Well, at least you gave us an honest warning before launching into this tirade. These sorts of arguments are totally bogus. We are not saying there should be no use of petroleum products. What I am saying is that I am willing to accept the very slightly higher price of oil that would result from the very slightly greater scarcity because we don’t drill in ANWR. Since I currently impose a 100% gas tax on myself and have since year 2000, I don’t think I am just making an idle statement here.
We are wasting our petroleum resources because we are only paying a fraction of their true cost directly. All the rest of the environmental and other costs are externalized. This is why the government needs to step in with serious measures (CAFE standards, much higher gas taxes, or what have you) in order to make people bear the costs in rough proportion to their petroleum usage.
Opening up more places for drilling is not the answer. The problem is not that there is too little supply for petroleum. Rather it is that there is too much demand because of the effective subsidization leading to wasteful usage.
CS:…you are JUST as much “to blame” for impacting the environment as the rest of we “srewed up” humans, and that includes the “evil” oil empire.
Kinda; but some environmental impacts are harsher and more counter-productive than others. Without fulminating against the “evil oil empire”, and without accusing you or anybody else of falsehood or ignorance, I’d like to re-emphasize jshore’s excellent point. It’s not a question of whether we’ll have some kind of impact no matter what: of course we will. It’s a question of how we evaluate and prioritize our impacts to get the most bang for our eco-buck.
And there seems to be no getting around the fact that drilling for oil in ANWR has a pretty low bang/buck ratio, unless you happen to work for an oil company that’s doing it. There’s not that much oil there to begin with, it would take years to come online, and it wouldn’t significantly soften the eventual impacts of petroleum overconsumption and scarcity. Moderate and immediately attainable conservation standards would save more oil in a year or so than we’d ever get out of ANWR.
It’s true that we all have an impact on the environment to some extent, but it’s not true that therefore we all have to conclude “oh well, as long as some environmental impact is inevitable, we might as well drill in the Refuge”. As jshore asks, why are we actively promoting our unsustainable fossil-fuel addiction instead of trying to taper off it?
[Note added in preview: oh well, I guess jshore made his case himself. :)]
Sorry, I should have also specified that particular part was a reply to the attitudes of Monk, and Futile, who DID seem to imply that they thought all oil use was bad and evil.
You know what’s kindof funny here? (sorry, slightly off topic). We Alaskans pay more at the pump than the lower 48, for the same damn gasoline!!! I’m not quite sure what you mean by imposing a gas tax on yourself? You take the 20 dollars you just filled your tank on, and then double it and bank it? Something like that? (I swear!, I’m going to put my fave line as my sig, Please speak slowly, I’m naturally blonde).
I’m not sure what you mean about “wasting our petroleum reserves” or “make people bear the costs in proportion to their petroleum usage”. Please expand on this (pssssst, this should prove I don’t work for the oil industry, for I don’t have a clue how the whole price per barrel correlates to true cost, etc, not to mention, as I’ve already admitted in other threads, I’m a complete math phobic).
No, and I don’t believe I’ve ever said that it was “THE” answer. In fact, I stated earlier on in this thread that I knew that it was not the answer. But it IS a viable source of energy. My point has never been “Oh Help us ANWR Obi, you’re our only hope” but that of “opening ANWR is NOT a planet killer, as the greenies would have hapless citizens believe”.
I don’t quite understand what you mean by “effective subsidization leading to wasteful usage”.
But I’m guessing you are, at least in part, referring to the fact that “we” need to develop other sources of fuel/power to run things.
Well, that’s sort of another subject. One I think another poster brought up, that of alternate methods of fuel.
Such as developing electric hybrids and so on (I am however, going to mention here that electric hybrids carry their own environmental problems, for one, that of landfill issues with the dead battery cells).
Other than that, I can’t really answer that question/comment. I am not well-informed on the development of the electric hybrid cars, alternate sources of energy, and the like (other than the knowledge of the battery cell/landfill problem, and that only because that’s in my area of expertise).
But I did address the subject of needing alternate energy in my previous posts. Yes, “we” do need to look into alternate sources, but “we” haven’t currently done so, ergo, “we” still need to rely on petro-chemicals.
