Excuse to Pillage: Part 2

In recent days both John McCain and President Bush have advocated lifting the ban on offshore drilling. Hiding behind the guise of "helping the consumer" and the omnipresent cry of "national security," another false solution is offered. Even if everyone agreed to let this environmental recklessness proceed unchallenged, it would be at least 20 years before any oil is actually produced.

If we have not figured out another solution to our inter-linked climate and energy crises by then, it will not matter. Ideas that suggest further damaging the environment as a solution to our current problems are outmoded and symptomatic of a mindset that focus on the immediate and ignores long-term consequences.

We have now crossed into a zone where hopes of finding and producing new sources of petroleum only encourages thinking that perpetuates our most pressing problems. We're like a gambler who has run out of money and sells the car so he can win it all back. Committing the same mistake is not the solution.

What will it take to have a discussion of these issues, climate and energy, that is not driven by irrelevant concerns over the price of gas? Irrelevant? Yes, because the solutions do not involve the same mistakes. OIL IS OVER. Fossil fuels are as dead as the dinosaurs that produced them. We can no longer let any other narrative continue. The future necessitates the stark realization that it will not last forever. All resources are finite. Encouraging any more dependence on this resource is folly. If all the oil in the world that there is anywhere were all suddenly made available as easily as sticking a straw in the ground, it still remains true that it will eventually run out and not so far into the future.

There is now an opportunity in these crises to find a solution that addresses both our problems with climate change and energy dependence. The problems will likely require many varied methods from a number of diverse approaches. Rather than an energy policy based on an oil war to drive down costs, perhaps one directed towards sustainability and environmental sensitivity could be implemented.

Get out your calculators and consider this. If the U.S. government truly wanted to help the consumer and contribute to energy independence it could install $10,000 worth of solar panels on 100 million homes for half of the $2 trillion estimate economists have given for the Iraq war. Not only would this provide great relief to the entire power grid as regards the production of energy and likely lower everyone's utility bills, it could also be a tremendous boost to the economy. Production of panels would aid manufacturing and employment gains in the industry would offset any loses in the petroleum industry.

Trampling the environment must be seen for what it is. Offshore drilling is an excuse for some to make money and some to make political capital. For too long, the people of this country have been sold down the river by our elected leaders. Rather than doing anything to address our energy and environmental issues, they have worked to insure that profits are not harmed by environmental concerns. What happen to "of the people, by the people and for the people"? Did that get edited out of the Constitution at Dick Cheney's secret energy plan meetings?


The above blog is part of a larger article about energy independence by Ray Bawarchi.