We have met the enemy... and he is us... -- Walt Kelly/Pogo, from a poster for the first Earth Day 1970
A lot of people won't like this but that's just too bad. The truth is hard.
Okay, so yesterday, I’m listening to one of my favorite podcasts. It’s kind of a “guy talk” program, and they’re usually very funny. Yesterday, they decided to go off on Obama and his alleged inaction on the oil spill that is happening in the Gulf of Mexico. This is not normally a political program, and when they start talking politics, I usually tune out, but this time, I didn’t skip past. The attacks on Obama were unfair, as if he could become Aquaman, swim down to the hole and plug it up himself. But they weren't distributing BS on a Fox News level, so I resisted the urge to write them a scolding email and continued to listen.
The political talk stopped pretty quickly, as it always does. But then they started talking about cars. You know, another guy topic. And my jaw dropped. The host lamented his choice of a Toyota, because it just “wasn’t him.” All them drooled over the concept of “muscle cars” and were desirous of a car that could go from 0-60 really fast. Now, to their credit, they did say they didn’t care how the car was powered; they would be just as happy with a hybrid or an electric car that did the same. They were just interested in a car could make them feel more like “men” because they could go really fast. But then the host began to practically drool over the feeling he got when he drove a car with a V-8 engine.
I just shook my head and laughed. Talk about clueless. THAT is why BP spilled oil in the first place.
Look, folks; it’s easy to blame Obama, Bush, Cheney and BP for the oil spill that is destroying the Gulf of Mexico, but if you want to know the real culprit on this, look in the mirror. WE are the reason millions of barrels of oil have gushed into the ocean. Every time you see a pelican or dolphin covered with oil and dying miserably, blame yourself. Yeah, I said YOU.
Yes, BP should pay for the cleanup. And yes, Bush and Cheney (and Reagan and Bush 41 and Clinton) bear a lot of the responsibility for what’s happened. But the ultimate blame lays squarely at our doorstep. Caveat emptor, folks. It is OUR gullibility, OUR greed, OUR self-centeredness that has led us into this situation. Looking for someone else to blame isn’t going to work this time. If you’re driving anywhere you don’t need to drive, you’re guilty. If you don’t fully support a comprehensive public transit system, you’re guilty. If you sat by and watched quietly as the Republicans dismantled the energy programs that were in place before Reagan was elected, then you’re guilty here, as well. And do I even have to mention you saps who drive pickups, SUVs and Minivans unless you need them for work? You’re really guilty.
Jimmy Carter (remember him?) was the last politician in power to take this shit seriously. He saw the dangerous position this country was in after 1973, when it was clear that oil was no longer a free market enterprise. I remember my mom filling a thermos of coffee making sure she had the pack of Philip Morris Commanders sjhe probably had me buy for her and a book and taking the car to the Crown station on Southwestern Boulevard to sit in line for as much as 2-3 hours for the privilege of buying gasoline on her particular day.
Strangely, we seemed to have learned our lesson for a while after that.
President Carter, who is reviled as a president despite the fact that HE was responsible for most of what Reagan worshippers give him credit for, set up an energy conservation protocol that pushed research and development of alternatives to fossil fuels, set higher CAFÉ standards, put tons of money into public transportation projects, and promote energy savings in other ways, as well. The goal was to cut energy use by 5% per year, and IT WORKED.
Unfortunately, Reagan gutted those programs, and we let him. Why wouldn’t we? We were happy as clams. I remember the price of a gallon of gasoline at the Arco station at the corner of Venice and Lincoln hit 69.9 cents per gallon in 1984. And when the interest rates went back below 10%, we couldn’t wait to fill our garages with gas guzzlers. After all, it wasn’t possible to be safe in one of those “econo-boxes;” if our family was going to be safe, we’d have to all be buckled into a tank. And of course, every guy who needed to prove he was a “man” had to have a noisy road hog, and the fastest cars just had to burn a lot of gas, right? Besides; it was cheap and there were no shortages, so all was right with the world.
Reagan set the tone, and Bush, Sr. continued the Reagan legacy. But the biggest disappointment of all on this issue was Bill Clinton. Our economy BOOMED under Clinton, and we had an amazing opportunity to invest in alternative fuels and wean ourselves from our oil addiction. Instead, the situation became worse by leaps and bounds. We were buying vehicles that were far bigger than we needed, and using far more gasoline than ever before. Meanwhile, the Chinese economy was growing, the Indian economy was growing, and our government knew there would be serious pressure on the market at some point. They KNEW the supply of oil was finite, that the number of players in the market was growing fast, and that shortages and/or high prices would be in our future. But they kept on encouraging us to buy bigger and badder and to use as much as we want.
