We’re Not Addicts! - The case for energy abundance and diversity.

National Review Online ^ | June 19, 2008 | Clifford D. May

[neverdem]

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June 19, 2008, 0:00 a.m.

We’re Not Addicts!
The case for energy abundance and diversity.

By Clifford D. May

People say we’re addicted to oil, but that’s imprecise and unfair. Our automobiles are addicted to oil. And America has been designed around the automobile.

We — America’s taxpayers — have built an elaborate interstate highway system. We have constructed sprawling cities (Los Angeles, for example) with neighborhoods connected only by roads. A big slice of our population is housed in suburbs conveniently accessible only by car. We have built thousands of shopping centers with acres of parking.

Is it possible to redesign and reconstruct America, to move people into high-density urban areas, to build rail and trolley lines or whatever it would take to shift from the kind of society we now have to some different model? Sure, but that would require at least a generation of uncomfortable transformation leading to changes that would be profound.

We Americans value the idea and ideal of freedom and, for us, that implies mobility. It makes sense when you think about it: Most Americans are descended from extraordinary individuals who made the risky decision to abandon their ancestral homes and become strangers in a strange land. They did that in pursuit of freedom, opportunity, and prosperity.

It should hardly be surprising that the descendents of these bold and independent travelers are drawn to the autonomy of the personal vehicle and the adventure of the open road. Tell any red-blooded American that Buzz Murdock and Tod Stiles, tooling down Route 66 in their Corvette, were “addicted” to oil or left too large a “carbon footprint” and you’re looking for a fat lip.

But with gasoline suddenly priced at over $4 a gallon, the hottest controversy in America is over whom to blame and what should be done. It’s a confused and confusing debate but it can be boiled down to this: On one side are those who believe the answer is for us to slash our demand for energy. On the other side are those who believe the answer is to greatly increase our supply.

It’s the demand-siders who are accusing us of being “addicts,” telling us not just to conserve energy and use it more efficiently — such efforts are commendable — but to resign ourselves to diminished mobility, to decreased consumption, to reforming what they see as our profligate “lifestyle.”

The supply-siders vehemently disagree. They say we should be aggressively figuring out how to squeeze more energy from a wider variety of sources — using advanced technology to protect the environment.

Put me in the supply-side camp. It seems obvious to me that energy is indistinguishable from wealth, and that the democratization of wealth — more of it for more people — is good, not bad. Indeed, democratizing wealth — private homes, refrigerators, televisions, cell phones, and cars — has been among America’s greatest achievements.

Almost anything you might do to improve your life requires energy. It takes an energy source to read a book after the sun goes down, to keep cool on a hot day, to cook a meal, to transport the kids to soccer or music lessons, to surf the web, to visit far-flung friends and relatives, or go on vacation with the family.



To those politicians and “activists” who are demanding we do less, have less, and learn to like it, we should say: Stuff it. Americans have no reason to feel guilty about living like Americans.

On the contrary, it is the anti-energy politicians and activists who should feel guilty. Their policies will cause pain to the middle classes — and will crush the poor. Consider the African farmer who wants to fuel his tractor or transport some surplus crops to market so he can earn a little cash with which to buy what in the Third World passes for luxuries: a metal roof for his hut, a transistor radio, a wrist watch, or a bicycle. You really think he should be told that he’s better off not getting “addicted” to energy and to please keep his carbon footprint small?

Logic and morality — even more than self-interest — should prompt us to pursue energy abundance and diversity, to use fast-advancing technology to derive power not just from petroleum products but also from the wind and sun, clean coal, and nuclear reactors. As soon as possible, our cars, trucks, and buses should break their addiction to gasoline; they should be able to run as well on ethanol, methanol, natural gas, electricity, and who knows what other fuels decades down the road.

If we do that, families, farmers, engineers, and miners win. Terrorist-sponsoring regimes that currently have us over a barrel — literally — lose. Shouldn’t that be the goal?

— Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism.

© 2008 Scripps Howard News Service



— Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is the president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies , a policy institute focusing on terrorism.

[Tzimisce]

Addicted?

Question: How do we grow food without gas powered tractors?

[Liberty Valance]

[Coffee200am]

[marron]

The “addicted to oil” line is just a line designed to demonize ordinary people so you can get control of their energy resources. The government already controls 95%, but they want 100%.

Turning the rest of it over to government control won’t lower the price a nickel. Not a nickel. Remember, in Europe they pay twice what we pay. Thats the model the “addicted to oil” folks are trying to guide us toward.

