Will people now change their positions because of the still low but rising price of gasoline?  Or do people still have a smidgen of love and respect for nature?  I'm very interested to see how this plays out.  This proposal won't go anywhere if people let their representatives know that they won't tolerate oil drilling off their coasts.

Enough oil has already been discovered around the world, Hayward says, to maintain consumption at current levels for another 42 years.

If you price in those externalities, then you might end-up paying less.

Oh, and another one of my opinions is that I love hate John McCain.

For many of us, we've been waiting for this moment for a long time - when it's absolutely obvious to people from all walks of life that the time has come for a change.

So tell me G.W. (and John McCain for that matter) - where have you been?! Did you miss the ginormous memo that's been posted on the global bulletin board? I'm sorry, but you've got to be spending too much time on a ranch in Texas to think that the solution to our energy problems is to start drilling for more oil off of our coasts. So basically you're saying that we should be spending billions of dollars so that, in 10-15 years we can support an infrastructure that should be largely obsolete by the time the oil starts flowing? Real smart there, Cowboy.

Tell me, why should we divert billions of dollars from clean technology advancements, social welfare and job training programs, public transit, land-use planning, etc? Most importantly - why squander all of the built up demand for sustainable solutions with false promises of beating the oil crisis with more oil? You say, "America is addicted to oil," yet all you do is push more upon the American people.

Now, before I get too preachy, I have to say that I agree with the respectable people who have written about the awful consequences gas price explosion has had on lower income and socially vulnerable people. For a majority of the world's population, the suddenness of the housing crisis and oil price hike have taken already tenuous lives over the edge. I agree that current economic realities have been harsh and devastatingly unfair to people who have few choices available to them.

And yet, when has it ever been a better time to correct the course or history so that this hideous situation can be avoided in the future? A question better yet asked: what will be the impact of a rapidly warming planet on these same people? From what I understand, if we do not make immediate and significant changes in the way we power our lives and industries, we could be headed into an even worse reality than the one our suffering globe is enduring right now.

How about we bring some hope to our global plight by NOT talking about the same tired old solutions to our energy crisis? I know I'm not alone in feeling like the time is now (or maybe more like in November).

Don't let the door hit you on your way out, G.W.

Not by millions of gallons, no.  Leaks from oil spills on offshore rigs are far geater than natural "leaks."

Don't volcanoes spew tons more junk into the air at every major eruption way past the entire output of the entire history of humans?

Not, at least, not usually.  Typically, an average city of more than 1 million people will spew out nearly 2 and a half time the amount of pollutants in a single day as a typical volcanic eruption.

The exception would be so-called mega-eruptions, such as Kracatoa.  But eruptions like that are short-lived, whereas our pollution is constant, and currently expanding and increasing.

We surpassed the levels of "pollution" from volcanoes quite awhile back, in the late 1800's, actually.

Have you ever seen the videos shot along the deep ocean ridges and all the junk the underwater volcano vents pump out?  There are critters down there who snack that up.

Obviously you're misinformed.  Those are hydrothermal vents.  that "junk" they spill out is just dissolved minerals from the Earth's crust.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_smoker

This is just two cents worth so don't think it is supposed to be and end all point...

Sorry, but it isn't even worth two cents, please do some research before posting.

and while I am at it... Is there not methane and other hydro-carbons in space?  in clouds and/or on other planets, moons, comets, asteroids, etc. ? How many plants and dinosaurs died in space to produce that?  Hrmmmm...???

It's a balanced system.  C02, methane, and other pollutants and GHGs are needed to support life as we know it...but only at certain levels.  Too much in the wrong places and the system is thrown outta balance.

Also, you're assumption that the strict biblical interpretation of the universe is correct simply because there is certain materials on other worlds that are also found on Earth as a result of decayed living organsims is false.

The universe and it's materials made dinosaurs (not the other way around), when they died, the materials were returned to the Earth.  There is no material from the death of dinosaurs that wasn't already present in some other form.

And, since you've obviously done absolutely no reaserch, just because we call 'em "fossil fuels", that doesn't mean they actually came from fossils, or dinosaurs for that matter.  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuels

Please feel free to come back when you've graduated the third grade.