>
> Personally, I have never heard anyone claim that the drying up of oil wells
> will happen at "a single moment in time". I wonder what your statement
> about "a bizarre understanding" is based upon.
>
> I know that Big Oil does it best to make environmentalists look like
> tree-hugging idiots who don't know what they're talking about. In reality
> though, environmentalists aren't stupid; it's just that they think further
> ahead than next quarter's net profits.
BRAVO! WELL SAID! Finally, someone who speaksfor how I feel. I am very
concerned that this inability to plan long term (caused very muchby the
fact that corporations, whose excessive power MUST be curbed, inherently
have a very short planning horizon, and politicians a somewhat longer one
but still short inasmuch as they are constantly lobbied and must look to
businessinterests for campaign financing, in the US anyway) is DOOMING THE
PLANET. If you voted for Bush, fine, but the long term consequences of
your actions may take me with you, and that's not fair. The ecosystem
doesn't know what Democrats or Republicans are.
Yes,I am growing increasingly bitter at the US system in particular for
our apparently inherent threat to the planet. SUVs sure, are Madison
Avenue making people want them, but they are also part of a culture that
woships individualism, and the private car is a statement of
individualism. If icould remake the world cars wouldbe less necessary in
the USA. we have evolved a society dependent on a fundamentaly evil thing.
A hundred years from now historians may look back on the electoin of GW
"Big Oil" Bush as the moment that made sure we would go to hell in a as
handbasket.
>
>
> But why wait till then? The sooner this is researched, the sooner we get
> results, and the sooner we (and the environment!) will benefit from it.
> Come to think of it, the only reason I can come up with for not investing
> in research is the Sacred Quarterly Profits. Heaven forbid that we spend
> money (and accept lower profits) now for something that's really only our
> grandchildrens' problem... :(
When oil wells run dry? I remember hearing tht before. If only they
would! Only a real shortage ever make people think conservation. But
supposedly there is something like a 500 year supply underneath Mexico
alone.
>
> And what is wrong with some government interference? This is not about
> making profits, this is about the future of the next generations. IMO, that
> *makes* it something the government must be involved in.
>
I agree with you but you are from another country where people are less
terrified of government. In the USA government is considered the rule of
all evil and all regulatins are thought fascist. In many ways I think
Europe is more civilized than the USA.
Take medicine. "Socialized medicine" is the great bogeyman of American
doctors. the AMA has for years loved to tell horror stories about the
rationing and such in other countries. But guess what? We now have a
private system called HMOs that not only from the patients point of view
but often from the DOCTOR's, can be even worse! But oh well, it's not run
y the evil STATE, so it must be better, huh?
Kristin
