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[Davo Smith]

On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 7:57 AM, Jon Glass <jonglass at usa.net> wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 8:19 AM, Davo Smith
> <christiansource at davosmith.co.uk> wrote:
>> or about 1 year, in reality:
>>
>> http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/bakken.asp
>
> First of all, I don't trust these emails claiming bountiful supplies
> of oil. But, on the other hand, Snopes has recently (during the
> election, to be precise) has shown itself to be politically motivated.
> In other words, if you just quote snopes at me, I no longer trust it.
> Look harder. Find genuine data, and then I'll believe you (and don't
> just get the links from Snopes. Do your own research)

Being neither a geologist, nor living near the oil field in question
(and for that matter, not owning the equipment necessary to conduct
such research), I cannot directly investigate this myself. However,
the Snopes article does very helpfully link directly to the 'US
Geological Survey' website:
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

A bit more searching has provided a link to the full detail of that survey:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2008/1353/

As Snopes generally provides links and references to back up its
assertions, I see no reason to categorically write off everything
published on that site.

>> And that's not even getting into the discussion about the amount of
>> pollution spewed out by burning 500 billion barrels of oil...
>
> You mean that same 500 b that would be burnt regardless of where it came from?
>
> Whether you or the environmentalists who worship earth as their god
> like it or not, fossil fuels are the present and the future.

200 years ago, exactly the same statement could have been made about slavery.
In many IT circles the same statement is often made about Microsoft products.

Just because something is currently deeply embedded in our
economy/society, does not make it, of itself, a good thing. Neither
does it mean we shouldn't strive to find alternatives.

However you look at it, oil is a finite resource, which will someday
run out (no matter how many times we get a few more years reprieve).

It is also clear that the vast majority of those studying the global
climate have concluded that, due to pollution, humans are contributing
to a large change in the global temperature (even after adjusting for
'natural' temperature variations). I am not a climatologist, I can
only work from the evidence presented by experts in that field. If
they are right (and we don't need another bunch of studies by
oil-company sponsored scientists disputing this), then the people who
are really going to suffer, are those whom Jesus showed the most
concern about, namely the poor. It is the poor of developing counties,
who won't be able to afford flood defences, who won't have insurance
if their houses get washed away, who won't be able to pay inflated
food prices as land is rendered infertile.

Maybe all those climate scientists are wrong, maybe we are just
passing through a natural 'warm phase' that will pass away again. But
I do not want the suffering of people around the world on my
conscience, if these scientists turn out to be right and there was
something practically, or politically I could have done about it.

Davo