On Drilling and Nuclear Energy

I used to live on a hill, and next door to me was a church with a sloped planting area. At some point the church's irrigation system developed a leak and water would run for hours  drowning my adjoining  planting area and trees to point where they became waterlogged and began to die. After much discussion with the church about the problem, they decided to fix the problem by turning off the water feed to the affected area instead of fixing the problem.

About six months later the plants on the sloped planting area were either dead or dying so the church decided to turn the water back on. As you may have guessed the water began leaking again drowning my garden and running down the street. When I spoke to church about this they informed me that only turned the water off because I complained and that they had to turn the water on again because the plants were dead.  I told them that I only wanted them to fix the problem not to just turn the water off. When I asked them why they thought by turning the water off for six months it would somehow fix the leak, they looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language and repeated "we only turned the water off because you complained".

I don't know if we should drill off the coast of California or build more nuclear plants, but it seems to me that we turned the water off many years ago and turning it back on has not changed any of the reasons why we originally turned it off.

Before we turn the water again on it might be a very good idea to see if it makes sense to drill again, whether we have progressed to the point where we can safely drill without polluting our coastline, or whether the safety issues  with  nuclear power plants have been solved.

If we turn the water on and the underlying issues remain we only have ourselves to blame. If we solve these issues and are able to reduce our energy dependence we will be the better off for it. But, remember we only turned the water off and have not yet fixed the leak...