Florida/Kennedy Space Center/Beaches
Posted by Pete | Posted in News | Posted on 18-06-2010
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Back in the mid-80’s I spent a little time in Florida. My wife and no. 3 son came to visit me for a while. They flew into Tampa and we drove over to Disney World, the Kennedy Space Center and spent the night on the beach in the Cape Canaveral area. We walked the beach that evening. The beaches were nice but the Atlantic was angry and the waves were running six feet or so. The next day we drove over to Sarasota, visited the beaches on the Gulf of Mexico side. I can never forget the beautiful white sandy beaches and the turquoise colored water, so beautiful with the gentle waves of the Gulf tenderly caressing the shores. How inviting that was to these three desert dwellers…..Now, with the crude oil slowly heading toward those shores saddens me and I am sure it is the same for anyone who has ever visted those shores. BP does not have enough money to replace that, should we lose it…And the wonderful seafood we enjoyed while there, irreplaceable…In the back of my mind as I think back on the 4.00 per gallon gas and I also said, “let get that oil under the gulf”. While working for a Texas company we often took customers out fishing and tied up to some of the rigs and did some snapper fishing. I always though it was completely safe to pump that oil into waiting tankers or pipelines or whatever….Now, I feel quilty for having thought that way…..We need our seas, our oceans, our fish and crustaceans…Foreign oil, purchased without strings is the best way to go is what I am thinking now. Let us reconsider the underwater drilling….What a mess…Can you imagine a Hurricane the size of Katrina coming in now? What in the world will that be like….Yeah, I promised to be a “stuff writer” and stay away from issues….File this under messy crude oil stuff….Pete
Don’t give up. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, and the South Pacific are all polluted. As long as the world is forced to support 10 billion people, nothing will ever remain the same. BP will clean up their mess in time, and the automobile driving public around the world will pay for it. Don’t let pictures of a few pelicans and fish that you see on television or the tears of a few squeaky-voiced female journalist and politicians cause you to think that the world is coming to an end merely because of a simple accident on the high seas. The sea will correct itself. The beaches can and will be cleaned up. And the world will go on, and the natural resources both in and underneath the sea will be extracted and used. It must be if the world is to support 10 billion people. I continue to say, “drill, drill, drill; but drill safely”. Just be sure that the Louisiana and Mississippi rednecks on the drilling rigs in the Gulf do not sleep through their safety meetings and be sure that Management keeps their engineers and scientists aboard the rigs where they can make certain that the rednecks work safely. It can be done safely. It must be done safely because the natural resources will be extracted one way or another. If the earth is to support 10 billion people in reasonable comfort, it has to be. Remember! It takes 10 years to build a nuclear plant, and fission plants are environmentally dangerous too. Fusion plants are still a ways off, but they will come; and they can be operated safely. Wind power can supply only about 1% of the power needs of 10 billion people. Wind power is not the answer. Coal and lignite is environmentally polluting and dangerous too, but it can be extracted and processes safely. Otherwise, it is back to the “horse and buggy” era for all those 10 billion people of the world.
Horse and buggy is ok with me. In fact, I think it may be prefered with me.
Are you sure? That means Coal Fire all over again. It means going back to Coal Fire and plowing the bottom field with a mule and raising cotton like Granddad Iverson did. Are you sure that you want that? Do you think that these soft people of the sorriest generation can do it? Maybe! But not without some heart rinching, mind bending readaptation. There won’t be time for the internet, or video games. What shall the sorriest generation do?
Good post !
thank you. Pete