But who are “we”? Whoever the “we’s” are, that are supposed to be researching and developing these things, well, hell, they ain’t cutting the mustard, these alternate sources of energy aren’t yet available, not to the general public and not in any kind of useable, affordable and effective format.
IANA chemist/scientist/research and developer of energy sources, etc, so I don’t know when, or if any of these alternate sources are going to be available on a scale that will supply society.
I’ll chime in and agree that even if the environmental damage to ANWR is slight that doesn’t necessarily mean that we should open it to oil exploration. It just seems to me that we should debate the issue honestly. ANWR isn’t going to provide energy independence, but exploration of ANWR isn’t going to destroy it either, any more than exploration of Prudhoe Bay destroyed the North Slope. If you feel that the aesthetics of oil development in ANWR warrant not developing there, that’s a legitimate point of view. But believing that exploration will turn the whole thing into an oil soaked wasteland of dead caribou and tire tracks is just silly.
You don’t need to go drilling in wildlife reserves to get any of those wonderful petroleum products. The demand here is being driven by a desire for profit rather than scarcity anywhere else.
The whole point of reserves is that you don’t go mucking about in them. We’re forever drawing lines in the sand and then crossing them when money can be made on the other side.
We have a history of going into places saying “it’s ok, we know what we’re doing. There will be very little impact, and what impact there is will be offset by good impact because we know better that the current ecosystem’s equilibrium. We know which plants and animals are good, and which are bad, so if the good ones benefit from us being there then that’s ok then.” The end result usually indicates we don’t know squat and the arguments given are just excuses for doing what we wanted to in the first place.
Whether carabou, or anything else, are bothered by oil pipes or not isn’t really the point. They’re dumb animals, they have no way of comparing life with them to life before them. But we know that a nature reserve is better off without them.
To be fair, I think I was vague enough here that it is not your fault that you don’t understand what I mean by this. What I do is keep a record of how much I spend on gasoline each year. Then at the end of the year I add it all up and make a special contribution to an environmental group. Needless to say, this adds up to a reasonable chunk of change (~$350-450) despite the fact that I drive a pretty energy-efficient car and try to minimize its usage somewhat. [Since I don’t try to determine what fraction of what I pay in gasoline already goes to taxes, I am paying a 100% gas tax on the total price including what taxes are already there. On the other hand, if the contribution I make is tax deductible, I do get the tax deduction on my federal income taxes.]
Well, there have been various studies of the total externalized costs of each gallon of gasoline. Here is a Sierra Club reference on this. While you will probably feel the Sierra Club has an axe to grind in this regard, note that they do refer you back to the original studies. I downloaded the OTA (Office of Technological Assessment) study which seems quite impressive although I will admit that I haven’t read that much of it and am not sure from where in the study the Sierra Club pulled out the figures they give.
Thanks again Lemur, and that’s exactly the point I was trying to make from the get-go.
That exploration isn’t the planet killer the rabid environmentalists would have us believe it is.
Economically speaking, I don’t know enough to fill a thimble. Which is why in my arguments I addressed ONLY the fact that the “severe environmental costs” and damage as posted by other dopers were a fallacy.
I thank jshore for coming back in and explaining some of those economics to me.
I have to admit that perhaps jshore may have thought that my phrase “huge financial boon to Alaska” meant “everyone will get rich” as did another poster.
That wasn’t what I meant at all. Alaska has three or four major industries. (disclaimer, see my above statement regarding my pitiful knowledge of economics, so I’m not sure in what order these are supposed to be, and it also depends upon the societal climate, for instance tourism took a HUGE nosedive during the great wolf kill debate, back in the 90s, I think that nowadays, thanks to 9/11, the Air Cargo industry has likely suffered as well, as we’ve seen many airline companies suffer).
Oil
Tourism
Air Cargo Hub
Logging
During the mid 80s, when the oil revenues first started declining (not the oil itself, the oil revenues, those have to do with how much the state and Native Corp ASRC get from the oil companies), we had a huge exodus of citizens from Alaska due to people not being able to make a living.
The information regarding our statistics can be found in a document called “Anchorage Indicators” (yeah, I know, but it has all of Alaska’s info on it too), which is on the webpage www.muni.org (let me know if this doesn’t work, so I can replace it).
