What will it take to make us get serious as a nation about switching from oil to clean, renewable energy sources? How much of our environment so we have to completely ruin, and how many people have to die before we figure out that what we’re doing is simply killing us?
Even if the terrible ecological disaster caused by BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico wasn’t the unmitigated catastrophe it will probably turn out to be be over time, the reality is, the same scenario is pretty much guaranteed to happen again and again. Why do we continue with the same behaviors that keep leading us to disaster after disaster? Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?
Why do Americans think things will just get better over time, when they’re only destined to get worse? Why do we always wait for "someone else" to take the reins and fix problems? As you are seeing over the last few weeks, oil companies will use any excuse to jack up prices, and they will do it over and over again, because they can. if they can jack prices up 50 cents a gallon when there is no shortage (and there isn't one, folks -- there is no serious danger to oil supplies in any of the countries currently experiencing change in the Middle East.), imagine what they will be able to do when there is a shortage.
Keep in mind, two Asian countries with populations of a billion or more have economies that are attempting to mirror the US economy back in the 50s. As their wealth grows, they’ll want the freedom that comes with owning a car. They’ll also have to use trucks to move the goods they'll all want to buy. And if oil-fueled internal combustion engines are the only methods available to them, what impact do you imagine that will have on the supply of oil? With that much pressure on the oil supply, how much do you think you'll have to pay for a gallon of gasoline? Not only that, but we really don't know how much oil is available. A recent study suggested that Saudi oil supplies might be 40% less than had been projected at one time; why isn't that sending a chill through the market these days?
Right now, there's no shortage, and look what's happening to prices. Can you imagine what will happen when the supply truly runs short? We all know the supply will run out at some point. What then? Do we wait until THEN to say “oops” and suddenly build 10 million wind turbines and switch to electric cars?
After the oil embargo in 1973, when OPEC first showed us that oil was no longer a free market and that it was possible for other countries to grab us by our economic testicles and squeeze, we actually demonstrated a rational response for a few years. For the rest of that decade, we switched to smaller cars, we ditched the pickup trucks, we learned to turn lights off when we left the room, we went to year-round daylight saving time for a while, and when Jimmy Carter became president, we adopted energy policies that put us on track to drop petroleum usage by 5% a year as far as the eye could see. We should have cut our usage in half by the turn of the century, and been almost totally energy independent by now. We should have had thousands of solar and wind power plants in place, and both technologies should be about 30 years farther ahead than they are now.
But then came Iran. You know, an oil power whose regime we were propping up just to keep the oil flowing. There was a whole thing with deposed leaders, Ayatollahs, death to America and hostages, and Jimmy Carter was dumped in favor of neocon idol Ronald Reagan.
Of course, as is the case with pretty much every other policy they touched, the neocons came in and messed up everything. They essentially handed our energy policy over to the oil companies, which meant that every progressive energy policy in place at the time was scrapped, in favor of policies designed to provide short-term oil profits and put is in long-term energy peril.
They used artificially cheap gasoline to convince us all that we were entitled to it because we were Americans, dammit, and because we were "free," we should use as much as we wanted because the flow was never ending and we were special. Never mind that, even when we were playing a dollar a gallon, it was actually costing us close $2 when you added in the tax incentives and subsidies, not to mention the money we were spending to prop up corrupt regimes. They not only scrapped all energy efficiency proposals in place at the time, they provided incentives to people to buy a much larger vehicle than they needed. They essentially used fear to turn a nation of people who once drove tin cans without seat belts without thinking twice about it, into a nation convinced that the only way their kids could possibly be safe would be if mommy drove a tank-like vehicle that needed a fill-up every other day. Why can we never just find a middle ground?
Thankfully, there were some dedicated people working in the background, trying to create systems that would free us from oil at some point, and a lot of them are ready enough to at least test, and try to implement. We just need the political will. And no, folks, I’m not talking about the politicians. Political will doesn’t come from the people in Washington. It comes from us. It comes from we, the people of the United States.
We need to grow up. We need to start paying attention to what we’re doing and how it affects everyone else. We need the assistance of government, but that can’t happen until they know it’s what we want.
How many people and wildlife have to suffer and die before we realize that cheap energy is not an entitlement, and that we’re not entitled to drive our cars using two-dollar-a-gallon gas as much as we want. We’re not entitled to keep our thermostats at 72 in winter and 69 in summer, and then whine to everyone who'll listen about how high our bill is.
There is no down side to weaning ourselves away from oil. Have you looked around a typical city lately? And it doesn’t have to be the size of New York, either; every city is black with soot. Where do you think that black soot comes from? It comes from burning fossil fuels for energy; that's the shit that comes from our tailpipes. Yet, every day, in cities all over the country, individuals sit alone in their individual cars in massive traffic jams, belching more of this soot. Trucks drive from city to city, and sometimes from coast to coast, moving goods for our consumption, and belch even more. Every second of every day, oil and coal powered plants belch out even more. This, despite the fact that technology already exists to start transitioning away from fossil fuels, and into much cleaner and far safer modes of energy generation.
