Look, I'm all for energy independence and getting off oil about 30-f'kin'-years ago just so we don't have to dick around with the ME. For me, the biggest missed opportunity of the last 1/2 century was Reagan NOT launch a new "space program" on energy right after the Oil Embargo and pouring everything we and the Europeans had into getting off oil so we could tell the Saudis and the Arabs to pound sand (literally).
What you're saying is act cautiously and prudently. Of course. The problem is that the hardliners on both sides want none of that. The left wants to castigate everything as if the science is indisputable (which it isn't) and that oil and the West are to blame totally for everything (which they aren't). Never is a word said about China, for example, who added the equivalent of the entire US coal fleet to their inventory LAST YEAR ALONE and with zero emissions or environmental controls. The right wants to drill everything, right here and right now, and put nothing into new fuel sources or efficiency or new options for electricity, vehicles, etc. Both are stupid to a catastrophic, suicidal degree.
AGREED!!!
That said, the science isn't settled, isn't proven, and the biggest factors aren't being focused on. Until those things change, no difference can be made.
I don't think the science is ever settled. But we have enough to go on, and neither side is making what I consider rational decisions. The left wants us in the stone ages, and the righ want to act like nothing's about; neither are rational.
