merchimerch: (Default)
merchimerch ([personal profile] merchimerch) wrote2008-08-04 10:00 am

(no subject)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOm18c5Btiw

This is a neat video with a fun soundtrack that does a good job of summarizing the connections between oil and grain prices and the effect that global climate change is having on it. I found it via the "No Impact Man" blog.

[identity profile] demercio76.livejournal.com 2008-08-04 07:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Do you think drilling more here in the US would lower prices? I've read and heard different from both sides. Btw, I'm one of Fox359's Tulsa friends in case I haven't introduced myself yet.

[identity profile] merchimerch.livejournal.com 2008-08-04 09:03 pm (UTC)(link)
I really don't think that more drilling such as what was proposed recently would lower prices. Everything I've read has implied that it would be AT LEAST 10 years before that oil hit the market if ever.

Plus, I'm not sure that supply and demand is quite such a simple equation when we're dealing with speculators. Honestly I think it is the idea of shortage and the idea that there are no viable alternatives in the current situation that is allowing oil companies to drive up their prices and their profits.

I'm much more of a fan of Obama's oil company profit tax than I am with more drilling. There are plenty of areas of the US that are already leased out to oil companies with oil still in the ground. I don't think giving them more land to drill is the answer - the issue is far more complicated and too far along than that.