New Environmentalist Craziness: We Can’t Drill For Oil Because Of Global Warming!

09 Dec, 2010 by John Hawkins

Print this article Font size -16+

The environmentalist movement in this country is run by people who are so out of touch with reality that it’s like a form of mental illness. If we listened to the average environmental wacko in this country, we’d end up driving civilization back 1000 years. They don’t like air conditioning, cars, airplanes, or plastic bags. They want a global one child policy. They want rationing to prevent “global warming,” which hasn’t occurred in over a decade.

Now, we have the environmentalist global warming wackos opposing drilling oil at all on the theory that it will lead to more global warming,

A plan to bring the first oil sands development to the United States is drawing stiff opposition from environmentalists concerned about global warming and water use, but backers of the project insist their new process is safe.

Earth Energy Resources, a small Canadian start-up, wants to produce 2,000 barrels of oil a day using oil sands from a site in northeast Utah.

Oil sands are just that – sand laced with a heavy oil known as bitumen.

The sands are plentiful in parts of the western United States and in Canada’s Alberta province, the latter exporting over 1 million barrels of oil a day to America. Some estimates say there are more oil sands and other unconventional forms of oil in North America than there is light oil under the Saudi desert.

But oil sands production is expensive and usually comes with high environmental costs.

The sand itself is often extracted by open-pit mining, an unsightly process that can lead to ground water contamination and other environmental issues.

And separating the oil from the sand requires massive amounts of heat, chemical solvents, and water, which many say makes the sands an unworthy endeavor. Water usage is what has kept the operation largely out of the dry Western states.

Earth Energy says it has a novel process that uses half the water of their Alberta cousins and an eco-friendly, citrus-based solvent.

…Earth Energy has already obtained the rights to extract ground water in Utah, but Weisheit says those permits don’t take into account how climate change will affect an already dwindling water supply.

Weisheit said the amount of water in the local watershed is expected to fall by 20% over the next couple of decades. He said water levels have already dropped by more than that over the last decade.

He doesn’t believe there will be enough to support oil sands development and the needs of the people and industry that already depend on water from this region.

Plus, oil sands will make global warming worse.

…Living Rivers has hired lawyers to fight the project. They lost a plea to state regulators to revoke Earth Energy’s permit back in September, but are appealing that decision. The hearing is set for January. If that fails, the group is planning on going to court.

Earth Energy would like to get all this behind them before ramping up production.

You know what this project is? It’s a Godsend. We have massive sand/shale oil reserves in America. You want to create jobs in America? This can do it. You want to cut our reliance on Middle Eastern oil? This would be a wonderful way to do it. You want an energy source that’s far more promising than wind and solar power? This qualifies.

Still, because this involves oil instead of an energy source that excites dirt hippies, the government has shown little interest in supporting it, despite the fact it’s so promising. Well okay, no problem. Here we have a private company that wants to make this happen and yet they have to fight it out in court with gangs of crazed luddites to move forward. This is crackers. If the state of Utah doesn’t want them to drill, fine, but it’s time to stop giving crazy envirowackos who want everyone to live in the dark the ability to sue to prevent progress.