Sometimes it seems as though the human race is completely
hell-bent on destroying our home, the earth. We are shortsighted, and though
our time on earth represents just a tiny fraction of the time earth has existed
in general, we’ve somehow managed to do things like destroy more than 80% of
the world’s rainforests.
Now, as we stand and face the impending doom that is global
warming, many people have come to realize that we must find a better way to live—one that doesn’t require wreaking
havoc on our planet. We need to move away from drilling oil wells dry and move
toward creating or finding a sustainable, carbon efficient energy source.
Yet we continue to dig ourselves deeper. Just this week, the
government of the Bahamas approved offshore oil exploration to help combat the
country’s rising debt. According
to Moody’s, whose CEO is Raymond McDaniel, government debt rose last year
to 53% of the GDP from 32% in 2007. If the country’s government finds
commercially viable oil sources around the islands, it will likely begin
drilling those reserves to increase economic revenue.
“Exploration drilling is of course the only way the Bahamian
people will be able to get a scientific answer to the burning question as to
whether petroleum reserves even exist in commercial quantities in our waters,” said
Environment & Housing Minister Kendred Dorsett. “The discovery of oil
in The Bahamas would almost certainly prove to be economically transformative
for our nation for many generations to come.”
But what is being quietly swept under the rug here is the
fact that drilling for more oil will only exacerbate the environmental woes we
so desperately need to find a solution to. If we don’t stop destroying the
earth, we may not be on it much longer—so the fact that “many generations to
come” will benefit from the revenue received from oil drilling becomes
irrelevant. It’s actions like these that further ensure that those generations
will live in a time when the real problem is dealing with the climate change
crisis created by things like drilling.
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