Anyway, during that time we had about 600,000-650,000 people living in the state of Alaska, about 350,000 of them in Anchorage (yeah, huge land mass, with one of the smallest populations).
Now, there are around 500,000 or so Alaskans, with around 275,000 living in Anchorage (2000 census).
Since my job isn’t dependent upon oil, (a person can be an environmental manager in any industry, as I’ve been for the last 6 years contracting out to the DoD), it doesn’t matter so much to me, and if I had my way, I’d move to the states anyway (that’s another story ), but to those that do love Alaska, and call it home, it makes a big difference.
Anyway, sorry I digress. I do appreciate the economic info jshore!!!
On another note, no-one has come forward and offered any effective, tangible, alternative solutions to “weaning off our dependance on petroleum”.
Well, let me rephrase that, no one has actually put any into effect that are available, here, now and to everyone.
Again, along with everyone else, I’ve heard the catchwords “reduce wasteful usage” “alternative energy sources” etc etc etc
So, where are they? Other than exotic “inventions” such as the electric hybrid, there hasn’t been anything actually designed, manufactured and made available so that “joe average citizen” CAN be part of the solution instead of the problem.
Again, as in my previous post, all the greenies are always saying “we” have to reduce usage, “we” have to do this, that and the other.
But nothing tangible is ever offered as a solution.
Oh, yeah, the old use car pools and use public transportation rants. But those aren’t very realistic for many people. Get smaller more fuel efficient cars. Well, lots of people have done that. Do most cities have reliable public transporation? Anchorage doesn’t. I’ve been in some cities outside that do have reliable public transport (like Honolulu, great system!!), and some that have ones as crappy and unrealistic as Anchorage’s.
So, what is the “real” solution?
I’d also still like a definition for “wasteful usage”. I mean, who defines what is a valid use of their vehicle, heating fuel, etc, and what is not?
Well, I think one of the most important things to be done is to raise the CAFE standards significantly, particularly for light trucks and SUVs. There is apparently lots of room for improvement with current technology but the auto companies just don’t have much incentive at the moment to do this.
Here is a page from UCS with various publications on this topic such as “Energy Security”, “Clean Energy Blueprint”, and “Drilling in Detroit”.
The basic conclusion is that there is a lot of progress that in many ways can be made quite quickly through improved efficiency and conservation. Renewables are not really much of a factor in the near-term but it is important that we start really investing in them so that they can start to make more of a difference over the longer term.
Here is an extended quote from the executive summary of the “Drilling in Detroit” report:
It is ironic that the same Administration which believes we can use our technological prowess to build a missile defense system to protect us (even though this involves not only incredible technology but also overcoming an “offense” that has huge inherent advantages) seems to believe that we don’t have the technology to start to ween ourselves off of wasteful usage of fossil fuels!
Well, then I’d have to ask again. If it, the technology, IS currently available. Then where is it?
I’d also like to readdress my question of who gets to decide whose “usage” is more “valid” than another person’s.
There is more to fossil fuel usage than just the vehicles we drive.
Seems as if we are straying into “Big Brother” territory just a wee bit here.
Does family “A” who keeps their thermostat set at 68 demonstrate a better and more “valid” use of energy than family be who keeps theirs at 74?
Family A is an active young family, Family B is two elderly retirees who would be miserably uncomfortable at 68 (hell, I’M miserable at 68, and I’m healthy and active).
Who is to say that the Nascar “sport” is not a “valid” use of fossil fuels?
(I think you’d have a mutiny on your hands).
Not that I would care, personally I think it’s a noisy and boring sport.
Your examples seemed to address mostly “fleet” which I took to you to mean businesses and their vehicles.
But a lot of families aren’t going to be able to afford new technology like electric cars, even if they do make them available in the near future.
And there are some people who aren’t going to LIKE such “new” technnology.
Again, Big Brother? Are we going to make a law against gas burning cars?
Well, the point is that in a market economy, technology doesn’t get implemented unless the manufactures can make a buck on it or are forced to do it. [And, it is hard for them to make a buck on energy conservation while gasoline prices are effectively subsidized so heavily.]
We already have a rationing system in place. It is called “price”. We can either use this rationing system but make the price better reflect the full internalized cost of the good, or we can do various things by mandating CAFE standards and such.
