A Culture of Uninformed "Safety"

The problem with a lot of people is that they don't use their noggin for thinking. We all want to be "safe" but there is no such thing as "absolute" safety. Unfortunately, Obama has shut down offshore oil until it is "absolutely safe". An impossible goal. Here's a bit from a posting by Paul Driessen on Anthony Watts' Watts' Up With That? blog:

The President said he can no longer support new drilling unless industry can prove it will be “absolutely safe.” This avoidable environmental disaster happened because BP, its contractors and MMS regulators did not follow procedures or respond properly to tests and warning signs, indicating critical trouble was brewing downhole. But if “absolute safety” is to decide activities and technologies, America will come to a standstill in the absence of impossible-to-obtain proof that nothing will ever go wrong, no one will ever screw up, and no technology will ever malfunction.

Oil tankers sometimes run aground, unleashing their black cargo on our shores. Will oil imports now be banned, as well? Over 42,000 Americans died in car accidents last year. Will highways and city streets be closed to vehicles? Airports, trains and subways? Wind turbines kill 3,000 eagles and other raptors every year, plus 100,000 to 300,000 other birds and bats. Will they be shut down until that carnage ends?

I don't know how much of a right wing crazy Paul Driessen is, but this blurb about him sounds reasonable to me:

A former member of the Sierra Club and Zero Population Growth, he abandoned their cause when he recognized that the environmental movement had become intolerant in its views, inflexible in its demands, unwilling to recognize our tremendous strides in protecting the environment, and insensitive to the needs of billions of people who lack the food, electricity, safe water, healthcare and other basic necessities that we take for granted.

In short, his heart was in the right place, but he was smart enough to catch on that his favourite causes were overtaken by crazed fanatics. That's a good sign. It is a sign of a man who can think for himself.

Driessen asks some good questions:

Companies have been drilling in deep waters, because most onshore and shallow water areas are off limits. Will we now open the ANWR, Alaska National Petroleum Reserve, Rockies and near-shore OCS to drilling – where access and development are easier, and accidents (that we hope, and industry must ensure, never happen again) can be fixed and cleaned up far more easily than in mile-deep waters?

Will President Obama lift his OCS moratorium (which even his independent safety experts opposed), before it further devastates the battered Gulf economy, rigs head overseas, and thousands of experienced workers permanently leave the industry for other lines of work?

But I'm leery of him because I think he is a shill for big energy companies. The issues are complex. I end up caught in the middle with sympathies for both sides, but bitter disagreements with both sides. Tough issues mean tough negotiating and accepting a less than perfect compromise.