Oil & America

Oil is the quintessential staple of the American diet. It fuels our cars and it heats our homes. So what if it all suddenly went away...or most of it at least?

We have our refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. They are certainly vulnerable, Hurricane Katrina taught us that last year. We primarily rely on oil from the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, the largest oil exporter in the world, and the United States largest partner in oil, is vulnerable to terrorism. If it weren't for the crude that sits beneath their deserts, they would be nothing but a Bedouin nation of poor, deprived people. We need their supply of oil to keep our country operating smoothly.

Although, I am not keen on the idea of destroying pristine national refuges for our own greed, we must come to terms, however, with our own vulnerability when it comes to this issue. We must be realistic.

We have been talking about alternative fuel cars for decades, but it is true we are probably no closer to making this a reality now than we were 15 years ago. There are certainly steps being taken by car manufacturers to address this growing dread among our country, but it is one that we will not easily embrace. The United States must face facts: either we switch our petroleum-based cars for those that run on renewable resources immediately, which can be grown in our own backyards, or we must prepare ourselves for extracting our own resources of crude in Alaska.

It seems easy to say we will depart from our petroleum-based transportation, but as long as automobile manufacturers are allowed to continue to roll out vehicles with combustible engines driven by gasoline and diesel, then we will never make it over this looming disaster when it occurs. The government must place a moratorium on the production of gasoline engines and require that all new vehicles be fitted with engines which run on renewable fuels, such as ethanol. As logic dictates, as older cars are scrapped then our dependence on foreign oil is diminished, until we can arrive at a place in the future where our dependence on oil is diminished completely or less than 10% of where we are today.

Can you imagine a country that is no longer dependent on oil? The big oil companies, and countries like Saudi Arabia, will lobby Washington against such a bold step, but it is one that we must wise-up to and understand is coming. Otherwise, we will be left with a nation of cars that no longer can be used, homes that no longer can be heated, because we chose to give into big business and turn a blind eye to the facts which are staring us so boldly in the eye.