We are not thrilled (nor given some of his campaign speeches, surprised) that Barack Obama is opening up some coastline areas for offshore drilling. I'm not sure what the actual impact will be on the environment…and I never thought the folks yelling, "Drill, baby, drill" did either…or cared.
That's been the problem with a lot of the public debate over offshore drilling. It's so rarely about what it should be about, which is to assess the downsides against the upsides and decide how many there were of each if drilling is allowed in certain areas. It's somehow turned into a battle over whether the concerns of environmentalists should ever, in any instance, inhibit the possible immediate financial benefits to human beings. One of the many moments when I lost respect for Dennis Miller was an appearance he made on a cable news show some years ago when he essentially made this argument: That if killing all the caribou in North America might save him a few cents a month at the gas station, great. Kill the damn caribou. But he didn't seem to know or care if it even would…or if any other bad things might occur. I don't think environmentalists are always justified in their militancy but they do ask questions that ought to be answered, not dismissed as annoyances that just get in the way of someone saving or making a buck.
I assume (cautiously) that Obama and his crew have studied the ups, downs, ins and outs of this decision…so I'm a little less worried than if, say, President Palin announced it. I think this planet is already enduring a number of long-term problems caused by allowing someone's short-term financial gain (often, not even everyone's but rather some private industry's) to trump environmental concerns — what's happened to the drinking water supply, for example. As with many things Obama does, I have to shake my head and say, "I hope he knows what he's doing." This still, by the way, puts him ahead of most of his detractors who have long since convinced me that they don't.