than continuing to muck up our environment with our ever-increasing demand for five hundred million privately owned/fossil fuel fueled vehicles... Well, we'll be better off.
Somehow it seems these backward m0r0ns can't detach their version of "The American Dream" from the mindless accruel of "stuff" and insatiable consumption of everything it takes to run and provide all the stuff.