Today I had the lovely experience of dealing with a used car dealership. The owner and propriater went by the name of John. At the end of my experience with him I officially became “that guy.”
You know, the person who drives a minivan even though they only have one kid. I am now “that guy.”
Suffice to say that is not why I am writing this post. During our friendly conversationing after the negotiations were complete he made a few politically-charged statements that I completely disagreed with. Since I wasn’t in the mood to debate energy politics with a 50-year old Texan who is obviously set in his ways I sidestepped most of the issues he brought up.
His first declaration came during talk of how hot it was in the summer in Texas.
“Yeah, must be that global warming thing. I don’t believe in global warming.”
While I don’t subscribe to the alarmism found in Al Gore or his compatriots, I believe that humans do affect the environment through our actions which cascade into reactions we may or may not fully understand.
I replied that hopefully one day we’ll all drive cars that don’t require us to import massive amounts of oil from the Middle East (imagine not having to spend money for imported energy! Sing it with me now, USA! USA!)
His response was faily mind blowing.
“Well, we have three times the amount of oil in the Middle East, we just need to drill for it here!”
I’m always amazed when people make statements that have absolutely no basis in reality.
Let’s compare just the US and Saudi Arabia, shall we?
US: 21 billion barrels of proven oil reserves
Saudi Arabia: 264 billion barrels of proven oil reserves (link)
He then went on to talk about recent discoveries of oil in the “Rockies” and North Carolina. Next he brought up the offshore drilling aspect of things. If he’d have taken a few moments to search on Google he’d quickly find a lovely chart from the EIA (Energy Information Administration of the US Gov’t) below:
See how much more oil we get if we drill offshore?
Don’t even get me started on ANWR.
Anyway, what beliefs do you have that have absolutely no basis in empirical data?
I’ll start: My new Honda Odyssey will beat the pants off of any minivan you can shake a stick at!
By ‘new’ minivan I mean made in 2003.
I am firmly of the belief that a bowl of ice cream can cure just about any malady. (Of course, you need to select the flavor according to the illness. That’s the arcane science of icicremology. Often it takes several samples to find the right mix.)
I, myself, am a huge global warming skeptic. My mentor at work and I have a months-long, ongoing conversation about global warming that we pick up whenever one of us finds an interesting article. We both are unconvinced that global warming is man-made, and we try to keep our opinions based solely on research data. Anyway, we got some laughs last month when Intel’s cafeteria started a global warming awareness campaign by displaying huge, dramatic posters with such captions as: “Is my cheeseburger causing global warming?”
Like I mentioned in the post I think that humans obviously have an effect on the environment (see: Amazon deforestation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Rainforest) but understanding what the consequences may be is a tricky process. Computer modeling of such a complex system such as weather patterns for the entire planet is a very non-trivial and relies on massive amounts of a data. Coincidentally, my company happens to helping UCLA monitor rainforests in Costa Rica (http://sine.ni.com/cs/app/doc/p/id/cs-11143) which will hopefully assist in improving models for the environment.
Either way, even the big oilmen like T. Boone Pickens see the writing on the wall and are looking creating massive amounts of renewable energy via wind turbines.
Importing energy from politically unstable regions is unwise in the long run. Its sad that a country like Brazil has 100% energy independance due to domestic ethanol and oil production while we still depend on Chavez, the Canadians and the Middle East for over 60% of our energy needs.
In essence, even if global warming is BS we should still free ourselves from oil slavery to external powers.
Hello cousins!
We missed everyone terribly at the Marsh Reunion. While you were playing in Tahoe, we were, hmm, I can’t remember, but I know it wasn’t as good as hanging out in Tahoe. I have been meaning to post on here for a while, and so today I find inspiration for a post. Politics have become an interest to me since I graduated from college, got a job, and money started being taken from me based on decisions of the politicians. While I think we could go on for days and days with the global warming debate, one thing neither of my well-versed, more experienced cousins omitted as a possibility for helping our future energy needs is STABILIZING (read “controlling”) the areas in the world where we get our oil. Hmm, anyone squirming at that thought? The problem with energy is that for the most part, it is not storeable. Except for oil. Oil is stored in this earth for us to use it. A few bombs, a few more deployments, and a lot of heavily loaded fighter planes patrolling evil Chavez and the Middle East while we go ahead and take over for the liberty of their people and the gasoline-guzzlers in our country. I like that idea. . .
Hmmm, my V-6 Ford Taurus could kick your Honda mini-van’s butt any day…
I am mostly undecided on the global warming issue mostly because I think the research for both sides is very sketchy and doesn’t have a firm conclusion.
Point is, we should try to conserve, pollute less, and take care of our environment.
My two cents.
An amusing picture based on April’s comment:
http://www.wikiupload.com/images/oil-drilling.jpg
7 New Alternative Fuels:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4277305.html
I think I’ll work up something on foreign entanglements soon…
I’ve got another one for you — CankerMelts. They’re these licorice extract drops that you put on canker sores. I’m sure that no scientific testing has ever been done on them, but I think they’re great: http://www.dentist.net/cankermelts.asp