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[quote user="Datafever"][quote user="futuremodal"] For example, we all agree that the cost of energy (electricity, gasoline, diesel) has basically doubled over the last few decades, right?  Can anyone here refute the notion that such a doubling is entirely due to environmental costs imposed on the US by supposedly well-meaning politicians and their pressure groups?  [/quote]While environmentalism has increased the cost of energy, it would be rather riduculous to suggest that environmentalism alone is responsible for the increase in the cost of energy over the past few decades.  The basic laws of economics (such as supply and demand) have also had a factor.  So has inflation.It would appear that you have gone overboard in trying to blame environmentalism. [/quote]Really?Do you even know the background into our current petroleum "supply and demand" conundrum?  We in the US haven't been allowed to fully explore, drill, extract, refine, et al petroleum from within our own borders in places we know oil reserves exist (aka ANWR, California coast, Florida coast, etc).  Consequently, we've gone from having 30% of our oil imported to having more than 60% of our oil imported.  With greater dependence on imported oil comes greater incidence of market manipulation by OPEC, George Soros, Hugo Chavez, et al.  With geopolitical manipulation comes more and more price speculation - futures markets have gone out of control, oil goes from $35 a barrel to $70 a barrel (and no, you can't attribute that doubling to inflation!).Instead of only stratching the surface in regards to current oil prices (e.g. blaiming OPEC and Big Oil), dig further to find out why we are in such a position of being manipulated.  ANWR has reserves that are estimated to match what we import from the Middle East, reserves off California and Florida are even larger, but we still can't get to it.  And why is that?  (Hint:  It starts with a big green "E").Compare the cost of baseline nuclear, hydro, and coal fired electricity generation with the cost of the so-called "eco-freindly alternatives" e.g. solar, wind, renewables.  The former average under $25 MW, the latter over $50 MW (sans subsidies).  Are you trying to tell us that this cost difference (as delivered to the end user) is purely due to inflation or the laws of economics?  Of course not.  It is clear that "eco-freindly" energy costs twice as much as standard baseline energy.  And we haven't even calculated the cost increase of those baseline sources due to environmental regs!  Put it all together, and the picture becomes much clearer - there is a substantial cost to environmental regs, costs that apparently go unnoticed to average citizens or are attributed to other goings-on.The question then becomes - Do the added costs of such regs become mitigated by the so-called social benefits of such regs?  Take the new arsenic regs - we went from allowing 50 ppm to only allowing 10 ppm.  If no one was dying or othewise suffering from the 50 ppm regs, why was it so imperative to reduce the allowable amount to 10 ppm?  One thing was clear - billions of dollars were spent to meet these new regs.Again, the costs of meeting eco-regs are very real, the benefits of eco-regs are theoretical at best.What I have attempted to challenge folks here on is to estimate the actual physical costs of an act such as the simple act of removing a few cubic feet's worth of silt from a river bottom, then compare that unmitigated cost with the actual final cost of the same action.  If nothing else, it's a good mental exercise for one to contemplate.
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