Updates

I know, I haven't given any updates on the housing situation. Still working out a few bugs, but hopefully soon things will be settled.

Don't let high gas prices make you stupid.

The higher gas gets, the more pressure to drill the Arctic. But do we really want just another temporary band aid on a huge problem? No. Don't be scared by Big Oil into doing something that will put us back in the same place a few years down the road, all the while creating bigger problems. Anybody looked at Exxon's profits lately? Do you really think they are going to drop prices if they have access to Alaskan oil? Or that they won't jack up the price at the pump to fill in where the "tax holiday" leaves off? Don't let your frustration compromise your intelligence.

An Angry Question: Why Not Drill in Arctic?
In Brief: Trip explains why oil drilling in the Arctic won't ease the pain at the pump.
05/21/08

Hundreds of angry people, urged on by a right-wing talk show host, called Earthjustice recently to ask why we are challenging plans to drill in Alaska's Arctic Ocean.
Like many Americans, the callers are suffering from gasoline price increases and other costs, like food, that have gone up with the price of oil. They had been led to believe that drilling in Alaska would bring gas prices back down and restore America's place in the world.
But they are victims of yet another cynical attempt to use gas prices for political purposes. The oil industry and its political allies hope to manipulate consumer pain to rile up political support for drilling oil any place it can be found.
An even more blatant political use of gas prices is the proposal for a gas tax "holiday" this summer. As New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman pointed out, if we take the holiday, by the end of the summer "we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit."
So what's the real picture on gas prices and oil drilling in the Alaskan Arctic? Oil is priced in a global market, with supply constrained by a cartel of oil-producing nations, conflict and war in many of those nations, and shrinking global reserves.
Demand is driven largely by the energy squandering of the United States and by the rapidly growing economies of China and India. These forces, along with investor speculation, will continue to drive prices up.
Drilling in Alaska won't change this equation.
For example, government projections of oil production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge peg the region's supply at less than one-half of one percent of global production. Yet George Bush, Dick Cheney, and their radio talk show mouthpieces keep trumpeting the Arctic as the big solution to our energy woes.
We need a strong, sustainable energy policy to move us away from our oil-dependence, not a rush to drill every last place on earth.
We must shift the billions in tax breaks for oil into incentives for deploying the wide range of clean energy strategies that are being blocked by the president and oil state senators at every turn. Just this week, a Department of Energy report estimated that wind alone could provide 20 percent of our electricity by 2030 and create 500,000 jobs. But, wind energy projects can't find investors, while oil companies have record profits.
We need aggressive fuel efficiency standards, funding for transit and clean energy research, and development funding that is driven by the same urgency we brought to the Manhattan Project and the space race.
While we work to put a sensible energy policy in place, Earthjustice will bring the cases that hold the line on energy development in some of the planet's most special places, stop the most polluting energy practices, force the government to adopt overdue efficiency standards, and tilt the energy playing field away from fossil fuels and toward conservation, efficiency, and renewables.
This, not drilling everywhere at all costs, is the future on which jobs, prosperity, and healthy communities depend.

Trip Van Noppen, President

mailto:trip@earthjustice.org

Craziness

Ok, so things are moving. We are fixing a few things on the house since the inspection and moving forward with a house we found that we like. Lots going on, but not much time to talk about it.

Basically, I've decided that the new place will mean a new place here as well. After hearing good things about wordpress, that new place will eventually be here. Obviously it's not even close to set up yet, but I'll get to it. I considered an independent site, but I really can't justify it. Anyway, in the next few weeks I'll get all my links and such up there and then take this site down. One of my blog friends said I should leave this one here because of some of the information it contains, but I am really ready for a clean slate. If anyone has linked to info here, feel free to copy and paste so you don't end up with a broken link.

So impressed a guy wrote this.

Another must read link from Biomes. Something I wish I had written.

In other news, we are in the middle of a home inspection this morning. Since we've only been in the house three years and it's the same inspector, hopefully things will go smoothly.

I will be so glad when this is all resolved...

Polar Bear Assistance

If something isn't done soon, I fully expect polar bears to be extinct within my lifetime, partly because of a Texas cowboy whose priorities stand with his Big Oil buddies...

