Would Maldonado change his position on oil drilling to please Schwarzenegger?

I don't kow how to reconcile his eagerness to drill if all that oilis just going to warm up the world. Time for that hidden conflict of interest check.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1232884/Arnold-Schwarzenegger-unveils-dramatic-climate-change-map-shows-flooded-San-Francisco-future.html

I have always guessed that environmentalists would have enough rope to hang the entire movement. This new developement is amusing as hell.

It is actually very easy to reconcile local production with Global Warming. California imports around 65% of it's crude oil and about 85% of its natural gas. As much as people talk about renewables, demand for petroleum is not going to go away anytime soon. Most of the oil coming into California comes from places around the globe with little or no environmental controls at all. In addition, the oil has to be tankered across thousands of miles of oceans in big, unregulated dirty ships spewing greenhouse gasses along the way.

California, by contrast has the toughest environmental standards of any production region of the world. So by drilling for more oil here, you would actually be reducing California's total greenhouse gas output.

A quick word about the Santa Barbara project before the State Lands Commission. There is a falacy that oil drilling doesn't happen along the California coast. New wells are being drilled all the time, it's just that they are drilled into the same old tired leases. The only physical difference between what this platform does now will be that it will drill in a different direction into a lease with a lot more oil.

The economic differences are huge. The State of California is the mineral rights holder and will receive billions of dollars over the life of the project, new jobs will be created, more taxes will be paid. It's a good deal for everyone.

Sorry Kerny, u miss the point. Allowing NEW offshore oil drilling offshore of California would break a 40 year commitment to protecting our coastal economy against the ravages of an oil spill like the one now destroying Australia. It would open the door to numerous new offshore oil drilling initiatives.

The fact is that the all the money promised from the phony PXP deal and more could be raised by simply imposing the very same excise taxes on oil drilling in California that are required in nearly every other state- including Texas and Alaska.

Isn't it funny that PXP-- from Texas -- would rather drill here than at home b/c our yahoo Governor and politicians are too weak to protect our economy, our environment and taxpayers? Our Green Gov. has decided to take a quick buck and leave global warming on the magazine cover?

Let's at least protect our coastal economy, because we'll be suffering long after PXP makes a mess and runs back to Texas.

4oceans - Let me make sure that the facts are clear. There is NEW offshore drilling everyday off the coast of California. There are no new leases. Most of the platforms off the California coast were built in the 1980's.

I did a quick google search and found that PXP drills on a regular basis in California, Louisiana, Texas and the Gulf of Mexico.

Under Alaska tax law, all but the very biggest companies pay no severance tax at all. Texas does not have a property tax on oil like California and does not have a corporate income tax. Your comparison doesn't hold up.

How is sending our dollars and jobs to countries who don't like us protect our economy?

Lastly, a UC Santa Barbara professor did a study on oil spills and found that tankering by far is more dangerous than offshore platforms. By not producing locally you are actually creating a bigger environmental threat to the California coast.

kernsmart 10X
Information I have gleaned support the point you made. I no longer am sure that green for profit isn't practiced with a wink and a nod, locals getting their share for supporting a global ad campaign. I have read that there is a split about managing the southern California oil rich coastline. It appears to be a division between typical wackos, climate academicians, real estate, and coastal tourism business interests vs others. I have read of countys that have contracted with drilling operators, opposing more general statewide initiatives in Sacramento because they do not want new law interfering with their own little pot o' gold. is this accurate?

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/academy-%e2%80%94-take-back-gores-oscar/

We have got to produce new resources in California to get out of the budget collapse.

I applaud the push for more drilling off the coast of California. The crazy green global warming crowd needs to be put in their place.

Our energy needs and the collapse of the California economy are more important to Californian than a false premise that the earth is warming because of mankind. Drill now and explore mining.

California is going broke. We've got sell off state lands or exploit our natural resources. Get California back to work.

