Please put a stop to this harmful activity that will cause tremedous negetaive effects to both the biodiversity and human life

The U'wa people of Colombia always said this: leave the oil/carbon in the
ground, taking it out brings conflict and destruction.

I am sure there are quotes from them if you don't have them already.

helena

Amen. Oil shale, nuclear, and "clean coal" are all examples of mankind's desperate frenzy to find a way to keep living beyond his means on planet Earth. The answer is much simpler. It's called "less."

Dave Gardner
Producer/Director
Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity
www.growthbusters.com

I assume you know about the massive destruction going on in Canada, where
they're using up two resources Canada has in abundance--pure water and
natural gas--to produce oil for the US. And that there is a push on to put
coal liquefaction plants all over the coal states. This also emits much more
CO2 than oil, but the proponent think they can wave that problem away by
vigorously waving their magic word: sequestration. This is one reason I feel
more positive about giving up on escaping from WV--the fight is right here
and I think we actually have a decent chance of winning as long as we don't
let up. Of late, the coal industry spokespeople have had a very whiney tone
which I find encouraging. And they're beginning a massive PR
effort--fortunately, so far it's a very clumsy one.
Mary

Whether it is coal, oil, nuclear or nay other tyope of power that is producted, we the people must never forget our fight is not with process itself but rather with the money that is being made from it. A little tough to understand that statement? Look at it this way. If you have everything you could ever want including a vast amount of money, where is the stimulation to risking it all on an idea that could very well cost you your present life style? If you have everything why would you spend time on negative things that are not bothering you like global warming? Only when global warming sneaks up and hits you on the back of the head will you have to pay attention. I have come to believe that the only way to fight this big business attitude is to create an alternate way that we can show as an example. If we have an alternative power source that we can show works and is being used by a couple of hundred people then we are not just a pin prick in the side of these present day interests but rather a viable interest that will every day cost them more and more money. My dad used to say "don't ask for help until you have figured out a way to do it yourself". I have figured out the way and I will talk to anyone who wants to help.
Steve Carew

Are you crazy? Obviously you have not studied organic chemistry or you would understand that YOU are composed of carbon. At -5 F today, I could handle a little global warming.

Please! Enough is a enough. Let's get on with doing what the bulk of Americans want which is to stop pollution and save the earth. Please vote against this.

Doc --- We are currently having a little global warming. Already this is inducing drought conditions in

The Sahel
East Africa
Around the Mediterranean
Australia
Southeast United States
Southern part of Amazon Basin

and otherwise interferring with agriculture in

South Asia (flooding)
South China (flooding)
Eastern Europe

Have you noticed that the world is short of food? Current local price to farmers for white wheat is just over US $15 per bushel, when before the past summer it was in the 3--4 dollar range.

And that's with just a little global warming. Wait until 2009 CE and it'll really start to kick in.

Dear Dave Gardner,

Thanks for your comments. Your will find a link just below referring to a January 26, 2008 article by a great Canadian journalist that supports your perspective.

Humanity has been warned repeatedly about the threat to humanity, to life as we know it, to the viability of recognizably frangible global ecosystems and to the integrity of Earth and its limited resources that could be posed to humankind by the unbridled growth of absolute global human population numbers. Because we want human beings to be fed and to have jobs so they can feed themselves and their families, the growth of human numbers has lead great thinkers and scientists to regularly remind the human community of the impacts of unregulated human propagation, unrestrained consumption and rampantly expanding production activities in our planetary home.
Every possible bias, rhetorical device and "spin" appears to have been employed to deny the mounting evidence of the potential for impending ecological calamities and economic disasters from the near exponential growth of human numbers worldwide. Recently, good scientific evidence of climate change, about the way the world works, has been systematically discredited; leading elders of the political economy have consciously conspired to mislead the public by misrepresenting the science and by turning climate science into a "political football" of sorts; ideological groups sponsored by super-rich, large-scale corporate 'citizens' have spread uncertainty and confusion in discussions about the nature of the biophysical world in which we live; and controversy has been manufactured where none would have otherwise existed.

The illusion of meaningful debate has been foisted upon the public by leaders who are evidently intent on "poisoning the well" of public discourse by knowingly and selfishly fostering disinformation campaigns for the purpose of enhancing their own financial interests...come what may for our children, coming generations, global biodiversity, the environment, and the Earth as a fit place for human habitation.

