BS: Let's Drill 'The barren Alaskan plain'??

Subject: RE: BS: Let's Drill 'The barren Alaskan plain'??
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 06:47 PM

McGrath, the current Governor and his administration in Alaska and all three US members of Congress are in favor of opening the Refuge. And evidently a lot of other Alaskans are too- including at least one of the native tribes in Alaska. (Another tribe, the Gwichin, who live in the area, are vehemently against it. They have always had a subsistence-based lifestyle and rely heavily on the caribou and other wildlife in the area. They apparently feel the stakes are too high to experiment.)

Many Alaskans, on the other hand, feel as I do- that in the generations to come, if the time ever comes that that oil means the difference between our society surviving or going under, the projected oil will still be there. It hain't goin' nowhars.

I don't believe that Alaska has much control over the Refuge. I know that under the Clinton/Gore administration, the powers-that-be in Alaska weren't able to push their agenda. With the bush2 administration solidly in favor of opening it to drilling, those in Alaska are chortling with glee. It doesn't look good.

Ebbie

Subject: RE: BS: Let's Drill 'The barren Alaskan plain'??
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 07:27 PM

I am sorry to hear that, Ebbie. Thanks for giving us a clearer picture from the front-line.

Naes...I have a great fondness for those hills...my son was most likely conceived in the backseat of a 1963 Ford Galaxy convertible in those hills...I really did mean what I said about never wanting to see them destroyed, but if you will click here you might see why I said they were pretty barren looking. It is desert and you haven't lived until you are out hiking on those hills with high altitude sun beating down on you in 100 degree heat. It is surreal and one can easily imagine the contours of the moon when out there.

Still it has its beauty including a wild horse refuge out where I used to go with my friends. Further up in Debeque Canyon, along the Colorado River, as the altitude climbs, there is more and more vegetation, pinon pine etc. and it just keeps getting prettier (this is where my great-grandparents homesteaded) the closer (just up the road from the "Ranch") you get to the Rockies.

All I can say is thank the gawds and gawddesses that my family's old homestead is an elk refuge and will hopefully escape any oil exploration.

kat...somebody tell Spud it's dinnertime?

Subject: RE: BS: Let's Drill 'The barren Alaskan plain'??
From: Harold W
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 09:11 PM

For kat/katlaughing: Apology accepted. I have lived in the Colrado River drainage area most of my life.

Most of the shale developement was going to be underground mining. The big problem is the disposal of the waste. They experimented by covering the piles with topsoil and reseeding them with native vegetation. I do not know what the results were. One of the problems with not having enough petroleum is people buy cars that are not fuel efficient, such as SUV's (which the majority of people who own them don't need them and do not know how to drive them).

Subject: RE: BS: Let's Drill 'The barren Alaskan plain'??
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 09:23 PM

kat, don't be so sure- ANWR is the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. :(

Ebbie

Subject: RE: BS: Let's Drill 'The barren Alaskan plain'??
From: Naemanson
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 09:26 PM

Manomanoman! Kat, that is some pretty country! I have GOT to get out there and see some of that stuff with these two eyebones of mine. Maybe we can share. I'll take you on a tour of this part of the world if you'l tour me around there.

I hope I can make it before they dig it all up.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's Drill 'The barren Alaskan plain'??
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 10:14 PM

It's a date, Naes! The only part of Maine I remember on whirlwind drive-through is the moose-crossing sign of which I didn't get a picture!

Thanks, Harold.

Ebbie, I know, I thought about that as I wrote it! For a really early picture of the old homestead, log cabin and all, please click here

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Let's Drill 'The barren Alaskan plain'??
From: Spud Murphy
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 10:41 PM

Now yer talkin, Kat My kinda house. Good folks come from a place like that. Mrs Murphy don't like it none, though.

Ebbie: Looks just like the country between Paxon's Lodge and Summit Lake, about 1950. i wonder where the Lake is, though.

Spud

Subject: RE: BS: Let's Drill 'The barren Alaskan plain'??
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 10:48 PM

The sad part is that in a democracy all you need is a majority of one at the moment of decision to make a choice that will effect generations yet unborn. So if one more Alaskan says "yeah" than "nay" the answer is - "Yes, Alaskans favor opening up the refuge." That still doesn't mean it's a good idea. Ask Brazilians if cutting down the rain forests is a good idea and you'll get a majority that says that's a good idea, too. A few make a fortune, a few more make a little and everyone loses a lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's Drill 'The barren Alaskan plain'??
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 10:49 PM

Thank yew, kind sir. I have to say I probably gree with Mrs. Murphy. We lived in an unfinished cinder block house set into a hill on the Old Oregon Trail in Wyoming for a time when the kids were little. Had to haul our water, heat with wood, etc....think we'd be crazy to do that now!

Subject: RE: BS: Let's Drill 'The barren Alaskan plain'??
From: Spud Murphy
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 11:44 PM

Hey, Kat: Don't knock it. Those are survival skills you may need about the time they're pumping the last barrel out of ANWR. If you haven't left for the Great Mudcat House In The Sky by that time. Kerosine lamps and a two-holer out back, too.

Spud

Subject: RE: BS: Let's Drill 'The barren Alaskan plain'??
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 12:53 AM

Arrrghhh! I hope never to have to use those skills, again, Spud, BUT, with the Shrub and his outloook, ya never know. Just found this quote, I am assuming by Daddy Bush, our president de facto:

"The caribou love it. They rub against it and they have babies. There are more caribou in Alaska than you can shake a stick at."
--George Bush, on the Alaska pipeline

Subject: RE: BS: Let's Drill 'The barren Alaskan plain'??
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 08:36 AM

They call it democracy, but it's just tyranny of the living over the yet-to-be-born-or-grow-up. You need to stick that kind of thing in a constitution so that it takes a lot more effort to get rid of it than just a bare majority in a dodgy election.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's Drill 'The barren Alaskan plain'??
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 09:56 AM

These guys start throwing numbers around and who're you gonna believe? This article says the reserves in ANWR could supply U.S. demands for two years; article Life After Oil in the current issue of Utne Reader says six months...

Paul Harvey's commentary suggested boosting coal production as an alternative, ostensibly because there's a lot of it. A fine fuel, but Dios Mios, about as sooty as it gets...(cut to panoramic photograph of London, England some one hundred years ago). Not to mention currently the most profitable methods of extracting it from the ground do great harm to the environment (fade in soundtrack of John Prine's "Paradise" and the line about "the world's biggest shovel...").

It would still be a great concern, but less so if all the carbon dioxide these fuels spew into the air made golf in January at ANWR the stuff of science fiction....