The colossal news being minimalized by the media,the left and Obama in all this is how we and the world have been and still are being lied to in regards to "Global Warming" info in regards to the hacked e-mails.As usual they are more concerned with the "Hackers" than the "Liars" and anyone who believes now any of the garbage we have been fed in an attempt to destroy our economy and way of life is either just plain stupid or is a willing accomplice in this massive world wide fraud.I call for all schools to immediately begin deprogramming our youth by telling them the truth to counter the propoganda they have been fed since Kindergarten...if not,all you teachers out there are no better than snake-oil salesmen and women that should not be trusted with educating children.Your credibility and honor are at stake.

"The crazy green global warming crowd needs to be put in their place." Theresa

Brian Murray; what are you so angry about? And the climate on earth is changing. Why I don't know? But as late as in 1950, my California born hubby had a very hard time living with the snow and ice when he served in the Military Police in Vienna Austria. I had spent all my growing up years going to school with snow on the ground. And our window panes were adorned with beautiful ice designs. Brrrr was it cold to touch the glass. My brother and I had our tongues stuck to the glass...hahaha!

Now for some decades, no more White Christmas. And my weather forecast chart for Fresno/Clovis; the city in the bay area where my daughter lives and Vienna Austria shows that it is warmer in Vienna than it is in the Bay Area. That warming in Europe is disastrous to their agriculture. Especially the fruit trees that need a long and cold dormancy. An entire region in the Danube Valley was sustained by those stone-fruit crops .

The more uninformed and the more insular people are, the more they are prone to call other people crazy. California is great but not the prototype for the world's climates.

The Copenhagen climate conference is a joke. It gives new meaning to the phrase, limousine liberal. It also reinforces the hypocrisy of the environmental wackos attending the conference.

According to an article in the UK Telegraph, the marketing director of Copenhagen's largest limousine company states that while her company typically has 12 limousines on the road per day, today it will have 200. The director estimates that there will be over 1,200 limousines in use in Copenhagen. Limousines from Germany and Sweden have been driven to Copenhagen to satisfy demand. What a nice carbon footprint to leave. But then, we would not want the liberal elite to have to take public transportation and possibly rub elbows with the commoners.

In addition, around 140 additional private jets will be flown to Copenhagen's airport compared to what the airport typically accomodates. There are so many private jets being flown to the conference that the jets will have to be parked at regional airports or even Sweden before the planes return to pick up their passengers. I guess Leonardo DiCaprio, Daryl Hannah and Al Gore (who will all attend) fear the common folk on commercial traffic more than they do leaving a large carbon footprint.

Finally, to top it off, the elite hotels are preparing their climate summit menus to cater to this effete crowd. Popular choices on the menus will include scallops, foie gras and caviar wedges.

Carbonhagen, I mean, Copenhagen climate summit .... 1,200 limos and 140 plus private jets ... yeh, sure .... they people are really, really, really concerned about the environment ... what a scam! .... The only function of this meeting of moonbats is to serve as a photo op for Ozone Al or some other brain-dead, nancy-boy eco-twit.... meanwhile, back in the real world ......

I was listening to NPRs "California Report" this morning. The message I got was that our green governor would like all this pie in the sky phoney baloney carbon theory put into law nationwide, especially in the western states, to prevent companies from having an alternate location to move when they are finally fed up with Cailifornia's over-regulatory business environment. It was made to sound as if it was more a diliberate strategy to prevent taxbases from hemorrhaging than any innocent plan of planetary salvation. I now believe that the problem is even worse than I thought.

At the White House, did they serve HOTDOGS with sauerkraut, and everyone hiked in on foot, or drove in with a four cylinder hybrid? The Western World seems to be slowly slipping back to the age of feudal rulers and modern serfs (taxpayers.) Spouting hatred for political opposition or certain political VIPs (on a newspaper blog) is not going to change or stop it. Only participation in "We the People" intelligent dialogue and persuasion is going to preserve the promise of 1776. Remember the words? And if not... pay heed to them:
"...There is no freedom in a land where fear and hate prevail....(Hays/Seeger/Gilbert/Brooks Inc. BMI; 1999)

Hater: The most repeated word in self described intelligent dialogue and persuasion.

