ecoyear

I wanted to take the opportunity to summarize a few facts. With the price of a barrel of oil continuing its frightening rise, and gas at the pump making filling the tank a major budget item for many people (greater than some people's mortgage in some cases), the presidential candidates' views on the future of energy in the U.S. become highly relevant.

Most immediately, how can one oppose drilling in ANWR and offshore?

Well a recent post in The Oil Drum, here, dissects McCain's speech last week, and lays out succinctly why we need to move past oil dependency, foreign or domestic, and the sooner the better.

Basically, the U.S. accounts for 24% of the worldwide demand for oil. Meanwhile, U.S. oil reserves (what is supposedly in the ground, and presumably recoverable (though that's no certainty)) is 3% of world reserves. In other words, there is no way we could be independent of foreign oil, except by essentially eliminating our use of oil. Opening currently closed off areas for oil production would buy us possibly the equivalent amount of oil we normally use up in 3 years. It would not significantly affect the price of oil because (as I understand it) you can't get the oil out of the ground fast enough to make any kind of impression on world production.

In other words, there is no good reason for the present trend in oil prices to reverse itself, or even slow down. So then let's make some major well-thought out changes in a hurry! Oil is used in transportation, in food production, and in heating our homes; in plastics, in clothing manufacturing, in making medications, etc. etc... I think it might be time to think ahead about what it would be like to ration it.

So that's where I stand. I am terribly worried when people try to address a problem by doing more of what got them here in the first place. I would say no additional drilling. Let's put all resources post-haste into addressing our predicament in ways that actually change the variables of the debate. Got leadership?