I don’t know why they can’t put a cheap facade on those rigs.
Drilling offshore technically helps, but it’s not the best solution.
I think Paul Krugman illustrated the idea best. He said that asking for more oil now is the same as if a company in 1989 wanted to their offices to type faster and started screaming for more typewriters.
Sure more typewriters will help the problem, but is it a good solution when we are on the verge of a computer revolution? So why support offshore drilling instead of clean energy?
Remember that the stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. It ended because we figured out how to work with bronze. The oil age isn’t going to end when we run out of oil. It will end once we figure out how to use clean energy.
So instead of asking for more typewriters, ask for the computer.
The best way to make people stop driving is to make gas expensive. Drilling for more oil will ahe the exact opposite effect.
Is that true for food as well? Is it really just economics that makes drinking Italian seltzer water in Los Angeles seem so absurd? Does it really make no difference if we send chickens to China for processing and then ship them back again as frozen strips?
Much of the economy that we’re so concerned with sustaining is churn built upon this kind of blind allegiance to the idea that the cheapest solution is the best one. Quality, privacy, ethics, even ideals of freedom, are yielding to the lure of cheaper goods available at Target.
But I do fully agree that the only really ethical choice is to make some changes in our energy consumption habits.
Funny! But seriously, they’ve tried.
http://cache.virtualtourist.com/2387929-Artificial_island_with_oil_rig-Long_Beach.jpg
They actually do. There’s a place they drill just south of Santa Barbara that looks like an island. If you plop yourself down on the road just south (well, east) on google street view you can see it as the fuzzy island with palm trees. Link
It doesn’t look like much in that picture, but here’s another shot from Dan Merkel. No direct link. Go here and scroll to the far right on the bottom. It’s the fourth picture from the right: Dan Merkel Galleries
The palm trees are fakes.
Actually, it is those Astronaut Islands I was thinking about when I posted about the facade. Why not apply the same principle to the big rigs off Santa Barbara?
Oh yeah. Forgot about that one. I used to ride my bike by there on PCH and 101 from Ventura to Carpenteria and back.
That gull sure looks happy to see someone.
Huh, that’s not too bad. I guess a fake “hotel” looks better than a rig. Not a whole lot IMHO, but better.
Hmm, the fourth photo from the right looks like this. I must be misunderstanding your instructions. I did find one photo on Flickr of an Astronaut island, here.
You know, I thought of an even more uniquely Californian facade than the others; here’s my prototype.
Perhaps the day is not far off when the Saudis will be able to buy California with their oil money, and then they can decide for themselves whether or not to drill there. 
In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration’s oil policy was, “Drain the rest of the world first.” Maybe we should sit on the oil for a little while longer.
I’m guessing that an oil spill in California would lead quite a bit of lost revenue for tourist businesses and fishermen. If the oil companies are willing to commit to paying multi-billion dollar fines if crude were spilled (via an escrow account), I might think about such a proposal. I suspect though that there are lower lying fruit to be plucked.