Dr. DigiPol

Question: Why should we be concerned about our looming oil crisis?

ANWR: According to the President, we should be concerned because our dependence on foreign oil is a threat to our national security and the high prices of oil are a threat to our economy. Absent from his answer is the threat burning fossil fuels pose to our global climate.

Question: What should we do to address the looming oil crisis?

ANWR: Build more refineries, relax pollution-control regulations throughout the nation, and drill for more domestic oil in the eastern part of the Gulf of Mexico and the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve. In other words, find new sources for oil to burn and allow us to burn it dirty, adding to the looming crisis of global warming. Oh yeah, and give us each an extra $100 so we can afford to burn 3 more tanks of gas.

Question: What are we doing to promote non-polluting energy alternatives?

ANWR: In his State of the Union Address, the President promised a 22% increase in “clean-energy” research. Sounds great, but when he introduced his budget in February, much of this funding was directed towards “clean” coal, while cutting funding for geothermal energy research and energy efficiency programs.

So how much are we going to spend in the FY2007 budget on clean energy R&D? $600 million for hydrogen Fuel Cells and $150 for R&D on ethanol fuels. All told, since Bush took office in 2001, the feds have spent almost $10 billion “to develop cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable energy sources” (remember, this includes “clean” coal and nuclear energy). That comes out to less than $2 billion per year. Compare that to the $15 billion the $100 per person gas relief program would cost this year. And, oh yeah, that $15 billion will go straight into the pockets of the oil companies that are netting about $16 billion per quarter. And one more thing, the first of these budgets since Bush took office was the last of the Clinton budgets.

So what is the answer? ANWR? Hardly. The answer is to get serious about investing in clean energy sources that not only reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce our energy cost, but also seriously reduce the amount of greenhouse pollution that is threatening to destroy our planet’s ability to support our lives.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 4th, 2006 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Rants, Raves, Reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.