Alaska's polar bears have moved one big step closer to receiving protection under the Endangered Species Act. A federal judge just ordered the Bush Administration to stop dragging its feet and decide by May 15 whether it will safeguard America's polar bears from the threat of extinction due to rising temperatures and rapidly melting sea ice. It took a lawsuit by NRDC, the Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace to force this latest breakthrough. The court ruled that the Bush Administration had violated the law by missing its January deadline and then proceeding to delay for months more. While the Administration stalled for time, it rammed through oil and gas leases in some of the polar bear's most important Arctic habitat. By ordering a May 15 deadline for this decision, the federal courts have thrown polar bears an important lifeline. That's because the Endangered Species Act requires this momentous decision to be made solely on the best available science -- not politics -- and the science is absolutely clear that the polar bear urgently needs protection from the impacts of global warming. With reports of polar bears starving and drowning...snowy dens collapsing on mother bears and their newborn cubs...and populations in decline, there is no longer any doubt that the climate crisis is taking a terrible toll on these magnificent creatures. But despite the iron-clad evidence, there is no assurance that the Bush Administration will do the right thing on May 15. Given President Bush's pro-polluter agenda and relentless attacks on wildlife, it is still possible that the Interior Department will deny protection for the polar bear. In that case, we'll be fully prepared to drag the Bush Administration back to court and fight in the legal arena until polar bears win the protection they so urgently need. I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as we get word of the Administration’s decision. In the meantime, if you haven't done so already, please take a moment to tell your senators to stop oil development in Alaska's prime polar bear habitat. With Alaska's polar bears under siege, I am so grateful to have you working by our side to help ensure their survival.

Sincerely,
Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

Bear with me

Things will be a little quiet for awhile. We just sold the house! Now our house hunt goes into overdrive, and packing begins. I'll try to stop in with updates and hope to start up a new site when we get settled in the new digs in a month or so.

Politics and arguments

I hate politics. Really I do. My problem is, I think there is a lot wrong with the way things are and the way they are heading, and the only real way to affect any change at all is politically. There are a couple of blogs I read that are mainly political, and not always opinions that I agree with. However, I have learned an awful lot from one in particular, and have been pleasantly surprised that I did agree with him on certain things. I've even adjusted my views on a topic or two after reading his posts. As different as we are, I think we've come to have a mutual respect for one another. (Although we have chewed each other up and down once or twice - it's all good.)

I am easily drawn into conversations about things I feel strongly about, and sometimes it takes me awhile to realize those conversations lead to nowhere. Unlike what some of my family would say, I really DON'T like to argue. I WILL argue, but I don't LIKE to. It leaves me feeling fairly ill, actually. I much prefer a level-headed conversation, even if in the end both people still disagree.

There are two reasons why a rational debate turns into an argument for me. Either I feel like the person just isn't listening and is completely missing my point, or I feel that the person is belittling or attacking me. Honestly, by the time it gets to this stage, nothing is going to be accomplished, so once I realize it's gotten to this point, I generally try to diffuse the situation or just walk away. (And I hate to walk away because then they think they've won, but it's just not worth it.) I've had to do this today actually, with another reader of my buddy's blog. He's thrown tons of reference material and factoids at me, but has completely missed the point I was making. No matter how many times I reiterate that point, he'll keep tossing out new articles that counter accusations I never made but don't do much to counter my very basic point. And because I am not a hyperconservative, he basically just calls me a treehugger and dismisses me, while still taking the time and effort to argue. (But if it's a conservation issue that he happens to agree with, then it's not a treehugger issue, it's just a good idea.) So essentially he's just listening to himself talk. Eventually I'll go back and read the new set of articles he posted, but there's really no point to continuing the discussion anymore, because I am just a treehugger.

What to do

I need to make some decisions about this place.
There's a lot of baggage hanging around here in all those old posts, and I'm not really the person I was when I started this blog adventure. Plus, there has been so much crap that's happened in the last year or two that I'd really like to move past (some I posted about, some I didn't). I've downloaded my posts from previous years to the Blurb bookmaker, so I can keep them as a sort of diary. So now I have to figure out if I should just delete the old stuff (ONE post at a time - thanks Blogger) and keep this thing going, or shut this one down completely and start a new blog altogether. I'm leaning towards the latter, simply because I can REALLY start over that way, with a new name, new profile, new everything.
I plan to keep up with my blog buddies, so if I scrap this site I'll make sure you guys know the new info.

Any thoughts?