The Oil Crisis Is (Still) Not Like A Toothache: Fighting The "Drill Now" Rhetoric

So there's this sudden faux-grassroots movement on the right to open up all of our wildlife reserves and our shores for oil drilling, under the pretense that it'll reduce our dependence on foreign oil and lower prices at the pump. It's even got a catchy, easily memorable slogan: "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less." And it's all the rage in East Wingnuttia.

Too bad that it's completely wrong and as far from the truth as one can get while still being in the same space/time continuum.

The "Drill now" slogan is a perfect example of how the conservative movement works. You get a plan that's easily boiled down into a series of repeatable talking points. You spread it everywhere, using your access to major media outlets to your advantage, and relying on a corps of loyal supporters to coalesce larger political movements around it. Next thing you know, despite the efforts of some of the best and most well-informed environmentalists and energy activists out there to remind us that offshore and ANWR drilling is a fool's errand at best, public opinion is beginning to shift in favor of "drill, drill, drill."

But there is some good news on that front. As Brian Angliss reports:

If there's a silver lining here, it's that 60% of the country (up 6% from February) supports new energy development, while 34% support protecting the environment. The problem is convincing people that the two aren't mutually incompatible, and that "new energy development" cannot equal "drill more oil and gas wells, mine more coal, and grow more corn for ethanol"...new energy development is eminently possible without relying on even more coal or natural gas power plants and more domestic oil production (that won't come on line for at least a decade anyway).

$4-a-gallon gasoline has proven to be the tipping point beyond which Americans simply cannot soak up the costs of travel by car any longer. We as a culture are beginning a fundamental paradigm shift away from the traditional model of suburban commutes by car, which is manifesting itself in all kinds of surprising ways. As I said before, we can't rely on the old ways to get us out of the problem, when it's those very same old ways that got us into it. And there's no more textbook example of "the old way" than Newt freaking Gingrich carrying water for Big Oil, while simultaneously providing greenwashed cover for John McCain's lack of a comprehensive energy policy.

Americans are smarter than we are often given credit for, and many of us do realize that destroying precious environmental resources and wildlife reserves to allow more domestic drilling is a psychological panacea -- a placebo to make us feel like "something is being done." The trick is to get the word out and keep it going across the country, so that everyone understands clearly...we need longer-term solutions and a fundamental reorientation of how our country works on every level if we're going to preserve our economy and improve--not preserve, but improve--our way of life. Drilling is fine for a cavity, but what we need to fix our woeful state is a lot bigger than what a drillbit can offer.

Next time I'll talk about some real-world solutions that can offer some short-term reductions of the economic pain, but the first thing to do is combat the idea of "drill now" as a real solution -- it's anything but.

Crossposted at Boztopia and Open Left.

Comments

[NL207]

"Too bad that it's completely wrong and as far from the truth as one can get while still being in the same space/time continuum."

Completely wrong? There is not one domestic transportation solution which is economically competitive with oil even at its present price, and which is not already in place.

Electric cars? Tried and failed.
Hybrid cars? Total cost of ownership is more. Avaialble and some will buy them anyway.
Fuel cells? Technology under development without need of government intervention, and still not mature enough to mass market. The automakers have great hope for this technology.
Solar powered cars? These don't work too well and night, even if they could be made to work otherwise.
Natural gas? Works with limitations: The fuel, LNG, is dangerous for lay people to handle. Some transit systems are using this.
Alcohol fuel: Inefficient. Biofuels destroy food stocks. Cellulosic ethanol unproven technology.
Algae biodeisel: unproven technology.


In the meantime, exploration will be necessary just to maintain something close to current production of oil. To NOT explore, i.e. drill, is most definitely the wrong answer, and an invitation to economic disaster.

Anybody who says the drilling is not part of the solution is a fool.

[research]

please search

economics of hybrids

cost of ownership is 5000$ lower for the same size and type of car for the hybrid version versus the gas only version.

Plug in Hybrids will be 10,000$ lower or better(both over 5 years ownerships, better after that)

[research]

We can switch to solar and wind, starting NOW, in less then ten years. less the 1T$. Just starting will cause the price of oil to plummet.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/research

[Thorn2008]

I'm so tired of the Americans are smarter then they are given credit for nonsense. Americans are idiots they will prove it time and time again. Did smarts get us into the state we are in today? No. I don't even hold the current administration completely responsible. There is a long list of strategic blunders going back as far as the Reagan administraton that have gotten us where we are today and the right still thinks of him as some sort of hero.

Oh, yeah, and for the jerk who will invariably say if you don't like it leave it. I say make me: because something else you might not know about most Americans. They are whimps. Any other time or place in history and the leadership we have today would have been dragged to the gallows. I'm not free bacause of the blood of my brothers. I'm free because I refuse to live any other way.
Just as like my brothers who have died for freedom.
www.galtsgorge.com

[aceholiday]

applause.

[DragonMama]

Suggestion for dealing with the "Drill Now" folks - ask them if they'd have trust in a dentist whose philosophy was "Drill Now. X-Ray later. Clean less." Because that's pretty much what they're proposing environmentally and economically. Drill haphazardly without really investigating the situation. Drilling doesn't help gingivitis. America is suffering more from a receding gum line than cavities.

[eric20008]

The search for easy, popular "answers" is not confined to conservatives. Alas. Even as the offshore drilling debate rages, liberal politicians (and conservatives, too) are blaming futures speculation for oil price increases even though most commentators and economists (including liberal ones like Krugman) assert that speculation is but one of many contributory factors. Speculation remains a liberal bugbear and so we are condemned to divert our attention for political rather than economic reasons.