Dick Kazan Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:36 am
The Iraq war has taken hundreds of thousands of lives and more die every day. Why?
As bad as this war already is, it could easily spread elsewhere in the Middle East and like 9/11, its brutal repercussions could directly hit the U.S. again. Why?
Aside from the ego and arrogance of our leadership, the biggest reason is our dependence on oil. It is so vital to our Economy, that without a large, constant and dependable flow of oil, our Economy would collapse.
It is a massive National Security issue, yet ironically one that isn't discussed.
Without oil, not only would our cars not run, neither would the trucks that deliver our groceries, and our medical and school supplies and most other goods. Nor would airplanes fly or ships move.
And without oil, we would lose many goods such as plastics, some textiles, asphalt, etc. because they are made from petroleum products. And even the electricity that powers our homes, offices and factories comes from oil. In other words, the quality of life as we know it would cease.
And without gasoline taxes, federal government services including Social Security, Medicare and education would be severely impacted. And there would be a significant impact at the state and local levels too because every state heavily taxes gasoline and depends upon that revenue.
Meanwhile, the industrialized world outside the U.S. is growing rapidly. And as nations elsewhere grow, so does their need for oil and they compete with the U.S. for dependable supplies of it. China is an excellent example.
So as a result we see oil prices rise sharply and we learn that ExxonMobil earned a staggering 39.5 billion dollars last year, perhaps the biggest profit any company has ever made.
We are a nation of oil junkies dependent upon our next fix. And like those addicted to drugs, most of us don't like to discuss our oil addiction and yet that addiction is the elephant in the room that is our lives.
For some Americans, the unspoken solution is to go to war to control the oil that others possess. For other Americans, it is drilling in pristine areas, the environmental damage being an acceptable price.
But there is a far better solution. Energy Independence. Just as President Kennedy stunned the world in 1961 when he announced we'd put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, and we did, today we too can do what for the moment seems impossible.
The U.S. is nation of entrepreneurs who would rise to the Energy Independence challenge if encouraged by a bold thinking President. And as President Kennedy did, that President would set a tight time frame to make the impossible happen.
New ideas for sustainable, eco friendly energy would be pursued. And the money to fund it would be raised from all over the industrialized world, for other nations too would have a great deal to gain by it.
And ironically, so would the oil companies, for they could not afford to sit on the sidelines as we develop entire new industries and end our dependence on fossil fuels. And if we welcome their involvement, they'll not fight it but find ways to profit by it and join with the rest of us in meeting this challenge.
The U.S. government could also contribute, as it did with NASA and the space program. It could offer tax incentives to the new, job producing industries that would form and it could encourage our nation to "reduce, reuse and recycle."
Speaking of "reduce, reuse and recycle," if we simply made more efficient use of the resources we already have, we could sharply reduce our oil dependence and reduce many of our environmental problems.
For example, we could use less gas by driving more fuel efficient vehicles, less electricity by not leaving unused lights on in our offices and our homes and we could turnoff our TV's, computers and other appliances when we're not using them.
We could also institute a nationwide well-organized recycling program and then on a grand scale buy products made from that "recycle" thus creating a giant market for what now often goes into land fills.
We could stop producing paper catalogs, which is one of the biggest wastes of paper, a denuder of our forests and a huge contributor to landfills. And the list of possibilities goes on.
We can achieve everything I've said today. We just need enlightened leadership to establish goals and appeal to the will of the American people. As America has successfully met huge challenges before, it could do so again and in the process restore itself as a compassionate, contributing, highly respected leader in the eyes of the world, instead of being seen as the oil thirsty war warrior it appears to have become.
Dick
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