Addicted to Oil

Seems America has fallen into an oil pit and can’t imagine a way out. Right now the big fight is over whether to open the Arctic National Wildlife Range to more drilling. Republicans seem to only see the black gold. Democrats seem to only see the white snow and unpolluted American habitat. An article by Peter Maas entitled “The Price of Oil” in the Dec. 16, 2005 edition of the New York Times Magazine suggests to me it’s a classic NIMBY problem – not in my back yard.

I’m not suggesting that the Democrats and environmentalists are wrong, I support them, its just that Peter Maas correctly points out that there is no real effort to reduce our dependence and consumption of oil. Until we do, we just pass the resource extraction problems on to other nations. Maas points out that most U.S. environmental organizations focus their resources on domestic issues, yet oil is really a global issue. Our dependence on oil contributes to our foreign debt. Our international relations with other nations revolve around our need for oil.

Maas states the main obstacle is the “apparent bipartisan consensus in Washington to make whatever compromises are necessary to ensure that America receives the ever-increasing quantities of petroleum that it requires…”.

What can you do – well when’s the last time you told Senator Maria Cantwell or Senator Patty Murray or your U.S. Representative that you oppose continuing the hazardous policy of our increasing dependence on domestic and FOREIGN oil. We need to pursue conservation and alternative energy development. We need a sane energy policy that minimizes wasteful consumption of resources. Our real goal needs to be to make America Energy Independent, while protecting our environment and that of other nations around the world.