CAMPUS VOICES – In light of the Polar Pioneer in the harbor, do you support arctic oil drilling? Why or why not?

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voices Michael LeeMichael Lee
“I need to have more info. I believe in respecting the environment. I need to know the ramifications to know if I can support it.”

voices eulalia engelEulalia Engel
“No. The reason we have cheap oil right now is because we have a surplus.
We don’t need the oil in the arctic right now. We don’t have to mine all of the fossil fuels out of the earth before we can finally think of what sustainable energy looks like.
That’s complete bullshit.
The only reason it’s happening is because these corporations have all the power, the people have no power. They get tax breaks.
Meanwhile, us students are trying to figure out how we’re going to pay for college. If these corporations were just taxed like everyone else, every single person of college age in the U.S. would have tuition fully paid for. It’ bullshit!
It’s supposed to be “Beautify Port Angeles” month, yet we’re docking this thing in our harbor.
There should be an eyesore tax imposed. If our government won’t tax these corporations, why can’t citizens of the communities?”

voices Sharon FrenchSharon French
“What I think is while people say we’re killing the earth, that’s never going to happen. She will shake us off like a bad case of the fleas. It is us that we are killing.”

voices Dan UnderwoodProf. Dan Underwood
“If I was looking for an answer to the question, I think the first part is under what circumstances is the additional oil, that’s potentially extractable up there, necessary? In other words, do we need the oil? And I think that the answer is probably, in the short term, not necessarily, because there is lower cost oil available from other sources. So I share with you, one of those very abundant natural gas reserves, in this country, that we’ve had, knowingly, for a long time. And for many decades it had been the question, why aren’t we developing it? So I think that’s the first part I’d look for an answer.
So if the answer is if indeed that oil is necessary, because we don’t have lower cost substitutes, under what conditions are the risks acceptable? And then you have to get the metrics on those. What’s the worst-case scenario on an oil spill? I don’t know what the worst-case scenario is. I think that companies need to be forced to internalize the cost of their actions before they undertake their actions. That’s rational economics. Because thus, they’re only going to extract that oil if their perceived price they can get is great enough to cover all the costs of their operations, including internalizing reasonable risks and still have a profit margin. So I think those are ways that I would move towards trying to come up with a rational solution”