How We Failed Our Children

How We Failed Our Children

Thirty years ago we didn’t have personal computers or fax machines.  What we did have was our energy crises.  Twenty years ago we didn’t have cell phones, the Internet, DVD’s or email.  What we did have was an energy crisis.  Ten years ago we didn’t have high definition television, plasma screens or Google.  What we did have was an energy crisis.  Today we have a full-blown energy catastrophe.  Why?  Because we choose to.

Gas near our home costs $3.35 a gallon.  A fill-up for my daughter’s Honda is $40 bucks.  She spends $60 a week on gas to get to school and get to work.  At her $10/hour wage, it takes her a full day of work to net after taxes a week’s worth of gas!  But the price of gas is not my daughter’s biggest problem.  It’s where the damn stuff comes from.  The financial price of gas is only a fraction of the true cost to our future. 

The engine of modern prosperity runs on oil.  That may have worked in the last century, but it’s a complete and total disaster in this one.  And unless we get to a radical new solution right away, our children will be slaves.  Oil plagues us in every way. It pollutes our air, over heats our atmosphere, funds terrorists, and gives sinister governments enormous power and sophisticated weapons. The people most hurt by this are students and lower paid workers who need a car to get to school or work.  It also hurts small business owners who have little power to raise prices, and no power to reduce fuel costs.

When oil is expensive it determines how warm we can keep our homes or how far we can drive.  It impacts the cost of everything that travels by truck.  Little things like food, clothing, and building supplies.  Other than that, it has no influence over us.

Think about it.  For over 30 years our government and business leaders have led us down a dark slippery path where our way of life and our standard of living would become increasingly dependent on religious fanatics or ruthless despots.  So what have we done?

We’ve darkened our children’s future. We’ve enriched scary countries like Saudi Arabia who support terrorism, Iran who wants to nuke Israel, and Venezuela who is becoming the new Cuba.  Meanwhile, Europe has turned reborn ruthless nuclear Russia into an energy-fueled totalitarian powerhouse.  And it’s only going to get worse.  Why?  World demand is exploding and too few people control the supply of “devil juice.”

There are solutions.  When we’re told there aren’t and that all we can do is conserve, buy a few hybrids, or stuff corn in our fuel tanks, it’s a lie.  We can do much more.  When leaders tell us they want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by 20% in 10 years, they are just mouthing the words of the oil-lobby.  Conservation and hybrids help to be sure.  Growing corn for inefficient fuel is like mistaking a Twinkie for a protein bar.  It’s empty calories.  But practical ideas are abundant.

Billions of venture funds are flowing into solutions.  In the near future, we can increase average gas mileage by 50% by buying hybrids, using bio-diesel, and reducing the excessive weight of our biggest vehicles.  We can offer tax credits to buyers to get these cars on the road.  We can radically invest in new technology to create clean renewable fuels.

Sooner than we think we can free ourselves from fossil fuel.  The answers are maybe in new ways to harness hydrogen, waste product conversion, or electricity from the sun, wind, and water (for a great resource on renewable energy click here).  It will undoubtedly come from the radical experience of our imaginations like using chemical proteins we can grow (for more info. visit the J. Craig Ventner Institute).  But none of this will happen without leadership and a united public will.  We have a 13 trillion dollar economy.  Through incentives, tax credits, and direct investment, why can’t we spend one quarter of one percent ($320 billion) a year to find clean, renewable solutions that will create new jobs, hope for a more peaceful world and a future for our children?  If what we were spending on the “war” was spent on freeing ourselves from oil slavery, wouldn’t that be money better spent?

If you think all of this is impractical idealism.  It is only because we think so.  The idea of America was one of the most impractical, idealist concepts in history.  What was different was that we had leaders who were committed to our independence.  Isn’t it time to demand from anyone running for a major public office to have a real plan for energy independence.  Shouldn’t it be standard to be taken seriously?

There are always people who will tell us we can’t achieve our dreams because they profit from the status quo.  When we believe their version of the future we feel powerless and act like we are.  There is not shortage of solutions to solving our energy crisis, only a famine of will.

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