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Our Addiction to Oil
My very own opinion on getting the U.S. off of oil and onto alternative, renewable, "green" energy.
Date: 8/25/2010 10:42:19 PM ( 14 y ) ... viewed 4087 times U.S. Addiction to Oil--In the Wake of the Gulf Oil Spill
I just read an article by Michael Brune, executive director of Sierra Club ("SIERRA", September/October 2010, vol. 95, no. 5) "Lots of folks--including Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama--have called our societal dependence on oil an addiction...It isn't oil that Americans are addicted to; it's convenient and cheap mobility."
He states that the U.S., with 5% of the world's population, burns 20 million barrels of oil daily, fully 25% of the world's entire daily production. More than two-thirds of the oil that we burn daily powers our cars and trucks! ("A small amount goes to producing electricity to heat homes, somewhat more goes to manufacturing plastics and other industrial products.")
His solution: "We could save more than the total amount of oil produced in the gulf (or all the oil we import from the entire Persian Gulf) by moving freight from highways to railways and repowering commercial vehicles with cleaner fuels."
He goes on to talk about individuals needing to take personal responsibility by decreasing driving and increasing the amount of walking, biking, use of public transportation, etc. but that the most important thing we as consumers can do is to switch to electric-powered vehicles such as the new plug-ins coming out; this of course means upgrading our entire nation's electric grid, and using electricity based on renewable energy, not oil or coal (or nuclear!).
No small task for any of this, and the cost of the new plug-ins, or any type of electric vehicle for that matter, is prohibitive for most folks on any kind of a budget.
So, we have a LOT of work ahead of us as a nation. One of the biggest problems of getting off of oil and saving our environment, as I see it, is for the federal government to provide funding for the multitude of changes that would need to be made across the country. This means using lots of taxpayer dollars to:
1)fix our nation's aging and inefficient electric grid and build more extensive public transportation systems, including commercial rail lines;
2)subsidize more research into other alternative, sustainable forms of energy, and then using even more funding for a range of businesses--from small start-up companies to big energy companies--who will translate that research into practical application and building of alternative clean energy plants;
3)provide tax incentives for power companies to switch their source of power away from oil, coal, nuclear, and other forms of nonrenewable/"dirty" energy;
4)provide continued tax rebates for homeowners and businesses to install renewable forms of energy production on property that already exists (such as solar panels);
5)legislate new building codes across the country requiring all new construction to be energy-efficient (in California and other "sun" states, that might mean, for example, having solar panels on all new buildings, or building "passive solar" homes);
6)provide yet more tax rebates and other incentives for car owners to buy new and expensive electric cars (sorta like the recent "swap your old clunker for a new car" program that we recently had, only far more extensive and long term);
7)finance college and trade school education in "green technology" via more student loans, grants, and other funding
8)fund job training and job placement in "green jobs" for thousands of workers currently employed in "dirty" energy jobs;
9)etc etc etc--the list can go on and on.
The greatest challenge of all, again as I see it, greater than the funding issue per se, is that in order to pass legislation to provide said massive funding
1) our elected officials will have to end all of our war-mongering--including toppling foreign governments, shoring up the Pentagon, building weapons of mass destruction, etc, so that all of the misdirected money used for the purpose of killing people in foreign lands in order to protect our economic (including oil) interests can be redirected towards our peace-time "greening of America campaign";
2) our elected officials will have to go against the "military-industrial complex" (as Eisenhower so aptly named it), the oil, coal, and other "dirty energy" corporations, and other "Big Business" conglomerates that line politician's pockets with campaign contributions and who have a vested interest in keeping things just as they are in the name of making as much money as they can, environment be damned.
Is all of this do-able, possible? I believe the answer is YES.
But given the current state of our nation's politics, WILL it be done?
I believe it will require a massive will of the people of this nation to put enough pressure on our elected officials, who are ultimately responsible to us, to implement these changes.
I believe it will require a new thinking among the population of this country in order to produce this massive will to change things from the way they currently are.
This new thinking must incorporate the idea that the environment is something worth defending, protecting, saving, that the environment and us humans are not separate from each other, that we as a species can not live without clean air, water, earth, and that we in the western world must be willing to make significant lifestyle changes and sacrifice our love for consumerism in order to bring about the changes that must be made.
We must maintain hope that we can change the way things currently are.
We must pray in whatever way we as individuals believe in, for the spiritual strength and guidance to make the changes necessary.
We must make the necessary changes in our own lives, as we can, on a daily basis.
We must work socially and politically for change on a larger scale.
We must.
For what is the alternative?
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