Allowing deep water offshore drilling is in the United States best interest

I appreciate my opponent's apology, and by no means will hold this against him. We, as a nation are faced with two significant threats. The first, is that oil is running out. The second is that oil and specially our use of it, is contributing to global climate change. Let us be under no illusion as to the consequences of these two issues. Firstly, if the US is still significantly oil-dependant by the time oil starts appreciably running out (this is what is called Peak Oil; where the capacity of the world to produce oil starts declining in relation to demand); the consequences to the country will be economically severe (1). Some experts, including the CEO of Petrobras, we are already there (2), some believe that, worst case, peak oil will occur in 2030. The economic impact of doubling fuel prices in recent has been significant; and one can only imagine the impact if this was continued into the future. Secondly, climate change is in progress and we have started to see its effects on the earth, and needs action now to mitigate it's effects. As oil is one of the main culprits for both these threats; it can be easily demonstrated that it is not in the nation's best interests to be addicted to oil. Knowing what we know about our dependence on oil, and on its effect on the environment; I believe this point is more than self evident. As a result, I believe that the original question of this debate should be rephrased to be more representative of the real crux of this issue: "Does allowing offshore drilling help, or facilitate the nation to end our addiction to oil?" My opponent has made several arguments that try and answer this. 1.) As 33% of oil spills occur from importing oil. Aside from not being relevant to the question of whether offshore drilling will help us to end our oil addiction; this argument also misses the point that if 33% of oil spills occur from importing and shipping oil; then 67% comes from oil production. Far from being a potential benefit of oil drilling, it becomes more of a hazard. 2.) Oil from drilling will help "buy us time"; thus helping us end our addiction. This is paraphrased somewhat from my opponent's argument. My opponent, in this regards neglects some fundamental details: Firstly; as I mentioned in the previous round, the key dates I have mentioned previously. That any oil drilling that we allow will only begin producing by 2017; and will not have a significant output until 2030. If peak oil is already here, as some believe; by 2030, it will arrive far too late to have a significant effect on oil prices, or to mitigate the economic problems caused by peak oil. My opponent has not dealt with this key point. Secondly; the price of our oil is determined by the global markets. As the big problem with peak oil is the lack of available cheap energy as oil and gas prices rise due to demand outstripping supply, for any drilling to have an effect, it must constitute a significant proportion of global supply. Considering global oil consumption is 22bn barrels a year (3); it is highly unlikely that the US could use offshore drilling to fulfil even a fraction of this, with suggested production being as little as 200,000 barrels a day, 1% of current daily US Consumption (4). Because of these; I believe it can be demonstrated that any offshore drilling is highly unlikely to have a significant mitigating effect of peak oil and therefore will not "buy us time." 3.) Oil companies are already heavily investing in alternative fuels. For this argument, my opponent fails to spot information from his own source: "The scale of their alternative investments is so mind-numbingly small that it's hard to find them" (5) The source states that in the last 15 years, the top five oil companies have spent $5bn on renewable projects. This is shockingly small compared to the $50bn that been spent by private investment company at the same time. According to this same source, In six years, Shell has spent $1.4bn on alternative fuels; but this year alone, it has spent $31bn on capital primarily on development of fossil fuels (out of a total of $87bn for operations). My opponents whole argument in this respect is very misleading; and misrepresents the original source. More importantly, it validates one key premise of my argument; that if oil companies had incentives to spend more money on researching alternative fuels rather than spending this money on developing offshore fields, it would represent a massive part, or even exceed the $150bn over ten years that the administration wants; even if a fraction of the operations expenditure of the oil companies were used. Because of this; unlocking offshore drilling will simply divert much needed funding towards a very short term solution that will not have any significant long term benefit. 4.) It will be beneficial to the economy. My opponents quoted figure of 1 trillion dollars being pumped into the economy as a result of oil drilling is highly unlikely to be realised all at once; probably over a period of several decades. He has also not presented the source of the estimate. I say over decades, because one does not simply add 8% of US GDP overnight.(6) However, it all boils down to the "to-little-to-late" argument that is at the centre of this debate. While 1 trillion dollars can be added over a period of time to the economy when the oil starts flowing; this will be dwarfed by the economic chaos caused by peak oil. (1) While drilling will most certainly have short term benefits; it will not have present a significant beneficial effect to the long term economy, or significantly offset or mitigate the energy apocalypse that will result from peak oil. The money that would be ploughed into developing new oil fields to provide a long lead-time, short term solution to the spectre of peak oil could be better spent breaking our energy independence. As such oil drilling represents an unwise diversion from the real solution to the United States energy crises and dependence on hostile cartels of oil producing countries; to completely break our dependence on oil itself. It will be hard; both socially and economically; the long term interests of this country, and this world is to stop using oil, and to end our dependence as soon as we possibly can. I would therefore assert that the resolution fails; it most certainly is not in our best interests to continue policies that have put our society in the precarious position that it is. As a result, I would urge you all to vote CON. (1 )http://en.wikipedia.org... (2) http://www.theoildrum.com... (3) http://en.wikipedia.org... (4) http://www.scientificamerican.com... (5) http://www.nytimes.com... (6) http://en.wikipedia.org...