how Obama is doomed becuase America is full of  uninformed racists who don't care about the issues enough to educate themselves.

 Now the common man's gut's opinion is something we should treat as equal ground with the opinions of experts, because your ultra-bleak world view assumes every one of them is corrupt even though a majority of them say that offshore drilling will (at best) do very little.  Yeah I am sure the tree huggers can out bribe the oil companies.

Not sure I can add anything that would help my point more than bobo just did.

Let's all take a second to remember that the post above comes from a classroom teacher.

I have to wonder does he teach his kids to ignore science, logic, fact and evidence and trust their own instincts or his?

Bobo, you bring up a good point--that sources of "scientific" information should be scrutinized before being swallowed hook, line, and sinker, but then you go and discount all research just because some sources may be suspect. That is the crazy-man approach ;)

We desperately need to use scientific experts to weigh the potential benefits and drawbacks of actions we take in this world.  it is crucial that people learn to apply their critical thinking skills to examining sources of information.  It really isn't all that hard.  You need to follow the money, number one, and it isn't that hard these days to research groups on the internet to determine whether politics is playing into their data.  My company, for example, is a consulting firm that works with large utilities, but we don't sign contracts where data (i.e., data that doesn't back up a specific action) will be kept confidential by the company because it will compromise the science involved.

Joe Sixpack does not have the knowledge to weigh these decisions and all their potential environmental and economic implications on his own.  He does not have the objectivity to weigh the potential effects on society or the environment as a whole over the long term.  If we keep making decisions based on short-term political gain and corporate greed, we ensure our own sad fate.