Mrs. Lawson - I do consider the hypocrisy of global warming alarmists as relevant. Were there such a dire crises as they claim, one assumes they would have at least fly commercially (even first class) and use cabs, buses or trains (as opposed to gas-guzzling limos) rather than leave a larger so-called carbon footprint. Their actions belie their rhetoric. That would also set a good example. While I disagree with the environmental views of the actor Ed Begley, at least he walks the walk when it comes to his lifestyle choices.

Seamus | December 7, 2009 4:43 PM | Reply
Mrs. Lawson "Were there such a dire crises as they claim..."

There is a dire crisis due to climate changes. Many of them affect agriculture where prolonged frost and dormancy has turned into warmer climate, forcing many cash crop plants to literally live themselves to death. Hundreds of thousands of those fruit trees are sometimes blooming even in winter, which is the end of one year's harvest and if it happens too often it is the end of that agri industry. Ice the size of Rhode Island melt into the ocean at the South Pole. The Arctic ice is diminishing, Glacier Bay is slowly falling into the ocean, Kilimanjaro wont have snow in less than 10 years. In the European Alps many of the water supply (glaciers and perma-snow )for the metropolitan areas are not there anymore. In many regions of the world the annual rains are delayed.

The trouble is that the ruling politicians live like the French king who coined the phrase ..."behind me the deluge." I too believe the attendants to the conference could have used any and all sort of mass transportation. But that sort of thing is for the common folk like me. And Capitalism too is being misconstrued to allow those excesses; but I am not going to argue that point because if someone sets out to distort the meaning of my words, it would not matter what I say.

And whatever causes those climate changes....the result is the same and we are poorly equipped to overcome it. I am not a green freak...but I have seen the results with my own eyes. Not Kilimanjaro, not the Asian and African drought conditions, but I am somewhat qualified to speak of Europe. Neither Fresno, nor California, not even the United States are the center of the Universe. And if we were to leave politics out of the problem, if we were to demand from the world's leaders to practice what they preach and don't look at themselves as potentates, deserving all that obscene luxury, we might have a chance to pull together and adjust our industries from yesterday's climate to tomorrows. It happened before and it could be done again.

But as I have said....I have not got a chance to be listened to because being critical of the simple truth is so much more fun. And this post is much too long.

Obviously, the so-called global warming science crowd were NOT confident enough of their data to allow it to go through a legitimate peer review. Much more about their "scientific processes" will come out for sure, but even now enough is know to strongly suggest that data that was contradictory to their personal beliefs, or possible "bought" beliefs, was deliberately hidden, obscured and purposely manipulated. (Known, thanks to the email hacks). Interesting that Barbara Boxer wants to run after the hackers and punish them rather than the conspirators that sought to deliberately run a scam on all Americans.

Knowing that their livelihood was based on government grants or monies from "interested" parties - (Think Ozone Al who has become a mega-millionaire as the result of “the global warming scam) - leads us to believe that their motives are impure. It seems to me that these so-called scientists, no longer truth-seekers, are simply another tool of Democrat liberalism / Marxism that seeks to achieve power and / or world domination by means other than militarily.

Isabell how do you know all of this, are you describing the contrived computerized imagery Al Gore slathered on his big science project? The fact that all the raw data archived, which supports all this cooked baloney has evidently been deleted from the obtainable record... Hmmmmm. Consumate liars, neo-carpetbaggers, and snakeoil vendors.

There may be a not-so-subtle message about the global warming scam in the Tiger Woods mess.

Think about golfer Tiger Woods; Now - we know that his whole life was a deliberate distortion; the construction of his persona as a modern sports / moral deity was created by a crew of marketers and PR people. He was sold as having a wholesome image, where apparently none existed. A character was manufactured. We knew nothing about his previous record (sound familiar?). We now know that his aberrant behavior was well-known by the media, but was kept from the public. A compliant, state-controlled media has kept "things" from us and then gave us a distorted view of this individual.