I don’t know why you think this. The reason “CAFE (corporate average fuel economy)” is called that is that the targets that must be met must be met by each corporate manufacturer. I.e., Ford must sell cars such that the average fuel economy of all the cars it sells is X miles per gallon. The use of “fleet” is in reference to the cars it sells. There is no implication of it applying only to business vehicles.
CAFE standards are already in effect now. They were instrumental in getting the auto manufacturers to raise fuel economy. But the standards have not been raised since the early 90’s and there is also a big gap between the standards for passenger cars and those for light trucks (which include SUVs and other such vehicles that are now in practice used as passenger cars). I believe the numbers that are in place are something like 20.5 mpg for light trucks and 27.5 mpg for passenger cars…or something around that.
I don’t see why you don’t see any middle ground between “letting the market (ravaged by externalities) decide” and outlawing gas burning vehicles. Obviously, the latter is not a feasible solution, in the near (or even medium) term at any rate.
I don’t suppose you have a cite for the Bush Administration seeming to believe that we don’t have the “technology” to improve efficiency? I thought the last argument was that it was protecting Big Oil, paybacks to Bush’s buddies, or that Bush hates the environment and wants to destroy it. I mean, geeze, which is it, really?
Remember our CRX HF discussion? Why exactly isn’t Honda producing another 59 mpg non-hybrid car right now for sale in the US? Remember please the price of gasoline at the time the CRX HF was in production…in real dollars. Wasn’t it about the same as now (given that the price of gasoline has been volatile of late, however)? This question means more than it sounds - think about it.
(Aside: And didn’t we already debate the oil spill thing to death? And find out that the amount of oil actually spilled in Alaska from current operations was pathetically small? I seem to remember another racous debate here on that here…)
I guess I’m wierd in that am the arch-conservative who wants much more conservation and who thinks exploratory drilling should be done in the ANWR, for oil and natural gas. Despite the scare tactics and “cites” from environmental lobbies thrown out into the debate, I am convinced that exploratory drilling can be done for scientific and research purposes with a minimal risk to the environment there.
But then, I also think petroleum subsidies should be phased out rapidly, and the CAFE increased.
However, the claims of the enormous levels of “subsidies” that the oil companies receive, while valid on some levels, are also outright lies on others. I’ve downloaded some of the studies by environmental lobbies (such as that by the “Union of Concerned Scientists”), where they do such intellectually and scientifically dishonest things such as classify the “noise pollution” from cars as a direct, quantifiable “cost” that is tied to a gallon of gasoline. :rolleyes: And I’ve seen environmental groups claim that several tax credits (domestic and foreign) which petroleum companies benefit from are somehow a “subsidy of gasoline” - willfully ignoring the fact that some of these tax credits are enjoyed by many companies (such as mine) which have never produced or moved a drop of oil.
I think if you look hard enough at absolutely any industry as large as oil in the US, you will find a whole host of subsidies, kickbacks, and loopholes in taxes. I know of several my company enjoys that would make people’s jaws drop.
I welcome the personal experience citations of CanvasShoes here, and think that the attempts to attack her personal experience are both invalid and not in keeping with this board, which does recognize the presence of experts in the field.
For example - I’ve been to a power plant which was reported by Time Magazine as burning “high-sulfur coal, which produces acid rain…”, and yet that plant actually burns CAA 1990 compliance coal from Wyoming, which is some of the lowest sulfur coal in existance. Who’s correct here - the technologically illiterate journalist who wrote the article, or me, who’s been to the plant and stood in the rotary car dumper building watching the unit trains from Wyoming dump? And who has the logs from the CEMS reports on her hard drive? And who can look up in COALDAT and find out the exact, actual shipments and quantities and sources of coal?
But I can see someone saying to me “Ummm…sorry, I believe Time Magazine (which never lies or is wrong) more than you. Cunt.”
Let’s look at what CanvasShoes is saying as being another valid dimension to be considered with the other sources of information, and not dismiss it out of hand. I know more than a little bit about oil and the Alaska situation myself, and I’ve found nothing inconsistant in what she says.
