On Jan 29, 2008 9:59 AM, William Robb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > It's only cheaper while you have an ample supply of cheap materials to > waste. With oil, this is something that will change over the next decade as > it gets scarcer in North America, and more difficult to extract from the > Muslim countries. > Add to that, North America's (I include Canada) short sighted policy's > towards the Arab world turning them even more against us, and China and > India becoming major consumers of oil, I expect the Arab producers will > prefer selling closer to home, leaving North America pretty much in the cold > with regard to oil imports from the Middle East. > The Athabasca tar sands project, while able to produce a pretty huge amount > of oil, is extremely dirty. Fully 1/3 of the carbon emmissions that Canada > produces is from this project, and it takes 1 barrel of natural gas to > produce 2 barrels of oil from the bitumen ore that is being mined. Add to > that, it is an environmental disaster, in that it will, eventually, make an > area of land the size of Florida completely unusable. >
Well, you've hit upon the important point, Bill. Externalities. More to the point, negative externalities. Oil is cheap because it's price has been kept relatively stable by keeping the Middle East relatively stable (in terms of oil-producing countries, who know they must keep in line or face the consequences). Who pays for that? Taxpayers of the countries with armed presence over there. They ~may~ be the same people putting cheap gas in their cars in, but they're certainly not paying at the pump, they're paying through their taxes. Makes gasoline look way cheaper than it really is. The pollution produced by refining and burning oil, along with the manufacturing process (from steel production to final assembly) of automobiles and other heavy industries makes tens of thousands ill, killing many of them. Those costs are borne by health care systems, insurance companies (by their policyholders) and in the case of countries like Canada with public healthcare systems, by the taxpayers. Will going green will be more expensive? I think it would save money, when you consider the ~real~ costs of pollution. We just never think of the real costs, because they're "hidden", and payed by taxpayers and insurers (and through premiums). Negative externalities... BTW, just a word to answer those who say that going green would ruin our economy and throw people out of jobs: Again, I'm no economist (actually, most economists are "no economist" either - they don't call it "the voodoo science" for nothing), but it seems to me that all this going green is going to require all sorts of new, innovating industries to gear up. Sure, coal miners in Kentucky or steel mill workers in Gary, Indiana may be out of jobs, but all those wind turbines and fuel cells and solar panels that will have to be made aren't going to magically appear out of the ether. It won't so much be a loss of jobs as a shift. Away from dirty and dangerous jobs and into clean and green jobs. Everyone talks about closures, no one talks about opportunities. The beauty of capitalism (and I'm not booster of capitalism, as most of you know) is it's ability to adapt. In the case of going green, as old markets wither away, new markets open. This is a good thing, not a bad one, IMHO. cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
