[Beetle01]

Coach, you asked why we couldn't find a middle ground? Because currently there is no middle ground, 50 years from now, maybe. However, to do things as you ask would leave a majority of Americans without the ability to have the comforts mentioned above due to major increases in energy costs. We need to mine and drill while the energy is still feasible, then once we better our understand and ability to use renewabale resources we can make the switch over to those. Until then, might as well use up the endless reserves we have. And they are basically endless for any feasible time frame. 1000+ years on current known reserves, that doesnt count the massive reserves that we dont know about or are currently unable to reach due to technology not quite there yet, but there is an oil reserve in the Atlantic that is currently to deep to access but that holds more oil than all known reserves on Earth combined at this very moment.