If the media can so pull the wool over our eyes on a athlete, a minor personage in the ultimate scheme of things, how much more, will it attempt to deceive us on something that affects all our lives and the world-wide economy - something like "global warming."

The truth to both sides of the global warming issue lies somewhere in the middle. Very few of the scientists who have worked on either side of the issue are the slime-balls that people presume them to be. In fact, their research is complimentary to both sides of the issue. The problem arises when that research is taken out of context and used to further the agenda of one particular viewpoint; it gets even worse when someone can make money off of it. The resulting bickering has completely obscured the point; an important point. The earth is in a warming trend. This is true and it is also a natural phenomenon that has happened before. Remember glacials and interglacials from high school earth history class? What has changed radically is the effect humans have had on the planets ecosystem. Scientists merely asked the question, “Will the activities of humans affect this natural process?” No one knows the answer; however, the answer may be important. The humans in the world today don’t like to be “inconvenienced” by nature. A case in point is the lack of water on the west side of the Valley. That is normal; the watering of the west side is not. Now that our human created farmland can’t be watered any longer, the west side is reverting to its natural state; dry. Nobody used to care much but now it is populated and hitting people in the pocketbook so we cry foul. The current warming trend is causing glacial melting. It’s happened before. However, places like South America, where the water source of many countries comes almost entirely from glaciers… the lack of glaciers might be an issue. When the Andes were sparsely populated people starved or moved. Now there are millions of people there with no place to go. They probably would like to know if the glacial melting is going to stop or should they be preparing by building desalinization plants? We live in a world where the ruling societies are removed from and forgetful of nature. When you turn on a faucet and water comes out, you tend to forget where it comes from. In California, we’ve known for 50 years our water supply would not keep up with growth, yet we didn’t do anything about it until a large number of people became “inconvenienced.” The scientists were right to pose the global warming question in a world ruled by societies who tend to wait until it’s too late. Unfortunately the whole issue has blown into a big mess. Fear-mongering, a tactic common in a world of complacency, has only served to polarize the issue. We are left with the likes of the comments on this blog, while the real issue, an important one, is lost like a needle in a haystack…. “Will the activities of humans affect this natural process?” “Can the affects make the process worse than it would normally be?” “Is there a point of no return for glacial melting?” Not such bad questions after all. I don’t know the answer but I do suggest not buying retirement property in South America.

I'm not sure what you mean by "having a negative proven". Weather is an inaccurate science, I'm not sure anything can be officially proven. What I do know is that the data shows:
1. There has been warming.
2. This type of warming has happened before.
3. The warming does not show any significant measurements of sea level rise as suggested.
4. The levels of warming are within the "normal" levels that have occurred in the past.
5. The glaciers are melting.
6. It is unknown as to what the final extent of that melting will be; although there is the possibility it can be a very bad thing.

I also think those promoting disasterous global warming are using fear mongering tactics; to their detriment. Withholding data is not uncommon in scientific circles when someone is trying to gain credit for proving a theory; however, the climate models they are using do not follow the scientific principle of statistics analysis. That manipulation is unethical.

The point I was making still stands, the original questions are still important for us to determine for the reasons I cited above. I do not think they are even close to figuring it out. I also think it is hubris for humans to even attempt to manipulate nature. That said, I also think it is stupid for humans to damage our ecosystem when we have alternatives available to us so we don't have to. Therefore both sides of the issue are wrong. Both are too polarized. Both are taking an all or nothing stance when the correct path is somewhere in the middle.

Like many sensible people have accurately pointed out already in thousands of other public comments, scientists cannot forecast weather for tomorrow with accurate consistency. Perhaps they have already also gone on record, but I would like to see all the local meteorologists sit down in a forum and give their views on this topic. That would be interesting.