When are we going to get serious about changing? Over the last several years, I have literally driven from coast to coast and back again, and one of the things that strikes me is the huge expanses of unused very windy, very sunny land all over this country. There are also thousands of miles of coastline, where solar, wind and tidal power can be harnessed and generated, without digging holes miles below the surface of the water. Yet, Europe and much of Asia are far ahead of us in alternative energy technology. We have the technology NOW to transform our energy system away from oil and coal, and we have the technology available to us to transform our vehicles and cut our gasoline use in half.
What is wrong with us? Why are we so afraid of trying something new? When did we become a “can’t do” nation? We put men on the moon, back when it was believed such a thing couldn’t be done. We basically created the Internet from scratch, and we’ve revolutionized several industries in the process. I'm writing a large portion of this post on an iPad, using a battery that can be charged by my laptop and used for almost the whole day. We can do amazing things with less power, and it is possible to provide the power we need cleanly and cheaply. Why can't we seem to begin the transformation from a dirty 19th century technology to cleaner, more efficient 21st century technologies?
The rest of the world is way ahead of us, folks. They’ve invested in new technologies and they have been transitioning for years. High speed rail is available nearly everywhere else in the industrialized world, yet here, we’re gingerly talking about where to put a 100 mile high speed rail corridor where it won’t bother anyone. Everywhere else in the world, they've built huge mass transit systems and encouraged everyone to ride them. Here, most of our mass transit systems consist of buses and maybe one or two light rail lines just to see if it works. There is no commitment to building an infrastructure that reflects the current realities, folks; dependence upon fossil fuels is dangerous, it’s unreliable, and it’s not really cheap. In fact, it’s about to become a lot more expensive.
It’s time we stopped being the “can’t do” United States, and become a “can do” nation again. Our survival depends upon it. We have to build a better infrastructure, and that doesn’t mean more and wider highways that can carry more single-occupant cars. We have to make a commitment to mass transit everywhere, not just in huge cities. We have to make a commitment to rail, which is the best, most efficient way to move goods and people from one end of the country to another. And please, neocons, stop whining about AMTRAK and how it loses money. In areas where they have actually built out a decent system, AMTRAK more than holds its own; it's only problem is a lack of capacity. The Northeast corridor can't handle the number of passengers who want to use it. I took the MARC commuter train back and forth to work for eight years, and it’s funny – when gas prices started creeping up, so did ridership; the trains were jam packed by the time I stopped taking it in 2008. Even after gas prices backed down a bit, ridership stayed up, because they found out how much easier and better it is.
One problem with the neocons’ way of thinking is that they’re incapable of seeing anything except in terms of immediate costs; they’re incapable of seeing the benefits of government investment. By investing our money in building a strong transportation and energy infrastructure, we would create a ton of jobs, and that would create a ton of wealth. That’s how we did it back in the post-war era. We gave people money for an education, and we got a ton of highly paid professionals out of it, all paying taxes. We built a ton of schools and built one of the best educated populations in the world. We lent people the money to buy a home, and ended up with a very prosperous society.
We have to stop being afraid of doing things differently, especially when what we're doing isn't working. Add to that the fact that we have a model for success in our own country, buy doing the same sorts of things we did after World War II, that led to us becoming the most prosperous nation in history.
If we’re afraid of coal miners losing their jobs, then build wind turbine factories in coal mining areas, encourage union membership for the workers, and let the people who live there choose where they want to work. and see what happens. If you’re worried that farmers will miss out on selling corn for ethanol or biodiesel (and please, don't get me started on the stupidity of using food products as fuel sources in the first place), then encourage them to build solar or wind farms on their land as well. Instead of giving billions of dollars in tax incentives to oil companies, use that money to develop and build technology that improves energy production and storage. Give tax and other incentives to builders who incorporate solar and wind technology into their designs. Upgrade the power grid, and encourage power producers to switch to solar and/or wind. Replace drilling rigs with wind farms on the oceans. Charge extra to buy gas guzzling cars, and give tax breaks for buying fuel efficient cars. Give buyers a rebate of $200 for every mile per gallon over 20 a car gets. Imagine buying a Prius and getting $4000 back; you don’t think people would go for that? GIVE poor people compact fluorescent bulbs, and encourage manufacturers to stop manufacturing incandescent bulbs altogether.Mandate energy efficiency in everything, and design as much as possible so that we can get twice as much energy from every watt.
And please stop whining about how much everything costs in dollars per gallon, or in your utility bill every month. When will people in this country finally figure out that things cost a hell of a lot more than we actually pay in dollars and cents? Whether it's dead miners or a spoiled environment, the cost to us can never be covered by the amount we pay at the pump.
Our government exists to serve US, not the other way around. They are there to serve our needs, and to be used as a tool to make our society better. And right now, that means building that nice clean and modern society we all dreamed of at one time, where we just use the energy that nature already provides naturally. We really can do this, and if the latest disasters in the Gulf of Mexico and in West Virginia don’t show us that we need a different path, then maybe third-world status is what we deserve. And we’re closer to becoming that than most could possibly imagine.
We have to dare to be great.
