Offshore Drilling Ban to be Lifted by Bush

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex

I guess I don't understand how you're using the word "risk." Risk of impact, yes obviously. But that doesn't much bother me.

All I'm saying is that we don't have an impressive track record when it comes to getting our industrial infrastructure to coexist with natural environments. I don't have anything to back it up, I'll admit to this being conjecture, but I'd say more often that not that over the long run, presence of human-constructed and run operations in an environment does not have a positive affect on the flora and fauna. Not necessarily disastrous, and not even necessarily an impact that isn't recoverable in the even longer run. But if it's a question of "which is more likely" I fall on the side of it's more likely that a large scale drilling operation will have a net negative impact than a net neutral impact. So that, combined with the rather minuscule projected benefit to oil supply, is enough for me to prefer we just stay out of there.