Willful Blindness

Nancy Peolosi recently said that she didn't want to drill for more oil in the US because she was "trying to save the planet". Charles Krauthammer points out that not drilling here is only good for the parts of the environment that Pelosi can see:

Does Pelosi imagine that with so much of America declared off-limits, the planet is less injured as drilling shifts to Kazakhstan and Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea? That Russia will be more environmentally scrupulous than we in drilling in its Arctic?

The net environmental effect of Pelosi's no-drilling willfulness is negative. Outsourcing U.S. oil production does nothing to lessen worldwide environmental despoliation. It simply exports it to more corrupt, less efficient, more unstable parts of the world -- thereby increasing net planetary damage.

That's something that seems obvious to me but apparently not to Pelosi. I live in Miami and Cuba, Venezueal and China will be drilling off our coast. Would I rather it be an American company with a better track record on the environment? You bet.