This is from Skagit Beat the Heat:
***A majority of Americans believe federal laws that prohibit increased drilling for oil offshore or in wilderness areas are a major cause of the recent increase in gas prices. The word is not getting out that our Dept of Energy's Energy Information Agency (EIA), our country's most authoritative source for energy info, says such drilling would, at peak production in 20 years, provide only about .2% of world production, too insignificant to have any real impact on oil prices. Major media outlets have regularly repeated the false claim that expanded drilling in environmentally sensitive zones would significantly lower gas prices and have filed to report the official data from the EIA which showed these claims were false. This reporting has had a huge impact on public opinion and has contributed to widespread misunderstanding. John McCain has said "We're not going to pay $4 a gallon for gas, because we're going to drill offshore, and we're going to drill now." Don't let him get away with this!
If we extracted all of the oil out of the Arctic National WIldlife Refuge, that's an estimated 10 billion barrels – a year-and-a-half supply. Drill offshore of every coastline and we'd have enough for only another 2 years. Even if additional offshore drilling were authorized by Congress it could not begin for at least 5 years (in part because all drilling ships are booked solid for that long).
Other things to consider: 1) once the oil giants start pumping, there is nothing to stop them from selling a good part of our oil to new high bidders China and India; 2) a 1997 agreement between the US and China allows Chinese companies to bid on mineral leases on the US continental shelf – they could conceivably sink wells off our coasts, ship the crude back to their refineries, then sell the gas back to us – at a price; 3) oil companies already hold leases on almost 2/3 of all federal land believed to have recoverable oil. Re/ offshore oil, 80% of what's recoverable is also leased to the oil giants but they are drilling in only a fourth of those areas. In July, House Democrats pushed a "use it or lose it" bill but Bush and the Republicans killed it.
Folks, we really need to forget about oil. As Kurt Vonnegut noted, "We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we're hooked on." Just witness the devastation caused by squeezing oil out of the Canadian tar sands…
As Skagit Beat the Heat's mission statement says, we need to "make a positive transition to a post-fossil fuel age through reducing energy demand, maximizing energy efficiency, supporting renewable energy, and fostering the local production of food, energy and goods." Get out there and challenge the nay-sayers with the facts and the vision of new energy age. Support policies and politicians that embrace conservation, solar and wind power, electric vehicles and other green technologies available and working as grassroots models that need to be lifted – soon – to the national level. That's our future, if we hope to have a future!
A poem by Drew Dellinger:
"it's 3:23 in the morning
and I'm awake
because my great-great grandchildren
won't let me sleep.
my great-great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet
was plundered?
what did you do when the earth
was unraveling?
surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?
as the mammals, reptiles, birds
were all dying?
did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?
what did you do
once you knew?