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Originally Posted by philanderer
Ok so has anyone watched their television lately and seen the oil companies praising themselves for being concerned with environmental safety? My anger stems from one commercial in particular...the BP commercial where the narrator states proudly that BP is spending 1.5 billion dollars in researching and developing "new" forms of fuel (i.e. hydrogen fuel cells, etc.).
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Yep, I've seen the commercials. Your anger at BP for spending $1.5B on alternative fuel research is somewhat confusing, especially since you later make clear that you think oil companies are attempting to suppress alternative energy technologies. We should be praising efforts made by anyone, including oil companies, to develop hydrogen fuel cells, e.g.
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Originally Posted by philanderer
How does the public not rise as one and have this ad pulled from the air. In light of the recently publicized record money intakes of big oil, 1.5 billion for a year seems trivial, almost nonchalant in dealing with a major energy crisis.
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Oil companies are not the ones who are obligated to "[deal] with a major energy crisis": they are private companies. Thus, their contribution, however insufficient you might deem it to be, is helpful. This is a bit like complaining that one of those cruise lines that docked ships in New Orleans to provide housing for displaced people was at fault for only bringing a small percentage of their fleet to NO: it was still a charitable act.
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Originally Posted by philanderer
Our economy is dependent on oil, and with the price per barrel reaching new highs every day, i almost want to scream: "WHERE IS THE GOVERNMENT?" Why aren't there laws enforcing big oil to use a large percent of their money to develop new cleaner energy.
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I don't know where you live, but gasoline prices here are down to about $2.35 for regular. That is hardly a crisis. To be entirely honest with you, I think the government has done a very effective job of swiftly lowering oil prices.
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Originally Posted by philanderer
The answer to this is in my opinion political and why I decided this was the best place for this post. When the two most powerful people in the country, Dick Cheney and George Bush, have STRONG big oil ties and they break environmental precedents of previous adminstrations to help these companies, it is more than hard to swallow words of hope of new energy development from the president.
Furthermore we can only blame ourselves for placing two big oil honchos in charge of our economic plan for these 8 years.
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The reason that oil prices are 30 or 40 cents higher per gallon than they were two or three years ago is because our President and Vice President have big oil ties? What about inflation? What about instability in various middle eastern countries? What about hurricanes destroying refineries along the Gulf of Mexico? There are a lot of causal factors to dismiss before we vaguely pin responsibility for this on the President.