Glad you recognize [and appreciate] intelligent advocacy, Ellis. Surely you're not one of the urban nuts who thinks we ought to all move BACK into the cities, are you? Man, I couldn't target practice off my deck if that happened. Then, again, maybe I could!
I was responding to David, who made his statement then tried to change the subject.
Alec
Personally, I would *love* my SUV to run on hydrogen. Hydrogen fuel is a wonderful alternative to gasoline. Yeah, hydrogen bleeds out, but you just fill it back up again. A full tank would bleed out in a week or so. Most people use their vehicles more frequently than that.
Thus, no more oil drilling, the "energy" companies stay in business producing truly clean energy, and everybody goes home happy. Except Sadam....
"It's the way to educate your eyes. Stare. Pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long." - Walker Evans
OH PULLUEEZZZ!!
ok, for all the "anti-oil, there is a huge global (republican) conspriacy to destroy all things natural and good" photographers:
1) film is made from plastic 2) plastic is made from oil
therefore: shooting sheet film means you must be a selfish, oil consuming bigot who can't wait to invade Iraq and hates all creatures!
BECAUSE: if you were not an oil consuming bigot who hated nature, you would assuredly be using a digital camera, which uses 1% of the petroleum product compared with sheet film. Not to mention all the awfull chemicals one needs to develop said film.
can we PLEASE not have this debate on this forum???? pretty please?
I is always funny how many of the people who demonize oil and SUVs, are still driving vehicles with internal combustion engines. If you really feel that strongly about oil and the environment, why are you driving at all? Surely if you gave up your car it would help end sprawl and the crowded freeways and help the ozone layer. Think about it, the money that you save from not buying $5.00 a gallon gas could be better spent on getting yourself some much needed therapy.
There are just too many people packed together in the big cities, and what bothers me the most about living in a big city is that in some of the neighborhoods I've lived in, you can go weeks, months, even years without seeing your neighbors.
Neighborhoods in the big city are becoming less than neighborhoods and seem more like parking lots these days. Gangs, drugs, violence, urban blight, carjacking, we all know about these problems, the thing that saddens me the most that I see everywhere are the endless numbers of kids going arund aimlessly who don't seem like they're being raised by anybody.
I'm sensitive to this obviously since I have a 4yr old son, and 6yr old daughter, and I see teenagers to 5yr olds coming and going with nobody to look after them. I've seen this in poor neighborhoods and in affluent areas, to me it doesn't make any difference where the parents are, the big city is no place for kids in any neighborhood to be wandering around alone.
We need to do something about this issue and the other issues that have been raised so that we can hand over a better legacy to our kids.
For starters, They are only talking about maybe 2% of the oil we need coming out of that area. Second oil is priced on the world market so prices most likely would not be that affected and lastly I'd be more than happy to pay more for gas if it meant saving the one state we have left that's still in pretty much a wild state. I feel I owe it to my children and there children.
Is it a bit hot in here tonight or is it just me???
Lively debate.
Could I challenge you to bring your LFs up to the area? I think you might enjoy the photo experience, Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter. Visit both ends of the cultural debate on this issue (Arctic Village versus Kaktovik) and chronicle your cultural and environmental adventures. You could drop a few bucks into their economy and get a realistic view of the issues. You would afford credence to you viewpoint (either side) by being able to say, "I been there!" "I seen ?em!" Bring your experiences home and champion your cause through photographic lectures or a fine art show. You are an LF photographer. Make a difference!
Or...stay where you're at and philosophize on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, having knowledge of neither.
You find will one thing that Alaskan's do have in common is we are, at once, both amused and unamused by the views of Outsiders who think our lives are just like theirs. We enjoy educating them by showing them our state.
Now...are we back on the LF track?
I hate arguing politics, especially here - but you started it. For a country boy (by that I do not mean just "not in the city", as in - midwest agribusiness, no land NOT plowed, "country" - ) I also grew up, and have spent a large part of my adult life in fairly remote areas of the west (the places you come to on vacation from whatever mega-lopolis...). In my 50 years I have seen first-hand the damage (and waste) caused by development and commercialization. I have also heard all the arguments against industrial development of "sensitive areas". and I do not disagree with most of those arguments. BUT - (you knew there was going to be a BUT.. didn't you!) - More damage is done in one summer by tourists, photogs, hikers, bikers, et al. - to the wilderness areas of the mountain west than could be done in the ANWL in a decade. (and don't even get me started on snow mobiles, ski resorts, etc.,etc.) The wilderness and high country areas of the lower 48 hold an immensely more diverse (and in sheer numbers of wildlife and foliage, exponentially greater), varied and fragile biosystem than you will find on the tundra! Yet, how many of you do those things every year? Do the posters in L.A., think about the Colorado River when they turn on that lawn sprinkler? (or why the City of L.A. really needs to pressure Congress to divert even more water - from the Columbia River, 1800 miles away?)Do they think about the death of the Salmon Runs on the Columbia when they order that grilled Salmon at Upscale Restaurant-of-the-day? Do they think about the damage to the environment, air and water pollution, done every day by their city - by its very existence? Do you in NY, Boston, Houston, Denver? No, because its too close to home. We can't come to grips with the fact that we are part of the problem. We poison our backyards, yet scream when someone wants to extract oil from a remote (and in terms of bio-culture - a desert) area. When I worked in New England, there were mass-protests against a power plant being built in NH. Bostonians (who's demand for ever- increasing power production was the reason for the plant construction in the first place)formed an army of protesters - key among them, Jane Fonda - called the Clam Shell Alliance. Not many from N.H. - The locals produced posters and bumper-stickers with a statement that pretty much sums up my feelings about the ANWL issue - "Let the Bastards freeze in the dark!"
Thank goodness. Keep up the good work, Senate.
As to our long term strategic benefit with respect to energy, if there is oil in the area, it would behoove us to leave it there until such time as it might really be needed.
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