It’s pitiful but unsurprising that the GOP has become the party of "drill, baby, drill."
As someone wise (I forget who) said somewhere on the Internet, it’s almost as troubling as that time long ago in the 60’s, when the Left became the party of "burn, baby, burn."
(I’d like to think both the Right and the Left are better than that, but I wasn’t cognizant back then, and I see little evidence that the GOP is rising above it now. To the contrary, in fact.
Countless reporters and bloggers, including yours truly, have shown that lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling will have, at best, a trivial impact on gas prices over the next two decades…if that.
According to the EIA, it’s in the range of four cents per gallon in 2025. A geophysicist at Harvard makes the point again in a strong column (here) for The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. The writer, Kurt House, admires John McCain, and supports more drilling, but he knows it’s not the answer:
What we’re watching is the thread of a decent argument–that when oil
prices are very high, the United States should expand oil exploration
and extraction–get oversold by liars and fools who cannot perform
basic arithmetic.
It’s worth recalling Al Gore’s speech at the convention, which called out the GOP and the oil industry, but which seems mostly to have been forgotten, in just a week and a half.
So why is this election so close?
Well, I know something about close elections, so let me offer you my opinion.
I believe this election is close today mainly because the forces of
the status quo are desperately afraid of the change Barack Obama
represents.There is no better example than the climate crisis. As I have said
for many years throughout this land, we’re borrowing money from China
to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the
future of human civilization. Every bit of that has to change.Oil company profits have soared to record levels, gasoline prices
have gone through the roof and we are more dependent than ever on dirty
and dangerous fossil fuels. Many scientists predict that the entire
North Polar ice cap may be completely gone during summer months in the
first term of the next President. Sea levels are rising, fires are
raging, storms are stronger. Military experts warn us our national
security is threatened by massive waves of climate refugees
destabilizing countries around the world, and scientists tell us the
very web of life is endangered by unprecedented extinctions.We are facing a planetary emergency which, if not solved, would
exceed anything we’ve ever experienced in the history of humankind.In spite of John McCain’s past record of open mindedness on the
climate crisis, he has apparently now allowed his party to browbeat him
into abandoning his support of mandatory caps on global warming
pollution.And it just so happens that the climate crisis is intertwined with
the other two great challenges facing our nation: reviving our economy
and strengthening our national security. The solutions to all three
require us to end our dependence on carbon-based fuels.Instead of letting lobbyists and polluters control our destiny, we
need to invest in American innovation. Almost a hundred years ago,
Thomas Edison said, “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What
a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run
out before we tackle that.”We already have everything we need to use the sun, the wind,
geothermal power, conservation and efficiency to solve the climate
crisis – everything, that is, except a president who inspires us to
believe, “Yes we can.”So how did this no-brainer become a brain-twister?
Because the carbon fuels industry – big oil and coal – have a
50-year lease on the Republican Party and they are drilling it for
everything it’s worth. And this same industry has spent a half a
billion dollars this year alone trying to convince the public they are
actually solving the problem when they are in fact making it worse
every single day.
Would like to see some documentation for the $500 million figure…but if it’s true, that far outstrips both Obama and McCai’s political advertising budget, doesn’t it?
Kit Stolz 