I think it's a genuine concern but not for reasons of the environment, but for national security. They are too reliant on foreign regimes to supply them with oil. Also maintaing a military presence to protect this supply and the ensuing trade is very expensive.
It also makes it "anti-american" to protest against the expanasion of American oil production within the boundaries of the USA.
Bernie66
Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 13967 Location: Eastoft
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 06 11:22 am Post subject:
tahir wrote:
Bernie66 wrote:
genuine concern?
Yeh alright
I apologise if i come across as cynical, its because i am.
I wonder who will be getting the extra funding put in by the US government for looking at alternative energy sources... Wouldn't be the sme energy companies who have bankrolled the Bush family, would it?
Bernie66
Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 13967 Location: Eastoft
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 06 11:24 am Post subject:
cab wrote:
I wonder who will be getting the extra funding put in by the US government for looking at alternative energy sources... Wouldn't be the sme energy companies who have bankrolled the Bush family, would it?
And I apologise if he comes across as cynical, its because.........?
Northern_Lad
Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 14210 Location: Somewhere
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 06 11:26 am Post subject:
My interpritation is that he's going to open up Alaska to mining which will be unpopular with the environmentalists, so to apease the slightly he'll raise the tax on oil which will be unpopular with your average barrel-bellied tank driving yank, so to apease them he'll commit to fightling another third-world country which will be unpopular with the 95% majority who are only vagualy aware of other countries on the plannet, so to apease them he'll open the oil fileds...
He could have done it donkies ago, but these things take time and mean you won't get re-elected, but hey, guess who won't be there in a few years!
Northern_Lad
Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 14210 Location: Somewhere
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 06 11:28 am Post subject:
Bernie66 wrote:
Or.......... someone else wrote the speech and he does not actually know what it means.
Highly probable. There's two versions written - one in English (well, American), and one in phonetics.
Blue Peter
Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 2400 Location: Milton Keynes
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 06 11:30 am Post subject:
And nuclear is described as clean energy (at least in the Beeb report). I must have missed the solution to the waste problem,
Peter.
P.S. And on a slightly related and cynical note, did anyone see T. Blair's response to the death of the 100th British soldier? "We must remember why we went into Iraq". Is he trying to wind people up? or does he really think that the issue has been settled favourably?
On Radio 4 this morning they had an interview with Straw saying the Iranians supported terrorism, namaing the groups and pledging our full support to the Americans to stop this and the Iranian nuclear programme. Strangely there's nothing about this on the BBC website.
Now I know the Iranians do have a history and in our terms their internal politics are a mess and they probably think having a missile or two is handy given they've got India, Pakistan, Israel and the Russian Federation as near enighbours, however, when I heard Straw talking my gut reaction was "I don't believe you", so I don't know what to think.
In a lot of ways I'm sure the "Western Alliance" is loving the fact that Iran's going nuclear, and the recent "kill Israel" speech too. So many reasons to get in there, and oh so conveniently located for access to central asian oil and gas reserves too...