Fwd: [at-l] A.N.W.R. VOTE - conservation issue - not trail

[spiriteagle99@hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Ron Martino wrote:
>Fair enough. Not all are clearly credited. I was using them to point
>out that portions, at least, of the Area don't fit the 'wasteland'
>description. It's not really material, though. One man's wasteland is
>another's eden. Just look at the varied opinions about the deserts of
>the Southwest. I should have just argued that from the beginning.

No argument - but the point to most of this was that just because you're 
looking at a government site doesn't mean it's "neutral" -- or even 
accurate.  I work with some of these people - and they have their own biases 
and prejudices that become part of what they produce - just like every other 
human organization.

"the deserts of the Southwest" -- some of my favorite places.

>Um, I'm not suggesting that NASA was going to take them to task.
>There's a number of congressmen who want the drilling. This is a
>government summary (with sources cited) that says essentially oil
>extraction in this area would do more harm than good. I suggest that
>there's been quite a few staffers looking for flaws in the department's
>conclusions since it was published.
>
>To be fair, I have no proof one way or another, and I haven't had (nor
>likely will have) the opportunity to track down all of the reports that
>went into this synopsis. But is there any reason the elected officials
>trying to open the 1002 Area to drilling would allow this report to
>stand unchallenged if there were factual errors they could dispute?

Maybe -- "if" they know about the site.  You'd be surprised what upper level 
government management "doesn't" know.  I deal with that every day.  Fact is, 
it doesn't take "factual errors they could dispute" - all it takes is a memo 
from a Division head to shut the site down.  It's happened.  You're assuming 
that the "government" knows what's going on, who has what Web sites up, 
who's following the party line and who's not, etc.  Wrong assumption.  
Unless something comes back to bite them on the a$$, they may never know.

>Nature, yes. Individual species, no. This land was set aside for the
>express purpose of protecting wildlife. The rest of the North Slope is
>already open to drilling. If even this small corner isn't protected,
>what will be?

Hmmm - individual species - yes.  Innumerable examples - the most obvious of 
which is the white-tail deer in the East.  Went from near-extinction to 
varmint status.  There's even a bounty on them in one part of Maryland.

Better look at the language that went with the Refuge designation - Congress 
prohibited drilling in the Reserve but left it wide open for change (by 
Congress) in the future.  Some people think this is the future - I hope not. 
  But it's NOT set in stone.

>Oh come on, Jim. There's something of a difference between a footpath
>and a drilling site or a road who's gravel was dredged from a nearby
>river. I'm sure there's plenty of holes in my arguments - you can do
>better than this.

You haven't hiked the PCT, have you?  Tell me that after you've walked 
through Southern California  :-))

>How about this - based on the past resource extraction in my home
>state, scars left by large scale operations can last centuries at a
>minimum, even in a less delicate environment than the North Slope.
>Certainly, modern techniques may be less intrusive, but so far I haven't
>heard any of the proponents for drilling call for minimizing impacts,
>and I do not believe that they will unless forced to.

Been to Butte - and that damage will take centuries to repair unless someone 
puts a lot of money in there - but it "could" be repaired. I was raised in 
PA - coal mining country - strip mining country.  The strip mines were my 
playground.  And they CAN be repaired - takes time, money and the will to do 
it.  But that's irelevant here - except that I think we're pretty much in 
agreement.

>Would you prefer 'finite' supply? There's a limit to what's there. All
>we have to go on are current estimates. Do you have better ones?

Why use either term, Ron - it's not grammatically necessary, it imparts no 
pertinent information, it's vague, inexact and misleading.  "limited supply 
of oil" is an emotional catch phrase - nothing more.  Nor do we have "good" 
current estimates - we won't have those until/unless a more accurate seismic 
survey is done.  And I think neither of us are in a hurry for that to 
happen.


>It depends greatly on what numbers are used. As you point out, various
>folks choose different numbers. The '9 month' supply is based on the 50%
>probability. If you want better odds, for example, 'there's an 80%
>chance there's X amount', you end up with a correspondingly smaller
>amount.

You missed the point - see my earlier answer to Bucky.  The term "9-month 
supply" has no reality.  It's utterly meaningless in any practical terms 
because it tells absolutely nothing about "how much would be available when 
and for how long and what it would take to make that happen".  Much less 
about who would get the oil or what effect it would have on the US oil 
supply or ..... about 700 other questions.  It's a "political/emotional" 
term - not a POV or engineering or geological term.


>Jim, that's not what is being said. It seems straight forward to me -
>if we extract all of the commercially available oil in the 1002 Area,
>current estimates are that there's an even chance that it will total 5.3
>billion barrels. There may be a lot more, but there may be a lot less.
>But even very optimistically, there's almost certainly no more than 9.4
>billion barrels. At current U.S. use levels, that's the /equivalent/ of
>a little over 9 months oil consumption at the 50-50 estimate, and 16
>months at the most optimistic.

See my last answer - I'm glad you understand that - the average bear 
doesn't.  I'll repeat - 5 billion/7 billion/(whatever) barrels of oil - are 
nice estimates - but that's all they are. What's the margin of error?  They 
don't tell you that, do they.  In any case, converting those estimates to 
"9-months" or whatever would be utterly meaningless even if they were 
accurate.

