A Green Case For Drilling

Interesting commentary I found in the Santa Rosa Press- Democrat yesterday morning. The author makes his case for environmentalists to take another look at their opposition to offshore drilling.

I found the following figures he gives rather interesting:

From 1971 to 2000, offshore facilities and pipelines were responsible for only 2 percent of the oil in U.S. waters. The bulk of it (63 percent) came from natural seepage, and 22 percent came from municipal and industrial runoff. Worldwide, natural seepage is the largest source (47 percent) of oil in water, followed by spills from ocean transportation (33 percent)...

The 63% figure surprised me as I'd read a few years ago that 25% of the oil in the oceans was due to natural seepage.

As you can imagine, I got a little annoyed when the writer starts in with the global warming thing. Then again, if you're trying to make a case to fellow Believers, it makes sense to throw global warming into the mix.

Of course, no mention of the billions of dollars that could be made by American companies and American workers from offshore drilling, but that makes sense. Environmentalists generally don't care about that.