But this isn’t the government’s fault. It’s OURS. Yes, I know; the neocons running the government were peddling snake oil, but we were the ones guzzling it. For Chrissakes, folks, after the oil embargo in1973 and another shortage in 1979, why didn’t we take the hint? We had government telling us we had to cut back and we did. We cut our consumption drastically in the 1970s. For some reason, we managed to buy smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles. We built out mass transit systems in major cities. We started to develop solar and wind power. We were becoming more conscious of our energy use, and learned to use less. But when Republican neocons took over the government, we somehow let them convince us there was a never ending supply of cheap oil available and told us we could use as much as we wanted and that there were no consequences to its use. And we bought that bullshit hook, line and sinker. Magically, we suddenly went from being worried about the oil supply to living happily ever after, with a wave of their magic wand.
How many wars does our military have to engage in before we figure out that all that dollar-per-gallon gasoline cost us a lot more than a dollar? How dirty do our cities and town have to become before we figure out that the same crap we're scrubbing off our buildings and walls we're also breathing in on a daily basis? How many oil spills do we have to endure before we figure out that obtaining this oil in the first place is a very risky, very dangerous thing, and that the lower supplies go, the more dangerous it will become in the future?
Let’s deal with reality.
- Oil is not a free market, and it hasn’t been for many years, and we should be smart enough to figure that out. There may be several oil companies out there sucking us dry, financially speaking, but it’s not a competitive market at all. If it was a competitive market, then when prices started going up at BP and ExxonMobil, Texaco would be bartering for cheaper oil from somewhere else, so they could undersell them. Instead, when the price doubles for one, it doubles for everyone.
- There is no such thing as “energy independence” when it comes to oil. Neocons have co-opted that term and made it sound feasible that we could produce a lot more oil for our own consumption, and that doing so will make a difference. We use 20% of all oil produced in the world, and we have 2% of the world’s reserves. If we used the same amount of oil we use now and it all came from domestic sources, we’d run out in less than 20 years. The only way we can become "energy independent" is if we produce our own energy that isn't oil.
- More than 95% of our oil use is for transportation. Coal and other fossil fuels are a big problem, too, but when it comes to oil, cars and trucks are the key. One of the key reasons people say they wouldn’t drive an electric car is because, well, it just doesn’t have the range they claim they need, because it would “only” go 100-200 miles. Yet, 90% of all car trips are less than 20 miles. Therefore, the problem isn’t electric cars, but the way we think about how we use our cars. We seem to have a habit of buying a vehicle based on a few extreme uses we envision, instead of buying it based on how we will actually use it more of the time.
- Many of us have far more vehicle than we need. If you have two kids, do you really NEED a vehicle that seats 8 people? If your bed liner is still in pristine condition after four years, did you really NEED that pickup truck? In a country where the top speed limit on most roads is 55 miles per hour, and even a small car can go 80 miles per hour to keep up on wide open western roads, is it ever necessary to drive an 8 cylinder gas guzzler muscle car? And even if you’d like one, isn’t it just possible to drive it on weekends and drive a smaller car back and forth to work every day? Won’t it last longer and need less maintenance that way, anyway? And if you're hauling stuff 2-3 times a year, wouldn't it make more sense to rent from Ryder or U-Haul?
- It’s not necessary to change your oil every 3 months or 3,000 miles. I have been doing an informal survey for years, and I have yet to find an owner’s manual that specifies a specific time period, or one in which the recommended interval is less than 7,500 miles. In fact, if you use synthetic oil, you can double that.
- We have the technology NOW to demand that all vehicles sold five years from now be hybrids, and we have the technology NOW to sell reasonably priced electric cars with reasonable commuter ranges. We have the technology NOW to retrofit heavy trucks for biodiesel fuel during a transition to hybrid or electric truck engines. We have the technology NOW to replace most of our fossil-fuel powered plants with solar and wind power, and to replace our off-shore drilling rigs with wind turbines.
- We have the money to make a major change in our lives. Currently, we spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year building weapons systems we will never use against an enemy that no longer exists. We actually spend more on “defense” than just about every other major nation in the world combined.
- When you apparently weren’t looking, President Obama and Congressional Democrats invested more money on alternative energy than any government in 30 years, as part of the stimulus package. It’s not enough, but it represents a commitment.
It’s our fault, people. We can blame this on the government and the oil companies all we want, but we made our own bed; it’s time we took responsibility for ourselves. We need to think differently about energy. And no, I’m not talking about changing your light bulbs and recycling cans. That’s good, but not good enough. It’s time for all of us to start thinking about what we use, and compare that to what we NEED, and cutting out the difference.