The elder guarantors of a good enough future for the children appear to be leading our kids down a "primrose path" along which the children could unexpectedly be confronted with sudden, potentially colossal threats to human and environmental health that appear to be derived from human-driven, converging global challenges such as pernicious impacts of global warming and climate change, pollution of the air, water and land from microscopic particulates and solid waste, and the reckless dissipation of scarce natural resources. All the while, these leading elders remain in denial of the fulminating ecological degradation by willfully declining to acknowledge, much less begin to address, humanity's emerging, human-induced predicament. One day, perhaps sooner rather than later, our children could have extraordinary difficulties responding ably to that with which they could soon come face to face; that is to say, because their leaders have so adamantly refused to acknowlege God's great gift of the good science of biological and physical reality, our kids will not even know what "hit" them, much less why it is happening.

Please note the concerns I am trying to communicate are expressed much better today by Cameron Smith at the following link.

http://www.thestar.com/Article/297574

As always, your thoughts are welcome.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001

Mr. Berry
Do not send out emails with miss-leading information such as the one you
listed below. Be honest, Mr. Roosevelt set aside this reserve for war
time usage. Now we are in an oil crunch, no amount of socialist
governmental doctrine can change this fact. We need the oil. In
addition, the process of extracting oil from shale has improved
significantly the past ten years. The impact on the environment is
minimal compared to what it was a short time ago. How do I know, I read
about and I research the facts. Something sir I think is missing from
your diatribes. FACTS. Its sad people are easily led by doctrine based
on per bunk. You do more of a disservice to people by pretending you
care for the environment. Your main goal is to put socialistic
governments in place of free market, capitalist ones. You fool no one
but yourself.
The U.S. Energy department is to keep the US economy running at the same
time coming up with new energy sources.

Robert Degler

We need to transfer from fossil fuels ro renewable energy as soon as possible and also to reduce energy usage. This is possible without reducing one's standard of living. For instance, if I trade in my old refrigerator for one of the same capacity that uses half as much energy my energy use has decreased by my standard of living has not (and I have a brand spanking new fridge).

Similarly, with transport, use of a more efficient car, using a good publlic transport system or cycling or walking short distances does not make life less pleasant and you still get to where you're going. You might even get to read a book on the bus or train or watch the view, which you certainly could not do safely while driving.

Global warming has the capacity to make life very unpleasant for human beings and might even kill us off, let alone what it is doing to the creatures who share our world. While some people would probably survive ans there would be other life forms also, we would hate the climate enjoyed by the dinosaurs, which is what we could get if we carry on with reckless fossil fuel use.

Yes, we are made (in part) of carbon.

So are diamonds.

So is graphite.

Diamonds = graphite = homo sapiens? Huh? What's the point here? Why do these folks waste their/our time and energy? No pun intended........

And someone should remind Robert that he's won the communist/capitalist argument so he can let that one go. Or, alternatively, he might take a class in physics and in chemistry so that he can learn that very little (if any) net energy is gained from oil shale development, regardless of F.D.R.

Hi Robert Degler

You contradict yourself in one short post.

You said "Your main goal is to put socialistic governments in place of free market, capitalist one..."
and then you said "The U.S. Energy department is to keep the US economy running at the same time coming up with new energy sources."

These 2 statements contradict each other.

Also, why get the DOE involved if free market capitalists can do it themselves?
Obviously they can't (laws of physics dictate that). Instead they're lobbying to line their pockets with the subsidies and other handouts from Uncle Sam.

Free market - absolute bunk !

We need to move forward and away from dirty fuels, move towards renewable energies. When will we learn?

Someone posted:

Amen. Oil shale, nuclear, and "clean coal" are all examples of mankind's desperate frenzy to find a way to keep living beyond his means on planet Earth. The answer is much simpler. It's called "less."

Less won't cut it. For one thing, there are billions who need growth to lift themselves out of poverty and have as much right as Americans to a decent way of life. Nuclear is clean and should not be lumped together with shale. France has produced 70% of its electricity from nuclear for decades without mishap.

I shall be blogging on this soon at tonysclimateblog.blogspot.com.

ENN article
Why the US Government wants to push oil shale development,
" Over the past decade, this country has squandered approximately one and a half trillion dollars on imported oil, much of which has been poured down the tanks of grotesquely fuel-inefficient vehicles that were conveying drivers on ever lengthening commutes from the exurbs to employment in center cities."
"In 1998, the United States paid approximately $45 billion for its imported oil; in 2007, that bill is likely to have reached $400 billion or more. That constitutes the single largest contribution to America's balance-of-payments deficit and a substantial transfer of wealth from the U.S. economy to those of oil-producing nations."
Good article.

"Leave the oil in the soil!"
Green Party's Cynthia McKinney 6 actions see:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jJtSkQlhqI