A Big Glimpse of the Obvious
In his State of the Union address last night, President Bush said that "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world."
I don't suppose that this comes as a surprise to anyone. If it does, where the heck have you been for the last 50 years?
The President deserves to get some credit for stating something no one else before him has had the guts to say. I noticed with some amusement that Senator John Kerry afterwards tried to pin the blame on America's dependency on foreign oil on the Bush administration. Funny, I don't recall that during Bill Clinton's eight years in office that he did all that bloody much to change things.
Interestingly enough, back in 1984 the Carl Pope of the Sierra Club applauded John Kerry's Goal To Decrease Oil Dependence. From everything that I can see, the Sierra Club is doing everything it can to increase our dependence on foreign oil by trying to stifle every attempt that's made to increase our output of domestic oil, or by creating new sources of power.
Renewable sources are great, but we can't generate enough hydroelectric, geothermal, solar, or wind power to run this country. We need to harness the power of the atom. Most of France's power grid is supplied by clean burning reactors, and I'm sure that we can build better ones than they can.
If anything, the President's call for a 75% reduction in foreign oil dependence is not strong enough. We need 80% reduction and we need it in 10 years, not two decades. If we didn't need foreign oil, we wouldn't need to be in Irag and Afghanistan as a military presence. We could be there helping them build schools, hospitals, and an infrastructure that would bless the lives of their people. Instead, we've helped support an economy that has fostered an environment where men like Saddam Hussein can sieze control.
If we really want to help the rest of the world, let's stop buying their oil.
I don't suppose that this comes as a surprise to anyone. If it does, where the heck have you been for the last 50 years?
The President deserves to get some credit for stating something no one else before him has had the guts to say. I noticed with some amusement that Senator John Kerry afterwards tried to pin the blame on America's dependency on foreign oil on the Bush administration. Funny, I don't recall that during Bill Clinton's eight years in office that he did all that bloody much to change things.
Interestingly enough, back in 1984 the Carl Pope of the Sierra Club applauded John Kerry's Goal To Decrease Oil Dependence. From everything that I can see, the Sierra Club is doing everything it can to increase our dependence on foreign oil by trying to stifle every attempt that's made to increase our output of domestic oil, or by creating new sources of power.
Renewable sources are great, but we can't generate enough hydroelectric, geothermal, solar, or wind power to run this country. We need to harness the power of the atom. Most of France's power grid is supplied by clean burning reactors, and I'm sure that we can build better ones than they can.
If anything, the President's call for a 75% reduction in foreign oil dependence is not strong enough. We need 80% reduction and we need it in 10 years, not two decades. If we didn't need foreign oil, we wouldn't need to be in Irag and Afghanistan as a military presence. We could be there helping them build schools, hospitals, and an infrastructure that would bless the lives of their people. Instead, we've helped support an economy that has fostered an environment where men like Saddam Hussein can sieze control.
If we really want to help the rest of the world, let's stop buying their oil.
Comments
Energy is a very touchy subject here in the US of A, and I'm sure President Bush will be catching flak just for 75% in 20 years--and he daren't mention the atom; people are still freaked about the supposedly rampant dangers involved.
Unfortunately, we are getting to the point where we can not be picky. We can't even depend on oil as heavily as we have in the past, let alone foreign oil, because our energy needs are expanding so much. We can't just endlessly improve the efficiency of our engines, either; the very nature of an automobile engine, according to my physical science textbook, puts a physical limit of about 25-30% energy efficiency, and the rest goes off as exhaust and heat. Come on, we can do better than that.