Narc's blog

There's a lot of hay being made over whether we should drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. Republicans seem to think that it is the solution to energy independence and will bring about cheaper gas. Democrats, well, they seem to be vaguely against drilling. I was astonished to see this graph, which gives you an idea of the scale of the whole thing:

I post this not to encourage or decry drilling in ANWR, just to show the scope of what the discussion is about. At it's peak, ANWR might produce the equivalent of 3% of the US demand for oil. One thing that no one really talks about is that the oil from ANWR will not be earmarked for US use, but will go on the global market, for sale all over the world. This graph ignores the demand of other countries, especially China and India.

This is short notice, but there will be an electronics recycling event tomorrow, Saturday, April 19, from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm.  It looks like they're taking all sort of electronics, with a small charge for televisions. Here's the flyer.

I don't normally post here, so I hope I'm doing this right. A few days ago, it came up in an Open Thread as to whether access to the birth control pill encouraged sexual activity in teenagers. So I went looking through the research to find out. I have posted a lengthly description of what I found over at my own blog, but since this started here, I thought it might be of interest to IP readers. Here's what I came up with:

• I couldn't find much that was limited specifically to the Pill, but the conclusions with respect to contraception in general are clear: access to contraception and to comprehensive sexual education does not hasten the entry into sexual activity. (Note, however, that the Pill is the most commonly used form of contraception.)
• In fact, access to comprehensive sexual education may delay the onset of sexual activity and increase the amount of sexually active teens using contraception and condoms.
• About one quarter of teenage couples remaining abstinent will be pregnant within a year.
• For about 10% of teenage girls, the entry into sexual activity is non-voluntary.

Update: I've posted a graph from the Zabin study, which seems to show the program delayed the onset of sexual activity by about a year, and at the median age of entry to sexual activity for the non-program group, 15% fewer teens in the program group were sexually active. The program included comprehensive sexual education and access to medical care and contraception.