[chaos_5]

Every time I hear the phrase “addicted to oil” I want to punch someone. I don't know which left wing enviro freak coined the phase, but I hate them any way.

[gidget7]

I absolutely REFUSE to be forced to move to a city, ANY city! And in America, that should never ever happen!

[21twelve]

I’m not addicted either!!! I can log off from FreeRepublic anytime. If I have to. I guess.

[lightman]

Zoning codes were one of the worst legal innovations of the past century. They have created this patchwork quilt of housing over here, stores over there, factories who knows where stitched together by a transport system friendly only to single occupant vehicles.

[TigersEye]

Addiction is a ridiculous analogy for the basic fuel of society and commerce. It’s like saying we’re addicted to air because we refuse to stop breathing. Which a lot of liberals would love to mandate.

[Salvation]

 

 

Contact your Congress critters to let them know that you are tired of high gas prices.

U. S. Senate

U. S. House of Representatives

[Dr. Frank fan]

Sneering that we are "addicted to oil" is like sneering that we are "addicted to food". It is essentially a statement that the rest of us should f**k off and die.

"Oil" is nothing but the most economical form of stored energy at present. (There is nothing special about oil per se - 100+ years ago it was kerosene? long ago it was wood for fire - and perhaps sometime later some other energy form will supplant oil - but for now, it is oil). We use stored energy because (and conversely, because we know how to harness stored energy) we have created, and built up a society on, technology and infrastructure which can harness energy to do things. Among the things these technologies do are: feed us, clothe us, shelter us, keep us warm.

You know - keep us alive and thriving and stuff.

In other words, having an energy source is what keeps us alive. Sneering that we are "addicted" to that energy source is implicitly a declaration that our lives are not worth living - not really, or not on terms that leftists don't like.

I think that's at the root of why "addicted to oil" grates on me and others so much. People who say this are telling others to shrivel up and die already. They are writing off the lives of millions of other people as...not all that important to fuel at current rates. There is no reason to pay such an offensive viewpoint the slightest heed.

[ModelBreaker]

Question: How do we grow food without gas powered tractors?

Government funded studies on alternative energy. Duh.

[onedoug]

We're all addicted to fuel giving us motion.

So what?

[wolf78]

To those politicians and “activists” who are demanding we do less, have less, and learn to like it, we should say: Stuff it. Americans have no reason to feel guilty about living like Americans.

True energy efficiency is not about doing less. It's about making the right choices as a customer. Many people get angry at the fuel pump, but overlook their heating (and cooling) bills. However, you can reduce that greatly using proper insulation, with modern superinsulation you get a more or less passive house. If you switch to a geothermal heat pump you also reduce annual cost by a large percentage and oil consumption at home by a whopping 100%.

All without changing your standard of living. Superinsulation + geothermal heat pump is alternative energy that works.

[neverdem]

Thanks for the links.

[neverdem]

Thanks for the links.

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

Every time I hear the phrase “addicted to oil” I want to punch someone. I don't know which left wing enviro freak coined the phase, but I hate them any way.

I don't know either, but I can remind one and all which first class RINO President used this same Environut mantra in his 2006 State of the Union Address:

Yes, that right our very own GBW,who until yesterday has done little but give lip service to how to really alleviate our energy supply shortages--and even then, this very nice man (but first class wuss who refuses to defend himself from attacks or to show some leadership) basically has gone hat in hand to Congress to beg them (like he did his hand-holding, corrupt, most dangerous terrorist supporting buddies, the Sauds) to Puleeeeze lift the ban.

Shessh. Makes me want to puke.

In his State of the Union address to the US Congress on Tuesday night, President Bush said that "America is addicted to oil" and he set a target of reducing US oil imports from the Middle East 75% by 2025 through use of alternative fuels. "The best way to break this addiction is through technology," he said."

http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10004714.shtml

[neverdem]

Civilization without energy is dead or dying. The watermelons are Luddites. They are not serious, or they wouldn't obstruct everything.

Geothermal meetings set in energy-hungry West

Inventors: Solar Dish Could Revolutionize Energy Production

Putting Up The 'For Shale' Sign

Drive a stake in the Donkey's heart with the issue of energy. Exporting energy and the technology to generate it will hamstring our adversaries.

[Enchante]

Unfortunately, Pres. Bush adopted the “addicted to oil” phrase for that SofU address awhile back..... he made me physically ill when he did that. Instead of challenging the dishonest Demagogues at every turn we have too many Republicans who adopt the terms and frames of reference of the fanatical left.