To Drill or Not to Drill

To Drill or Not To Drill

HUM/111

April 23, 20011

To Drill or Not To Drill

President Barack Obama during his campaign and after taking office has pushed for his agenda to free America from the dependency on foreign oil. New technologies such as solar power, wind turbines, and clean coal need to be explored and expanded further so Americans will longer be dependent on foreign oil. These new technologies will create much-needed jobs and will help America’s economy. Many opposing politicians and people think that all America needs is to continue to drill off the Gulf Coast, Alaska, and other places within our own country to solve our dependence on foreign oil. As Americans, we need to find alternative ways to stop our dependence on foreign oil.

Our reluctance to change hinders our ability to find new ways to find better solutions to our foreign oil dependency. We are set in our ways of using oil for our power needs. The cost of drilling oil is too high of a price as was discovered with BP’s Deepwater Horizon oilrig explosion last year in the Gulf of Mexico. “Oil companies now have to prove they can extract those resources safely, without compromising an ecosystem that might never recover from the effects of a large blowout” (Schmidt, 2010, pp4). For many this is enough proof that they need to continue drilling. In the artic drilling is only viable from July through late September or early October. The sea ice starts to melt and separate from the shoreline in April, which starts to create a steady widening of open water called a lead. By July, open water dominates the region allowing drilling. Occasionally, portions of the sea still freeze and pack ice can compromise drilling operations. Continuing to drill for oil is just too risky; other options are needed to be explored. “How far oil companies are willing to go in these days of energy uncertainty to tap the earth's dwindling reserves of oil. Explosive growth in the world's emerging economies...