Providing more oil to the market will reduce prices. This does not mean if we open the Alaska reserve it the price of gas will fall. It means the cost of gas will be lower than if we don't open it.

How about if people advocating this are simply honest. The concern is about environmental issues. Most people posting here don't think we should be using oil at all. They don't want any deep sea drilling, regardless of what oil supply problems it does or does not solve.

Victory in Pattani

The second paragraph of Mac's post is the one of the main reasons to either avoid economic arguments altogether or at least make them minor arguments when making arguments for reducing or eliminating environmental problems.  Economic arguments from environmentalists not only raise suspicions about honesty, they also don't get the message across about how harmful the activity is that we're trying to stop or reduce.  If your main argument and concern is economics, you're not an environmentalist.