I just have a minor point in response to the July 1 editorial decrying offshore drilling entitled "Risky Business." I applaud the editorial board for showing what Floridians have to lose if the law is changed. However, just because the stakes are high doesn't mean the option should be rejected without further consideration.
For example, the stakes are much higher in air versus auto transit: If your car engine stops working, you coast to the side of the road; if your plane engine dies, you die. But we fly because the risk involved is actually much higher when traveling by car, as every nervous air traveler is reminded.
So we have to do some investigation. We have to weigh the risk to marine ecology against the risk of thousands of welders and other laborers being unemployed and wallowing in homeless shelters. I hope everyone can see that it would be morally reprehensible to be flippant about either. Flashing anger at the very notion of "putting our oceans at risk" is as irrational as a person on an airplane hyperventilating and screaming at every slight lilt in the plane's motion.
Offshore drilling evokes images of black slicks suffocating the ocean's surface and oil-drenched birds struggling onto shore. I'm not saying we have to brave that horror for economic security. I'm saying that I haven't researched the issue well enough yet, so I'll keep my mouth shut until I know the issue well. I recommend the same for my peers.
Gerald Liles
4LS