Well, geez, I was just trying to be nice and to not attribute to malice what could be attributed to ignorance. The fact of the matter is that the Administration has thus far only proposed a piddly-ass 1.5 mpg increase in CAFE standards for SUVs and none for cars over the next few years. I am not particularly wedded to my theory this reflects pessimism about the technology…that was just the most generous explanation that I could think of. Next time, I will try to be less generous and throw out all the various unsavory possibilities for their policy too!
My impression is that the price in real dollars was higher at that point, especially if you discount the price spikes we’ve seen recently which I don’t think the manufacturers have caught up to yet (and won’t if they are just temporary).
To be honest, I don’t remember what your conclusion from that discussion was so I am not sure what your point here is in terms of why the technology is not being adopted.
Well, I don’t see why this is intellectually dishonest. They explain what things they count in the externalized costs of automobile usage. (By the way, I am unaware of any UCS studies in regards to externalized costs. Perhaps you mean some of the studies done by various organizations and summarized on that Sierra Club site I linked to?) It is true that some of these might be hard to assign a monetary value to and some might exist even if we use other sources of energy. However, that is largely beside the point that people will continue to overuse their cars and buy cars bigger and more inefficient than they need if they are throwing a lot of the costs onto everyone else.
Well, they are still subsidies and are subsidies that are not necessarily enjoyed, for example, by smaller industries trying to break into the market. Yes, I know there are some tax breaks for wind power and such; however, I find tax breaks for maturing technologies with lower externalized environmental costs to be a lot easier to justify than ones to mature technologies with large environmental costs. (Isn’t your company another fossil fuel producer by the way? I don’t think anyone is arguing that gas subsidies are out of line with coal subsidies.)
Sure, I’ll agree that a complete comparison across industries concerning the relative levelness of the playing field would have to look at all the various subsidies for different things. In the meantime, I think these studies identifying the various subsidies that exist in this one industry are still relevant and important.
FYI the UCS site you linked to earlier has links to UCS studies regarding externalized costs. For example here.
I looked at your Sierra Club links.
I guess the theory here is that you sit around in a room with a bunch of people who dislike widgets as much as you do and think of anything that has anything to do with widgets and assign the cost to widgets.
My point with the CRX HF is that right now we could be driving cars like these, or better. But why aren’t we? The HF sold decently well at a time when gasoline was not outrageously expensive. I knew no less than 4 people who owned them - I don’t think I know 4 people today who own the same model of any make of automobile. And a major automaker was more than happy to produce them. So…why isn’t that automaker producing it? And why aren’t people demanding it?
And…respectfully, one cannot call out a subsidy enjoyed by numerous industries and companies and call it a “petroleum subsidy”. That’s scientifically dishonest, and my key problem with the claims of “massive subsidies” enjoyed by the “oil industry”. Yes, there are plenty of real oil industry subsidies. But IIRC, in dollar amount some of the largest ones are related to foreign tax credits, accelerated depreciation, and other tax-related items. Of which I asked the accountant in my family, and found out that nearly every single corporation in the US which has overseas assets or operations enjoys the same benefits. Including my company.
My problem is with people lying by calling them “oil subsidies”, when they are not.
I even have a large PDF about the “True Price of Gasoline” which claims a DoE program designed to increase the efficiency of diesel engines is a “subsidy”. Wow. So, the industry gets criticised for not being efficient enough, and for using money to try to improve efficiency. They can’t win.
I also disagree with the pricing estimates for the “costs” mentioned along the lines of what MemoryLeak posted. How exactly did they roll back “urban sprawl” into a dollar per gallon of gasoline figure? And they include the Gulf War as a direct cost of gasoline? That’s being intellectually honest? If their cause is so just, why resort to tactics like that? It sure doesn’t impress this “concerned scientist”.
Sigh. What’s sad is that with some topics, like the ANWR, they don’t need to pull those sorts of stunts to make their point. I’ll explain why not.
Have you seen this report, jshore? I meant to add it to my post earlier, but I ran out of time, and the EIA is sometimes a maddening place to search for things.
It’s one which I have examined in detail to verify facts in, and which I have come to believe is very correct. In fact, a colleague of mine helped write it. It supports several of your assertions on the value (or lack thereof) of the oil and gas which could be produced from the ANWR. It’s worth reading.