I'm an engineer/scientist, Ron - I eat numbers for breakfast.  And I've 
spent 40 years kicking butt when people try to slide their nonsensical 
interpretations of the numbers by me.

>Well, sure. So? All that means is that we won't be solving our
>dependence on foreign oil by drilling in the ANWR. They would be pumping 
>for years, but the amount extracted would not be able to meet demand, so we 
>would still have to buy abroad.
>
>Which just screws up some of the pro-drilling arguments.

Exactly - why do you think I care whose balloon I use the needle on?


>	What do you think they are going to do? Certainly, there's a
>possibility of future embargoes and price fixing, but they can do that
>now.

Let's see here - OPEC wants to cut production to raise the price, but hasn't 
been able to get Russia to go along.  That's this week.  That's called price 
fixing by manipulation of the supply side.   Could also call it a partial 
embargo.

If they get mad at us - for supporting Israel or declaring the Palestinians 
terrorists or reducing our oil imports - and cut off our oil, that's a full 
embargo.  So who hurts in that scenario?
How does that hurt them?  How does it hurt us?  Play with that one for a 
while.  It gets right nasty.


>Nonsense. The entire North Slope is /potentially/ available under
>current law, except for the Refuge. If our need is so great, let's tap
>into the Alaskan National Petroleum Reserve and see what we can find
>there. Why drill the 1002 Area now?

They want to drill 1002 because they know there's oil there, because they 
know that the present "war" may end up with us in the "embargo" scenario and 
they know that it'll take (as Weary pointed out) years before the oil 
actually starts to flow from 1002.  Now - "they" in this case refers to at 
least three different sets of people. And their reasoning is not entirely 
flawed.

The Alaskan National Petroleum Reserve -- bad idea.  Some time ago Weary 
said (yeah - he says some good stuff too) he'd rather see the other guys run 
out of oil before we do.  Good idea.  But I'm not gonna get into why - try 
playing with it for a while.  Again - it can get real nasty real fast - and 
we as a country end up on the wrong end of the stick.  Do you have any clue 
how long it'll take you to learn to speak Russian - or Chinese - or Farsi?

>Heh, you're trying to misconstrue what they said - the discussion was
>over the 1002 Area. They addressed wildlife there, not in the rest of
>the Refuge because those sections aren't under consideration. To do so
>would be like my arguing that drilling in Central Park would harm
>certain recreational activities for New Yorkers. I'd be correct, but so
>what? The webpage simply addressed pertinent issues.

Uh uh - if you do "real" anlaysis  - of wildlife or oil exploration or 
anything else, you also consider the "boundary conditions" - the adjoining 
areas, the other factors that affect the analysis.  If they didn't do that 
then the analysis is incomplete and they didn't do their job.  Telling me 
that 250 musk ox are in danger in 1002 would be not only meaningless but 
absolutely deceptive if there were 5,000 of them in the rest of the Refuge.  
The 5,000 is NOT a real number - it's just a number for arguments sake - but 
it does raise the questions "how many are really there (in the whole 
Refuge)?",  "where are they?", and "what's the effect on the total herd?". 
Without the answers to those questions, the answers on the Web site are 
nothing but fluff.

> >C'mon, Ron - the answer to that question is a no-brainer.  It's a 
>question
> >of availability and economics.  You don't hunt deer in a city cause 
>they're
> >not there.  If you want to hunt deer, you go where they are - if you want
> >oil, you go where it's at.  If it's too expensive to get out, then it's 
>not
> >economically feasible - but that's another matter.
>
>Jim, I'm not talking about downtown Anchorage. I'm referring to the
>rest of the North Slope, of which the 1002 Area is only a small portion.

You missed the point - that was an analogy.  Fnding deer in Anchorage is 
VERY difficult - finding oil anywhere in the world is even more difficult - 
it isn't as easy as you seem to think.  If it was, this discussion would 
never have happened.  Go learn about oil exploration - you might be 
surprised at how much time, effort and money goes into the looking.  And how 
few places it's actually found.  Your assumption seems to be that it can be 
found nearly anyplace on the North Slope.  If that was true, why would they 
bother with 1002?  Answer - it's NOT true.

> >  For those who
> >don't know, Fish & Wildlife has their own agenda - and it's own biases - 
>and
> >it ain't the same as Bush & Co.  Sorry, Ron, but that part of your logic 
>doesn't compute.
>
>Sure they do, but they also gave all of their sources, which allows us
>to check their analysis. As you encourage us below, that way we /can/ do 
>our research.

You're making an assumption there.  I doubt that they gave ALL of the 
sources - otherwise, where's the info on the rest of the Refuge?  I have an 
advantage here - I deal with people on a regular basis who operate under 
Myers Law which states: If the facts don't fit the theory, then change the 
facts.

If you believe Fish & Wildlife doesn't ever operate under that Law, then you 
haven't dealt enough with the government yet.


>	I'm trying, I'm trying...
>
>	Ron


I know.  And contrary to what I've appeared to be saying here, you're doing 
well, too.  Keep up the good work :-))

Walk softly,
Jim

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