That's a different claim than your initial "there's nothing there."

The thing about tundra is that species need a *lot* of it to survive, as each acre provides far less sustenance than, say, an acre of tropical rainforest.

So the animals in ANWR migrate all over the place. The caribou wander between their calving grounds on the coast and their wintering grounds further south. Birds use ANWR as a summer breeding ground before flying south for the winter. Polar bears and other predators follow the prey. Wolves have very large territories, out of necessity.

There's a lot of wildlife there. It needs a lot of space, and the space it needs is always on the move, because it needs different areas at different times of the year.

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Man up.

I didn't figure you for a tree hugger.

It's okay to starve folks, but God forbid we impose upon the caribou.
High fuel costs translate to higher food costs.

Now come on. Cutting out most of what he actually said and using just a phrase to make it look as if he was making a definitive statement is a bit disingenuous, isn't it? Here's what he said:

"We're going to look at this barren, Arctic desert where I'm hoping to see some wildlife," Boehner said. "But I understand there's none there. But I'm still going to look for it. If I find any, I'll let you know."

So, clearly he's talking about the barren Artic desert part which is under discussion for drilling in. A very tiny part of the entire thing.



So.....you honestly think these Caribou live in this desert area?

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

Unbelievable, isn't it Herk?

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

Alaska is 1/5th the size of lower the 48.

It's vast.

Nature can adapt to what little impact drilling will have.
Modern drilling technology isn't that invasive to wildlife.

I'm not PETA or Greenpeace, but I do value natural ecosystems more than the market usually does.

I understand that we need a certain amount of extractive industries. The question for any given application is a cost/benefit.

Given the time frame and amount of extractable oil involved (which is far less than 10 billion, by the way), I just don't see it as a worthwhile tradeoff. It's a band-aid for the larger problem -- our dependence on a finite resource controlled by overseas despots.

Conservation would go a *long* way toward helping. But developing alternative fuels is the only real long-term solution.

Drilling in a fragile environment like ANWR is just temporarily extending our dependency at what I consider an unreasonable cost.

True. But ANWR wont' do much to reduce fuel costs anyway.

I've argued for a long time that the problem was *artificially cheap* fuel. The price we paid at the pump didn't even begin to address the true cost of that fuel, when expressed in overseas entanglements, the actual cost of wars, the human cost of propping up despots (one expression of that cost is extremism and terrorism from those whom the tyrants rule), environmental costs of extraction, refining and transportation, and so on.

We've built an economy based on a chronically underpriced commodity, which encouraged us to make economically irrational decisions about its use. Just take a look at how much of our freight moves by truck rather than rail or barge; energywise, trucks are the second-least efficient method of transporting bulk goods (only airplanes are worse), and that doesn't even count the fact that trucking is subsidized by highway funds (railroads have to build their own track; trucks don't). Or how many people decided it made economic sense to live an hour away from work and commute in a huge SUV, while we poured money into roads and starved transit.

Those choices would be fine if they were based on the true cost of fuel; but they weren't.

All of that makes the pain that much greater now that prices rise toward that true cost, but at least now we're starting to make rational decision about our fuel consumption.

The current situation is the best way to wean ourselves off of our oil dependency, by aligning short- and long-term self-interest. The market isn't gentle, but it's efficient.

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Man up.

I've told this before on this board, but I'll say it again---because it's applicable for this thread. Right now, at this VERY moment, an oil/gas company is drilling 8000 ft below my home; my entire neighborhood. It's called slant drilling---the same kind of technology they would use on the 2000 acres of the ANWR. No one in my neighborhood is being affected----pets are not dying----homes are not being destroyed. IF that had been the case, we would NOT have signed the contracts for the leases. Since the initial derecks are miles away, we barely saw them in the beginning. Plus those derecks are only up for about 6 weeks, then they come down and what is left, one can barely see at all.

Now----if WE can allow this kind of drilling without being affected and destroyed, why the hell can't it be done in this tiny area of a vast reserve in one small part of Alaska? It's unreasonable for the Democrats in this country to be so beholding to their far-left to the detriment of the entire country. People are suffereing out here in the real world---and they need to come down from their Ivory Towers and stop worrying about their votes and power.

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

He said he's going to ANWR and he understands there's no wildlife there. I didn't distort his meaning.

I really don't see how I misquoted him.

Please show me the part you consider "barren Arctic desert", and then try to explain how it's meaningfully different from the rest of the refuge. The drill site is part of the coastal plain, not the more mountainous stuff further inland. But the coastal plain is huge (1.5 million acres) and has plenty of wildlife.

#1, it's not a "desert". There are no sand dunes. It's not barren.

#2, did you even *look* at the maps I linked to? They show the range of the caribou herds.

The caribou live in the southern part of the refuge during the winter, but head north on to the coastal plain in the summer to calve. So do a lot of birds. The predators follow them.

C'mon, JP5. You're smarter than Boehner. He's being an idiot. Don't follow him down that path out of misplaced loyalty.

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Man up.

Speaking realistically, if they couldn't get this thing to pass with a Republican President and Republican Congress, it has no chance whatsoever now.

The Boehner thing appears to be nothing more than a publicity stunt to make Democrats look weak on energy policy. But who knows? Maybe he'll find some carbon neutral solar powered unicorns up there that will make everyone happy.

So YOU know more than the oil company experts who are in the business of finding oil? With the cost of doing it being what it is, they sure as heck don't do it for fun; they do it for profit. And they wouldn't choose that area, or any area, where they didn't do all the necessary seismic tests first to give them a very good idea what they'll find. Bush gave a very informative answer on this kind of question in his press conference yesterday.


And the Republicans are not saying to stop all those things. We must do ALL of it. It's the Dems who only want to leave out one very important part of it.

That's baloney. You totally discount the new technology.



Alternatives---which would certainly NOT bring down gas prices now....also has it's problems. You see what ethanol is doing to the price of food, don't you? There are wind turbines close to our property near the Red River----and there is currently a move by a group to STOP them, as they are eyesores and also seen by many as "destroying the land." So there ya go.

So, while Dems and environmenatlist say "No" to just about everything.....including Nuclear energy....they offer NOTHING. I guess doing nothing and letting the people suffer is a decision in and of itself. But it's pretty pathetic, IMO. I'm thinking if this keeps up.....the Dems may find come November that they don't take over NEARLY as many House and Senate seats as they believe they will. People are getting mad as hell.

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007