Urgent Debate

Miscellaneous General
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1

I was telling this kid how much oil is in the Rocky Mountains, and he just responded:

“Problem is the damage it would do to the ecosystems and environment in order to procure the oil. What we need is a dependency apart from fossil fuels. Not more of it.”

What are some ways to respond to that? I have so many things to say that I don’t know how to condense it into one argument without writing a paper.

Would drilling for oil (especially in the Rocky Mountains) really ruin the ecosystem/environment as much as people think?

2

Tell him you need the oil so you can send aid to Haiti. Or tell him that without the oil, we will have to hunt whales again for blubber.

Or tell him that if they dont get the oil out of the rockies, then we will all have to go back to walking and surrender our iPods and iPhones.

Or ask him how much energy he is using to be on the internet, and how much it damages the environment to waste use that energy to talk about damaging the environment.

Or you could do something more productive with your time, like drill for oil …

3

I tried explaining to him that there are no viable options besides oil. And that the environmental effects will be the same no matter where we drill, hence the Gulf Coast.

4

To be fair, the suburb he lives in was built on what was once wild land. The suburb he lives in ruined the ecosystem. I demand he demolish his house, and those of his neighbors, and restore the ecosystem.

5

Haha, see. Things like that I never realize because I’m always searching for microscopic statistics as arguments. I never remember the basics: make them feel bad.

6

Unfortunately, emotional arguments tend to be stronger than logical ones.

Edit: unfortunately, the argument I’m making for that is neither.

Also, I feel I should say that I’m with Rothbard with regard to environmentalists. With most environmentalists I have questioned, I have found at the core the argument essentially becomes that they value, to paraphrase Rothbard, “the caribou over humans”.

This actually happened with me in a debate with my father. I’ll try to paraphrase how it went roughly:

“Hey, what do you think about the BP oil spill?”

“Well, it sure seems like a tragedy.”

“Yeah, I hope they gut those” I’m going to have to censor my father a little bit here “and they should ban oil drilling.”

“Do you mind if I play devil’s advocate with you?”

“…Go ahead.”

“You’ve got to get oil somehow. Practically everything we own is made of plastics, if not transported by oil. The fact that your driving a large minivan is somewhat contradictory with what you’re saying as well.”

“Oh come on, there are so many better energy sources.”

“O.k., let’s hear it.”

“Well, I think they should be using wind.” (something like this)

“You really think that that will satisfy demand? And if so, should it be commanded by fiat? And what about our demands. You’ll ban all the ipods, cars, and neat stuff that we have in our lives?”

“So you think they should just rip off the environment huh? Don’t you care for nature?”

“No. I don’t care for nature, I care for humans. If I was in a boat, and there was a drowning baby and a drowning buffalo, even if this was the last buffalo alive, I would save the drowning baby.” (I believe I’m committing a strawman here, but it works)

After this he got mad and stopped talking to me for about a week.

7

That’s a great idea. If someone asked me why I don’t seem to care about nature, I’d end up responding that I do care about nature but that I care more about our economy not melting down. That’s my way of ‘caring about humans’, just in a different way of thinking. I’ll be sure to put it your way from now on.

8

If he really cares about protecting that environment why doesn’t he and his friends raise money and purchase the land as private owners. Then they could do whatever they liked with it. In other words, why does it need to be property of the state?

Of course, the great bulk of these so-called “environmentalists” care nothing for real conservation. They’re just another rent-seeking special interest group.

9

Walter block has a nice story about such an occurrence, I believe you can find the audio of that presentation on MIses, called environmentalism. Interesting stuff.

Anyway, some environmentallist agency purchases a couple of acres of land in Louisiana, to protect it from evil entrepeneurs. However, it apprears a large source of oil is locatred underneath this land. After some thinking, they decide to drill for oil, make money, to ‘save more land’, and thus prostitute their beliefs. For them it is okay to drill for their goals are more just than those of a free market entrepeneur.

10

…what environmental effects? Its only if we screw up and spill oil everywhere, which is much easier to clean up on land and much harder to do since drilling is 1000x easier.

Environmental concerns in Alaska, once you really establish that the spilling of oil is going to be very rare, and not a big deal, turn to concerns about oil pipelines. Will the carribou be able to get over it? If you put a bridge over the pipeline, will the carribou be able to walk over the bridge? It gets ridiculous very quickly once you become educated about onshore drilling. Its cake.

The issue is that the rockies’ reservoirs are too low perm. Its not economic to get them at current oil prices/technology.

11

Making them feel bad is pointless. You need to demonstrate the flaw in their thinking. Show how what they want to do, cannot be achieved by how they go about it. How there are better ways to protect the environment than leaving it up to the state.

It requires that you be able to articulate a nuanced argument about property rights, and in order to do that, you may need to increase your own knowledge.

Arguments about facts (statistics), guilt (make people feel bad) are just wastes of time. Use the opportunity to practice explaining your position, and perhaps turn an argument into an exchange by giving them knowledge (in a manner they will accept) which they can see as a benefit from conversing with you. Then they might want to talk to you more. Then you have made a friend and an ally.

12

I don’t think you have as much of an argument now as you would before. Now there are other kinds of alternative energies that are being developed which the technologies are getting better for. For instance- there recently was a successful launch of a solar power plane (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100708/ap_on_hi_te/eu_switzerland_solar_adventure) that was able to take off and do a complete flight. Maybe you could focus on how we might need some of that oil still- at the very least until the other alternative energies can be developed into better technologies? I’m against off shore drilling for the damage that can cause to the environment and to the sea food industry, but, there may be a need for inshore drilling.

13

Yeah. Land drilling is so much easier for oil companies than offshore drilling. I don’t understand why environmentalists (the illogical ones, that is) want us to drill far away where there’s a greater chance of spill and accident.