It does not address in detail the environmental issues as much as the raw energy ones. But those alone show that the oil and gas which could be produced are not going to make a big dent in the overall energy requirements of the US. Oh, they’ll make a dent alright - I mean, 2% of our annual energy budget is nothing to sneeze at. But still…a 2% savings from increased energy efficiency would be a much better, and very feasible goal, wouldn’t you agree?
Thanks for the link…I hadn’t actually seen the UCS’s take on the externalized costs issue before.
Well, okay, I admit that not everyone would want to count everything on that list as being a subsidy depending on how you want to look at things. (It is eye-opening to realize, however, how we have structured our whole society around automobile use and all the ways in which we have done this and have decided to externalize the costs associated with it.) Also, it is worth noting that not all the estimates used all those different ones and not all of those studies were done by people “who dislike widgets”. The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) is (or was) a quasi-independent entity of Congress (sort of like the Congressional Budget Office) and I believe their study committee included a wide spectrum of people ranging from ones with environmental affiliations and industry affiliations. I must admit that I haven’t read the full study but what I have read is very interesting. (I’ll also note that I haven’t figured out exactly how Sierra Club pulled the numbers out of their study since in a quick perusal of the whole thing I couldn’t find any simple table or graph giving such estimates.
So, you are more raising the question than saying you have an answer, I take it? I don’t really know either but would venture several opinions on contributing factors:
(1) The externalized and subsidized costs associated with gasoline and automobile usage make gasoline so cheap that there really isn’t incentive to be efficient.
(2) There are various other market failures relating to information and decision-making. E.g., if you could sit someone down and explain to them that if they paid $500 up front they could save well over $500 over the life of their car and not sacrifice in terms of safety, power, etc. then they might decide to do that. But, people consistently and systematically misjudge these things and the automakers don’t seem to find it effective or profitable to try to explain this to them.
(3) The automakers have found it more profitable to sell large behemoths which they can make a better profit on. Why they can make a better profit on them I am not sure but I think the problem with fuel-efficient cars is they attract people who view cars as a practical source of transportation and are thus not willing to shell out the sort of premium that people are willing to shell out when they buy cars for reasons of image and vanity, etc. Perhaps it is also easier to market image and vanity than it is to market practicality.
Well, for one thing, some of these enter into the larger argument of subsidies for automobile use and not specifically “oil subsidies”. As a practical matter, the easiest way to think about them is in terms of an effective cost for a gallon of gasoline since many (although certainly not all of them) would scale roughly with that factor. It is true that some of the subsidies would exist independent of what cars ran on.
Also, as I have noted, while some of this argument about “other industries have these subsidies too” may be relevant, not all of it necessarily will be. I.e., some of the things would scale as sort of the net difference in subsidy. But, some of the things will scale with the subsidy. I.e., if you subsidize all forms of energy equally, you are still going to get too much automobile use relative to what economic theory would predict is the optimal amount set by supply-and-demand without externalized costs.
Again, you use the term “intellectually dishonest” to mean that you don’t think these should count or that it is hard to count them. Yes, it is hard to do this calculation. But, in my opinion it only becomes intellectually dishonest if you try to hide the fact that you are trying to include these externalized costs. If they were trying to hide them, they did a pretty poor job, don’t you think?
And, I think the purpose of these studies to open people’s eyes to the ways in which we have made the choice we have. Otherwise, you end up in the “let the free market decide” mantra which makes any “intellectual dishonesty” on the environmental side pale in comparison.
Is there an exact science to doing these calculations? Absolutely not as I think is obvious from the range of values quoted in that Sierra Club webpage. However, the fact that we are now having a debate over what portion of the costs we spend on military action in the Persian Gulf to assign to our gasoline usage or on the costs of sprawl or the hidden costs of parking is a huge step up from the belief that the holy market determines everything in all its benevolence and we must not question its wisdom.
By the way, I should note that if you look at that UCS page that Memory Leak has linked to, you can see that some of the calculations are done with an attempt to look at differential subsidies … i.e., subsidies to the oil industry relative to other industries. For example:
Not only did I follow the link, I’ve seen that link and the quote a long time ago. My accountants would like to know how you compare one industry’s “average” with the entire rest of the industry’s “average”. This is like saying “Timmy got a 90% on the test. The class average was 80%, so Timmy stands out alone.” - ignoring the fact that the average was made up of some kids who got 95%, and some who got 60%.
