[jbooth]

Yeah, and the Republicans campaigned on "all you need to know about energy is drill baby drill".

So do you think the government should have done more to prevent this? Or that this isn't a big deal and that the private sector is handling it fine?

[anamax]

> So do you think the government should have done more to prevent this? Or that this isn't a big deal and that the private sector is handling it fine?

mu.

I don't think that the govt could have done more to prevent this without causing other, more significant problems.

It is a big deal. I think that the private sector is doing a better job of fixing the leak than govt would have.

I note that govt had reasonable plans for dealing with the effects of leaks yet didn't bother. (For example, burning, which should have been started on day 1 and would have helped significantly, was pre-cleared in the 1990s for exactly that reason. Note that it never happened in any meaningful way.) It's unclear why I should blame the private sector for that.

[jbooth]

Well, fair enough. It does actually sound like most people involved are doing their best job, except for the safety inspectors who let the thing get built that way in the first place.

[sigzero]

I like this quote because it is true as well. It is easy to point to finger.

"But Republicans should beware, and even mute their mischief. We're in the middle of an actual disaster. When they win back the presidency, they'll probably get the big California earthquake. And they'll probably blow it. Because, ironically enough, of a hard core of truth within their own philosophy: when you ask a government far away in Washington to handle everything, it will handle nothing well."

[anamax]

> It does actually sound like most people involved are doing their best job, except for the safety inspectors who let the thing get built that way in the first place.

Not at all. The cleanup and reaction people failed horribly, and most of them were in govt.

[jbooth]

Citation needed.

[sigzero]

Big Oil gives to the Democrats. I wonder why? I read somewhere that Obama has been the biggest recipient of Big Oil monies as a politician in the last 25 years. Again, I wonder why?

[jbooth]

All big lobbies give to both parties.

Obama has quite loudly proclaimed that he wants to take our economy off of oil dependence and onto renewables. He says this multiple times every week. If Big Oil has bought and paid for him, they've done a horrible job of it.

FYI: "I wonder why?" is terrible form. Make a statement and defend it with facts. You're not even arguing anything, just trying to insinuate things that are quite clearly contradicted by the man's repeated public statements.

[anamax]

> Obama has quite loudly proclaimed that he wants to take our economy off of oil dependence and onto renewables. He says this multiple times every week.

He says similar things about "big finance" but his actions are different.

[jbooth]

I'm frustrated too although we did have attempts at financial reform and at cap and trade in the House and Senate. I don't think Obama's the principle person holding them up -- and yes, they're flawed proposals. But he's trying to do something.

Just curious, do you see oil dependence as a problem too?

[anamax]

> Just curious, do you see oil dependence as a problem too?

Which "oil dependence" problem? The US dependence on imported oil or the developed world's dependence on oil?

I don't see imported oil as a huge problem. It's actually a much bigger problem for other countries.

The US is still a huge oil producing country - it just uses more than it produces. It gets the vast majority of its imports from Canada and Mexico, with a significant fraction from South America. If the Middle East went south, the US could survive by blocking exports from this hemisphere.

As to the world's dependence, I don't see it as a huge problem either. It's also a choice - we could have more nuclear power.

[sigzero]

I think "oil dependence" is a hard problem to solve because it is hugely political on both sides of the aisle. Dependence on anything is generally bad. However, a "viable" alternative has to be found as well, which I am sure is hugely political as well.

Sorry about the "I wonder" above...was just being snarky.