Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Is It Warm In Here?

Upon reading the news this morning that OPEC is responding to the recent decline in crude oil prices by cutting output, and is close to an agreement to strengthen its ties with Russia, I couldn't help but wonder: when will our country begin to take seriously the huge economic and national-security threat posed by our addiction to oil?

Note that I didn't say "foreign oil."

Nope, it's just oil. Period. 

Yes, the security of free nations around the world, including ours, is increasingly endangered by petro-autocracies like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and Venezuela. Some have suggested that immediately opening up our own shores to increased oil drilling would free us from our hazardous dependence on these regimes. 

This is simply not true. A 2007 report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (an official agency of the federal government that is controlled by the Bush administration) concludes that increased U.S. offshore drilling would not have an effect on the prices of crude oil or natural gas until 2030. 

I and other citizens first learned this fact many, many weeks ago, yet somehow the most popular chant at the GOP convention earlier this month (next to "USA, USA," the official Republican National Committee response when protesters reared their patriotic heads in St. Paul) was "Drill Baby Drill." Even Obama now says he would support some drilling as part of a comprehensive alternative-energy bill, thus giving further credence to the lie. This is the answer to the problem of our dependence on oil? Excuse me while I clean the doo-doo from my ankles, because we are in it very deep, my friends.

The real issue is simply that we consume too much oil, regardless of where that oil comes from. And the longer we delay implementing policies aimed at reducing overall energy consumption and replacing fossil fuels with renewable resources like wind and solar, the deeper the planetary doo-doo gets. And the stronger the petro-autocrats like Putin, Chavez and Ahmadinejad grow, because their economies rise and fall with oil revenues. 

It won't be easy — no real solution to a major problem ever is — but America needs to summon the courage and political will to do something viable about this problem instead of offering gimmicky non-solutions designed to snooker a gullible voting public. The solution begins with all of us knowing the truth and refusing to accept anything short of it from our leaders.

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