October 30, 2001
From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:The Grey Lady's Oily Bias
An unsupported factoid in Rob Nixon's top-center op-ed about our "Dangerous Appetite for Oil" caught my eye yesterday. Nixon claims that the entire Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would yield "only enough oil for 140 days". A piece from the Heritage Society (just trolling across the spectrum) suggests the ANWR would substitute for "30 years of Saudi Arabian oil imports." They both actually appear to be working with estimates in the range of 10-15 billion barrels. So which is the revealing statistic? As it turns out, the latter. Nixon is off by a factor of more than six times, and even then, his yardstick is not particularly helpful.
First of all, the ANWR itself may support an "expected value of 10 billion barrels using mid 1990s technology" (USGS survey) but the "coastal plain" area of Alaska could provide as much as 42 billion barrels, according to anwr.org.
So how much is that, anyway? In 2000, it is estimated that we imported about 5 million barrels of oil a day from OPEC countries (D.O.E. figures). So using the more conservative ANWR estimates of 10 billion barrels, we could cut off OPEC for about 2000 days, or 5.5 years. If we only cut off Persian Gulf nations, we could double that time span. Incidentally, total oil imports are a little more than double OPEC, or 11 million barrels per day. So 10 billion barrels is actually 910 days of imports.
Now, if we somehow do manage to get 30 or 40 billion barrels out of the coastal plain (we are getting much, much better at this, as this fantastic series in the Atlantic pointed out), we got 20 years on OPEC.
Which brings me back to Rob Nixon's editorial. How does he get the 140 day figure? I don't know, but the Times might consider some fact checking on such a prominently placed op-ed, especially when it supports his breathtaking social engineering goal of "remodeling American consumer desire." There is a clue in Mr. Nixon's bio:
Rob Nixon teaches English and environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.Of course. When I want to remodel consumer desire, I'll go find a cross-discipline academic. Excellent.
I'm surprised Smartertimes didn't pick up this, or the incredible hatchet job on Schundler's education program yesterday. Here's a snippet of that one:
Despite Mr. Schundler's enthusiasm, most education experts say there is almost no evidence that his plan, which is crucial to his financial vision for the state, would generate the cost savings he anticipates.Even conservative proponents of school choice say that public school budgets do not shrink in proportion to the number of students they lose, the main assumption in Mr. Schundler's plan.
In a transparent attempt to appear unbiased, the Times actually quotes a "conservative" at this point, who makes the unremarkable point that "public school budgets have proved amazingly resistant to shrinkage even with enrollment declines." So schools find a use for public money even when there are fewer students? What a shock! And this is an argument against school choice? Only in the New York Times. And what's with that "most education experts" stuff? Are we to believe the Times did a comprehensive survey? If they did, wouldn't that be the story? Puleese.
The article goes on to adopt one of "only two studies" on school choice, neglecting to say that the two studies contradict each other, and completely ignoring the Harvard Studies supporting the beneficial effects of school choice on public schools in districts that have implemented similar programs.
I am so disappointed in the Times, because I expect so much better of them.
Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at October 30, 2001 02:00 PM | Technorati inbound links