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The new techniques of “fracking” and horizontal drilling in shale formations have also unlocked vast new supplies of oil and natural gas

The Question that Separates Us: WHOM DO YOU TRUST?



I find it interesting how liberals and conservatives can have nearly diametrically opposed views on just about everything. For example, if a brand new topic of political debate were to develop tomorrow—I’m talking about a topic that nobody had ever considered before—as soon as I decided on my own view of this topic, I would bet my life savings (yes, the entire $7.42) that the liberals I know would take the opposing view.
Isn’t that odd? I mean, it would seem more likely that people would agree on some things and disagree on others, right? But this doesn’t seem to be the case when conservatives and liberals talk politics. I know several liberals, and even though we may be friendly towards one another, we disagree on anything that is at all political. That really confused me for a time. We’ve all heard the calls to end the divisiveness and gridlock in U.S. politics, but how can we do that if we have almost no common ground from which to work. And WHY do we have no common ground? The answer came to me this weekend while I was reading an article about a well that was recently drilled in the Gulf of Mexico that has changed the world’s long-term energy outlook. The article, titled, “Wildcatter Hunch Unlocks $1.5 Trillion Oil Offshore U.S.” discusses how new technologies and a hunch allowed a group of oil companies to tap into unexpected tar sands that are expected to yield up to 48 billion barrels of oil.

