Collide-a-scape

Here’s news and (a headline) that is sure to rankle many in the climate and environmental communities:

Obama seeks to promote more oil drilling in Alaska, offshore

But it shouldn’t come as a surprise, since this is what he said during his recent “energy security” speech in March:

Meeting this new goal of cutting our oil dependence depends largely on two things: finding and producing more oil at home, and reducing our dependence on oil with cleaner alternative fuels and greater efficiency.

This begins by continuing to increase America’s oil supply.  Last year, American oil production reached its highest level since 2003.  And for the first time in more than a decade, oil we imported accounted for less than half the liquid fuel we consumed.

To keep reducing that reliance on imports, my Administration is encouraging offshore oil exploration and production – as long as it’s safe and responsible.

If climate projections prove even partly correct in the coming decades, many areas of the planet will experience longer and nastier drought conditions.

Let’s be clear: that won’t be anybody’s idea of fun in the sun.

But as SciAm’s David Biello reports,

for the last several years agribusiness giants like Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta have been pursuing genetic modification to enable the corn plant to thrive even without enough rain. And now the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is considering approving a new corn hybrid genetically engineered to thrive with less water—the first time such a corn strain would be available.