If you are in a profession where you have to haul stuff to make a living, you need a truck or a van. If you have two small children and haul nothing but groceries once a week, you don’t. If you do projects around the house that requires you to haul something 2-3 times a year, rentals were custom-made for you. If you love muscle cars, and you love the roar of that engine, then buy one. But use it on weekends, and a smaller, fuel-efficient car for more frequent trips, like those to work. If you can't afford both, then perhaps you can't afford to own a muscle car. This is what I mean by taking responsibility. No one NEEDS a performance vehicle outside of a race track. That's reality. You can claim the "freedom" to own one, of course, but with freedom comes responsibility.
Contact your Congressperson and Senators and demand that they put more of YOUR money into mass transit expansion. DEMAND they and build in regulations that encourage people to buy smaller, more fuel efficient cars, and incentivize the building and purchase of hybrid and all-electric vehicles. There is no excuse why all cars sold should not be hybrid or all-electric within the next 5-10 years, and there is no reason in the world why all cars on the road can’t all be all hybrid or electric within 20 years. And to be honest, I hope we have that long. And those of you with muscle cars, you should be able to keep the classics. Just expect to pay the actual cost of the gasoline used to fill it.
At the same time, we have to plow tons of money into the power grid and start building out our electrical infrastructure with wind and solar power. Two years ago, when gas was nearly $4 a gallon everywhere, I drove across the country, visiting people I hadn’t seen for years. On the way, I noticed millions of acres of vacant land just waiting for windmills and solar panels to fill them. Germany, France and China, among others, are way ahead of us in developing solar and wind power, even though our first experiments with them pre-date theirs by more than 20 years.
It’s time we just did it. I'm sick to death of the neocon meme, in which everything costs and nothing pays for itself. We used to be the most "can do" country in the world, but we've become the greatest "can't do" country anywhere. Yeah, it'll be hard. Gee, whiz; we might have to spend an extra $50-100 a month for a few years to finance a car that will probably last longer and cost less to maintain than the dirty shit we're driving around now. Bummer. We might have to learn to cram three small kids into the back seat once in a while, and they might just have to ride back from the grocery store with a few bags strewn around their feet. And you might have to get used to a car that's so quiet, it sounds like it's not even running. But we can do this.
We have to build the plants, hire people to build the solar panels and the wind turbines, and then hire more people to build out the grid. If private companies don’t want the windfall, then the people (us) will own them and we’ll reap all the reward from it. But it has to be done. I don’t care how much you love capitalism, there are some things that simply transcend it. We need energy, we have come to depend on transportation, and we have no choice but to replace the internal combustion engine, because we can no longer afford to trash the planet by using oil.
And don't let anyone fool you; we have the money to do all of this. We spend way too much on “defense,” building machines and weapons that we’ll never use. It’s time we started thinking more practically. I know, people who work in the defense industry are worried about their jobs. But if their job making weapons could be replaced with a job making batteries, solar panels or wind turbines, what’s wrong with that? When the Japanese attacked us and we entered World War II, we were able to convert almost the entire manufacturing industry within weeks. Ford still brags about an automobile plant that was converted to a helicopter manufacturing plant in less than six weeks. If we could do that then, why is it so incredibly impossible to convert the hundreds of empty factories and train people to make the things this country needs to move forward? Why can’t we convert some of those defense contracts into contracts to build an energy infrastructure that will eliminate our use of oil almost completely? The answer, of course, is that we can. And we can no longer afford not to. But WE have to make them do it.
And if cutting “defense” doesn’t provide us with enough money, slap a dollar a gallon tax on gasoline and throw that money into a fund that subsidizes manufacturing and purchases of hybrid and all-electric vehicles, as well as comprehensive alternative fuel public transportation systems nationwide. Sure, people will grumble at first, but perhaps that will be the motivation they need to think differently.
One more thing. This oil spill will end. The oil will be cleaned up. It's a disaster, but not a catastrophe. We liberals have a tendency to get emotional about things like this, which is fine. But emotion doesn't get people to listen to us. Talking about cataclysms doesn't get people behind you to solve problems. Demanding that the President go on the air and get all pissy may make for a good sound bite, but it doesn't solve the problem. I mean, for God's sake, last week I heard someone declare this a possible "extinction event," meaning human extinction. Get a grip and talk about problems rationally, and watch how people come around.
This spill is BP’s fault. The reason BP was allowed to drill in deep water without safeguards is/was Bush, Cheney and the neocon government’s fault.
But don't lose sight of the real problem here. The reason we’re in this position in the first place is our fault. It’s time to stop being suckers, and start changing the way we think about energy.
