Green Patriot, David SteinmanHere’s the rub. You can’t drill for more oil and fight global warming in a meaningful way.

The problem with the “drill here drill now” crowd’s energy plan is that while it addresses energy independence to some extent, to an even lesser extent, it doesn’t address global warming at all. Whether the “drill here drill now” crowd believes global warming via human activity is real or they are simply unsure, prudence dictates a preventive approach-especially when, as I have shown in my recent entries, it is accompanied by diversified wealth making and greater peace dividends.

A story from the September 30 Wall Street Journal illustrates the problem. Reporter Leila Abboud reports in “An Exhausting War on Emissions,” that Norway’s Statoil was developing a new gas field in the North Sea but that the natural gas Statoil extracted from under the seabed contained nine percent carbon dioxide, which was too high for their customers whose power plants were designed to burn gas with only two percent carbon dioxide. So Statoil began to separate the carbon dioxide from the gas and instead of spewing it directly into the air the company actually pushed the carbon dioxide under the sea floor. This is an example of carbon sequestration, and it works.

But despite the fact that their emissions are only 39 percent of the industry average, things are not good.

Yet, despite this effort, Statoil’s overall emission shave more than quadrupled since 1990 to reach 8.9 million tons annually, “fueled by a huge expansion in drilling,” reports Abboud.

Despite our best technologies more oil drilling is going to produce a lot more carbon emissions. I’ve explained why we won’t be free from the entanglement of oil internationally, in recent blogs, so I won’t go into it here. My point in this blog is that drilling doesn’t address global warming. Global warming’s link with human activity is backed with strong science. It ought to be taken seriously. The only sensible course of action is to be preventive.

Besides addressing global warming, an energy independence program that moves beyond fossil fuels is also better for the environment overall and it will be more lucrative and powerful in its wealth generation.

Be sure to listen to David Steinman’s radio program here at Ecology Radio or at WebTalk Radio. To learn more about becoming a Green Patriot visit www.greenpatriot.us. You can also subscribe to this column via RSS.