Nick's Response

I'm posting it so it's more accessible. Hopefully Nick doesn't mind.

My quick take: It's a thoughtful response. And he's changed my mind: I now hope they "convert[] all 19.6 kajillion acres into one bigass awesome oil factory that runs on the skins of dead caribou." They could sell tickets to see that...though if all the Caribou were "wanting to have babies with the oil pipline," it might have to be 18 and older...

Here's the response:


Nah, good points. I enjoyed that article, and it made me look for some more info. It was well written, and had I read the article before I responded, I wouldn't have said that he "dumbed down the debate." I'd stick by my comments for those snippets in isolation, but that's (only to maintain my ego) beside the point.

I'm intrigued but not having good [luck] finding any good information. Anyway, he does write a very compelling piece, and I think the debate has been super saturated with folks who don't understand the concrete issues they're debating, but rather understand that they are in a war to "defend the environment from oil companies." I'm also sure many of them drive to work everyday in protest from high up in their SUV's.

But still I wonder what's the best position opposing drilling? What are realistic and qualified environmentalists saying about drilling? I actually tried to find the text of the bill which I quickly gave up. I didn't really want to slog through it after all.

The debate is not between Zero Drilling and converting all 19.6 kajillion acres into one bigass awesome oil factory that runs on the skins of dead caribou. So what happens to the drilling areas as a result of the bill passing? What are the relevent environmental concerns? I don't really buy Goldberg's argument that Caribou simply want to have babies with oil pipelines. But maybe they'll have minimal impact.

As much as his descriptions of mosquitoes grossed my shit out, that doesn't mean they don't serve an important purpose. And to the extent he covered it, that's still a live question.

Good article, good points.