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The economy drives how the United States feels about issues involving climate change. For example offshore drilling has been around for a while. If alternative energies phase offshore drilling out then people will be out of work, similar to what happened in the country of Spain ([]). The USA economy is already not in good shape (remember the 1,000 point drop) ([]). People in the United States don't want it to get worse yet at the same time want to become greener and may install things like wind turbines. For example Wind turbines will be put up in Cape Cod yet they will cost 2 billion dollars and everybody in the state will have to pay "$1.59 a month" more. It's not a lot but inital 2 billion to build the wind turbins is a lot ([]). If people believe that we need to keep the envioment safe with things like alternative energies no mater what the cost then they need to consider this: it's green for the envioment, not for our wallets.

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We believe that offshore drilling isn’t worth the risk. Drilling is detrimental to the environment and even if it might make us some money in the short term, if anything goes wrong the money we’re making will most likely be lost in the grand scheme of things. As shown in this latest attempt of offshore drilling in the Gulf, this probably isn’t the right path to pursue for us. This path is too risky involving the possible destruction to marine life, which not only hurts the ecosystem but also affects people with jobs that revolve around the marine life like the hundreds of fishermen that populate that area. With no fish the fishermen are out of a job. This could raise the prices of fish products because the fishers cannot get the fish. Also if we are losing barrels of oil by the hundreds then we really won’t be making any money what so ever and oil prices could rise. For example BP mat lose up to $12.5 billion due to the oil spill ([]). Even if some think the risks of offshore drilling aren’t that great, they really are if it might destroy the environment and our economy.



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We believe that alternative energies are not a good idea to impliment immedeitly. If the United States wants to convert to alternative energies like solar and wind energies then it needs to come fully into play over the course of 20-30 years. The reason for this is that if all of the sudden people started to use alternative energies then businesses such as coal mines or oil companies would go out of business, in turn causing people to lose thier jobs. Also you have to think that every person with a car spends about $100 a month on gas for thier car ([]). If you think of how many people use gas in the United States then that would be huge number. As priorly stated, Spain's unemployment rate soared and it's economy tanked due to alternative energies. The USA economy is already not in good shape (remember the 1,000 point drop) ([]). For multipule major companies to potentialy go bankrupt now would make our economy like Spains; green for the envioment, not for our wallets. We need time for alternative energies to come into play after a period of time or else the sudden change will make use flat out screwed.



Global Warming is happening, wether or not we want to believe it. Sadly we have to look at the cost of fighting global warming, which is not cheap. In 2009 a bill was introduced that "would cost the average household $175" in 2020. John Boehner from Ohio said that it could cost up to$3,100 in energy costs by 2015 ([]). The bill was eventually passed so know you will have to pay more money instead of trying to keep food on the table and a roof over you head ([]). Also according to the website [] it would cost an average of "**$515 billion per year"** to stop global warming, and in this terrible economy we can't do that or else the United States could never recover from the economic disaster. []



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**Sea Level Rise**
Although you might not think that Sea Level Rise would have too much to do with the economy you'd be wrong. If the sea level did rise by millions would be displaced. The cost for relocations and just trying to get such a large part of the whole World's population back on their feet would be tremendous. All info from ([]-)