<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Peter Maass wrote a thoughtful NY Times opinion piece on this very subject – almost 5 years ago:<div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21px; "><p>"Although it is fashionable to blame oil companies and right-wing Republicans for caring not a whit about the downsides of resource extraction, the truth is that few Democrats have spoken of halting or minimizing oil imports because regime X or Y despoils its environment or represses its people. When it comes to oil, expediency is the rule, and a marvelously adaptable one. Because voters in Florida and California, which are scenic and prosperous, have made it clear they don't want or need oil rigs in their waters, Republicans in those states are nearly as vociferous as Democrats in opposing any loosening of the drilling bans. On offshore drilling, <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/jeb_bush/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Jeb Bush." style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); ">Jeb Bush</a> and <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/arnold_schwarzenegger/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Arnold Schwarzenegger." style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102); ">Arnold Schwarzenegger</a> stand shoulder to shoulder with Barbra Streisand, though the governors' ecological sentiments do not necessarily extend beyond their coastal horizons.</p><p>"The gymnastics of people like Schwarzenegger - probably the most famous Hummer owner in the world - are emblematic of the cognitive dissonance that runs in our national bloodstream. We demand clean beaches and untouched wildernesses at home but live in an energy-intensive fashion that leads other countries to sacrifice their waters and forests. This disconnect is easily explained. You don't need to alter your lifestyle much to help protect baby seals or punish Kathie Lee for supporting sweatshops, but you might need to suffer inconveniences - like higher gas prices, energy-conservation efforts and new taxes for alternative-fuels research - if better energy policies were adopted. In the end, the only red line that Americans insist upon, in terms of unacceptable ways for gasoline to be supplied to our cars, is that it must not come from ANWR or the waters off California and Florida. The politicians and environmental groups are, in many ways, just following the wishes of voters and donors."</p><p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/magazine/18wwln_essay.1.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1">http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/magazine/18wwln_essay.1.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1</a></p></span><div><div>On Jun 5, 2010, at 10:43 AM, Geoff Davis wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">Yeah, I heard something on NPR about a huge oil spill near Kuwait that happened during the second Gulf War. The good news is that the marine life (or at least the commercially important stuff) bounced back after a few years. Not sure I'd want to eat any of it, though.<div> <br></div><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex; position: static; z-index: auto; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#006312" face="Verdana" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#144FAE" face="Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br></span></font></span></font></blockquote></div></div></blockquote></div></div></body></html>