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And that’s just this one company drilling in this one region of the gulf. The new techniques of “fracking” and horizontal drilling in shale formations have also unlocked vast new supplies of oil and natural gas. The U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) reports that over 750 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas and 24 billion barrels of recoverable oil currently exist in discovered shale fields. That is to say nothing of the resources that are yet undiscovered. Back in 2006, my oldest son came from home school scared to death. He explained that his high school social studies teacher had told him that one day the world’s fossil fuel supplies would dry up and we would all die. His solution, of course, was government control of world energy supplies so that those wise bureaucrats could divvy up supplies as they saw best, thus controlling their dwindling supplies while introducing wonderful, new, renewable resources like wind and solar power. Essentially, that’s what Barack Obama has been trying to do for the past five years. I explained to my son two principles that his social studies teacher (and Barack Obama, and liberals in general) didn’t understand: (1) the law of supply and demand, and how prices affect and are affected by this law, and (2) the miracle of human innovation. The first principle says that as supplies of commodities like fossil fuels begin to drop, with no corresponding drop in demand, prices climb as consumers try to outbid each other for dwindling supplies of the commodity. Increased prices have several affects. They encourage new businesses to enter that market, as they see the potential for profits in these increasing prices. These new businesses create new supplies. Increased prices also encourage businesses to seek alternatives to this commodity, hoping to find a lower-priced equivalent so they can take market share from the current producers. Additionally, lower prices eventually drive down demand as some consumers decide they simply can’t afford that commodity—or find ways to make do with less of it. The second principle is one of the beautiful things about human beings: we’re amazingly creative, brilliant beings, and we have the ability to solve problems that would seem unsolvable. Innovative human beings have cured diseases once thought incurable, developed ways to make waste water drinkable again, turned the western U.S. desert into an oasis that sustains millions of people, and sent men to the moon. There is nothing beyond our reach. As I explained to my son, what these two principles mean is that one day world oil supplies will not simply dry up unexpectedly, leaving humanity totally unprepared and doomed to quick extinction. And these two principles also mean that the LAST thing we need is the government taking control of world energy supplies in an attempt to control their development and use. As I told my son, the first thing that will happen as fossil fuel supplies become scarcer is prices will rise. Once these prices rise, people will react. Current producers will work to find new supplies to take advantage of these high prices. New businesses will enter the field hoping to cash in on the profits available. Other businesses will try to find alternative energy sources, hoping to find cheaper alternatives that will give them a share of the market. And the innovation principle will kick in: creative, brilliant people will put their minds to work and will come up with alternatives to the status quo. One day there simply will not be enough fossil fuel left on the planet that can be profitably recovered to make it worthwhile to do so. But by the time that day comes, innovative minds will have discovered and developed alternative energy sources that will have moved us painlessly beyond fossil fuels. We likely will only be vaguely aware of the transition. These modern drilling methods have all proven this argument true. As oil prices rose, all the things I said would happen did in fact happen and are happening today, which is bringing about the current oil and gas boom. And this is not all just one father talking about one commodity to ease his son’s fears. This is really how things work in every aspect of life. Let me give you another example. In 1980, Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich made a bet. Ehrlich had written a book in 1968 titled, “The Population Bomb,” in which he argued that humans were facing a demographic disaster as a growing world population outstripped the earth’s ability to provide food and other resources to the billions of people on the planet. Simon, on the other hand, believed as I do: innovative human beings will find ways to deal with these problems and there was nothing to worry about. In other words, “Trust people.” So the two made a bet. Ehrlich, along with several colleagues (including, interestingly enough, John Holdren, an advisor to Barack Obama), were allowed to select any five metals they wanted. The bet would be whether or not the prices of these metals would increase over the next decade. If the prices increased, this would demonstrate that the metals were becoming scarcer as the world population used them up, thus supporting Ehrlich’s arguments of impending doom. If the prices decreased, it would demonstrate that humans had adapted and innovated, either by finding more of each metal or by finding alternatives or more economical ways to use the metals. This would support Simon’s position. Ehrlich and his colleagues selected copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten as their five metals. And lo and behold, each of these five metals decreased in price between 1980 and 1990 even as the world population grew by 800 million, the largest increase in one decade in world history at that time. In October 1990, Paul Ehrlich mailed Julian Simon a check for $576.07 to settle the wager in Simon's favor. As Simon said at the time, “More people, and increased income, cause resources to become more scarce in the short run. Heightened scarcity causes prices to rise. The higher prices present opportunity, and prompt inventors and entrepreneurs to search for solutions. Many fail in the search, at cost to themselves. But in a free society, solutions are eventually found. And in the long run the new developments leave us better off than if the problems had not arisen. That is, prices eventually become lower than before the increased scarcity occurred.” What Simon said in his response to Ehrlich and what I explained to my son both demonstrate the conservative view of humankind and the world. We believe in people. We trust that people, if left alone and not hassled by government, can figure things out, solve problems—their own and society’s—and make the world an overall better place. Liberals, on the other hand, do not trust people. They view people as scary and ruthless and greedy, and in need of constant government oversight. Consider this contrast in terms of two current topics of debate: global warming and gun control. With regards to global warming, liberals believe that evil and greedy humans are causing global temperatures to rise, and the only solution is for the government to control nearly every aspect of our lives, from what car we’re allowed to drive to whether or not we can use air conditioning in our homes to how many children we are allowed to have. The conservative belief is that:
  1. it’s highly unlikely that global warming is happening at all (see my last column),
  2. if it is, it is due to natural factors far more than to human activity, and
  3. even if humans were causing global warming, humans would figure out a way to use it to our advantage.
Instead of restricting human behavior, governments should get out of the way and allow innovative individuals to find ways to maximize the benefits of global warming while minimizing the damage. With regards to gun control, liberal and conservative views contrast similarly. Liberals believe that if you give a person a gun, it will cause him or her to go bonkers, turning society into the Wild West. Humans can’t be trusted with guns. (This despite the fact that, even though all 50 states now allow concealed carry, there has been no such degradation of society into a shooting gallery.) Conservatives, on the other hand, believe that armed, law-abiding citizens provide a powerful counter balance to both the criminal element in society as well as the natural tendency in government to become tyrannical. It’s the same with most political issues. Pick any issue and look at the two sides of the debate. Find the position that places the most trust in people, and you’ll almost without fail find the conservatives on that side of the debate. Find the position that places the most trust in government, and that’s where you’ll find the liberals. And at the end of the day, that is why we can’t see eye to eye on anything; it’s because there is a fundamental difference in whom we trust. I for one choose to trust people, not government. And just as in the bet between Simon and Ehrlich, I’ll be vindicated every time.


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Mike Jensen -- Bio and Archives

Mike Jensen is a freelance writer living in Colorado.  He received his M.A. in Professional Writing from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he wrote his first book, Alaska’s Wilderness Highway.  He has since published Skier’s Guide to Utah along with humor, travel, and political articles for various magazines and newspapers.  He is married with five sons, and spends his free time at a remote cabin in the Colorado Rockies.


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