It doesn’t mean anything when presented in the context which they have. I know a rather large billion-dollar company that I work with that due to serious operating problems has effectively paid no federal income taxes for 4 years - because they’ve effectively had no income. What is their “effective rate”? 0%
My point is that these sources are blatantly political sources which are trying to present the numbers any way they can to make their point.
In addition to listing some perfectly legitimate oil subsidies which one can take serious issue with, here’s some of their other findings:
In other words, you mean just like how my State taxes are based on my deflated adjusted Federal Income tax? I guess I must benefit from an “oil subsidy” as well…
So let me get this straight - all this time I thought that that bridges and infrastructure were designed for transportation, but they’re really just a “subsidy” of big oil? Should oil companies be responsible for building our bridges and roads now?
Please tell me exactly how you determine which portion of the defense budget is allocated for doing this. It is scientifically dishonest to make this statement above!
Wait, let me get this straight - the fact that “gasoline users” (defined as “nearly everyone”) benefit from having police, fire, and EMTs in society is an “oil subsidy”? How was this value arrived at? From the PDF - “from a reseracher in Denver”.
Their other pollution figures I don’t have a rebuttal for, since I have not discussed those with others. But noise pollution? How do you quantify that, exactly? Look on Page 30 of the PDF, and tell me that the basis they draw their number from is scientifically valid. Here, I’ll quote it, in its entirety:
I don’t see shit for telling me how $6 to $12 billion arrived, and it did not spring fully-formed from the brow of Zeus.
Reference 93, BTW, is given as:
Wow. If I was peer-reviewing that, I sure would be convinced. :rolleyes:
What I find bitterly hilarious is the memory of someone who came here on the SDMB and lambasted me once for not being a “respected researcher”. Yeah.
(On another note - won’t those hydrogen/electric cars also have the same problems of " improper disposal of batteries, tires, engine fluids, and junked cars"? Unless the goal is to make a political statement, this should be called out.)
“Challenging endeavor” indeed. How exactly do you arrive at “up to $58.4 billion” for “additional environmental degredation”? And “social deterioration”? Come on!
And the rest speaks for itself. Rather than read the summary, download the report on PDF and look at it in detail. Note especially the gem on the later pages, about travel delays. Funny how they do not compare these automotive “travel delay costs” with the travel delays associated from mass transit. Why? Because this report and those like it are steaming piles of political shit, nothing more, nothing less.
Funny that I’m not the “respected researcher”, and yet I can see that this report is a pile of shit.
The larger argument of automobile at least has some basis, if you want to try to call it that. But that’s not how it is presented. Come on now - how valid is it scientifically to roll the Gulf War costs back to a dollar per gallon? And sprawl? And noise? I work adjacent to a group which includes urban planners and noise pollution experts who were really interested in seeing exactly how you roll back “sprawl” to a dollar per gallon figure.
And not only are there no detailed calculations, but their assumptions in many cases are specious. If I “assume” that Gulf War 2 is really about abortion, I suppose I can roll back a cost to society per procedure. It doesn’t make it scientifically valid.
“Intellectually dishonest” means that the assumptions that they make in drawing their conclusions are invalid, rife with error, do not prove causality, are politically motivated, and are presented in a misleading manner. And that is exactly what happens when you say a foreign tax credit which applies to all companies with foreign investments is an “oil subsidy”. I’m certain that McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, and IBM will be quite surprised to discover that they benefit from the same “oil subsidy”.
Come on - how that sort of misleading tactic even be defensible from a scientific viewpoint?
And the facts appear to be, from many reputable sources, that the whole ANWR thing is kind of a moot point, as there is not enough benefit to make it worthwhile under several forecasts of energy pricing, consumption, and resources. Not even the natural gas resources really make it that great of a deal.
(pssssst, this should prove I don’t work for the oil industry, for I don’t have a clue how the whole price per barrel correlates to true cost, etc, not to mention, as I’ve already admitted in other threads, I’m a complete math phobic).
If their cause is so just, why resort to tactics like that? It sure doesn’t impress this “concerned scientist”.