Let me preface: I know very little in the way of facts, and this is going to be both disjointed and subjective.
We're primarily at the mercy of foreign oil here. Puppets on a string. I can't stand this. Doesn't that seem wrong to you that we're at the mercy of anybody? Isn't America the world's greatest superpower, the deciders, the keepers of the key?
I like the environment. I think we're incredibly blessed to live on a landmass with such splendor and variety, so much to see, so much natural wonder.
But there's something that I hold higher than the dirt and the grass, and that's what's been built upon it. America. I like America a lot. So much, in fact, that if it means we have to open up the Keystone pipeline, if we have to drill in Alaska, I'd say we do it. I understand how much irreversible strain that puts on the environment, and we'll mess it up just like we've messed up so much before, but let me explain.
I caught the tail end of the Wachowski Brothers' classic (can you believe it's thirteen years old?) The Matrix on rerun last night. There was something Agent Smith said that really got me thinking. I'm paraphrasing, but he went on a diatribe about how he'd decided humans were unlike any other mammal, in that mammals naturally form an equilibrium with their environment. If there is not enough food or water or room, some of the species die. They coexist with their habitat. Humans, however, differ. We do not stop replicating and expanding, or screwing and building skyscrapers, and when we've depleted an environment of its resources, we move to another and repeat. He went on to say that there is another organism on our planet that behaves similarly, and that's a virus, drawing a comparison between humanity and infectious microorganisms and so on and so forth. Anyway, loved watching that guy get punched when I was eleven and still do.
So, my point is this. Yes, we mess lots of things up. We've done all kinds of awful things to the environment. We're wasteful, we're careless, we're destructive, we behave with reckless disregard for future generations. But if ruining some wildlife preserves(that are more or less uninhabitable anyway, right?) means that America could break free from the Venezuelan and Saudi(an?) horses we've hitched our wagons to, wouldn't it maybe be worth it?
We could do exactly what we wanted. It's like graduating and getting a job- mama and daddy can't tell you what to do anymore. We could stop throwing good money after bad. We wouldn't feel spread so thin. We'd be a less scared. Aren't you a little less worried about what Chavez or Mahmoud are going to do when if don't need anything from them? Finally, it would put the impetus on our best minds to dig their spurs in and figure out how we're going to create a sustainable energy plan, and here's why: We would no longer perceive there to be an endless supply of oil we could just buy overseas. No, the scientists do their homework and figure out: here's how many barrels we have here in the states, and here's when it will run out. We have to be playing with solar, with wind, with hydroelectric, with biofuel, with hydrogen, with whatever else, by this date. Deadlines matter. Because they work.
Politically, I think there's a perception that the right doesn't care about energy policy. This, to me, makes no sense. If I'm running for any major office on the Republican ticket, you better believe I'm pushing alternative energy. "I support the sustainable energy movement. Which means I'm going to incentivize it. I'm going to roll out the red carpet to those looking to put powering Americans back in American hands. Tax credits for corporations looking to supply our people with clean power as well as tax credits for people using the green power we're making. Which means larger levels of investment, which in turn creates new jobs, which boosts the economy and decreases our import levels. We're producing more of what we need, ourselves, right here. I'm no economist, but we'd then in turn have greater control of the value of our dollar, right? Our national debt would decrease as well, right? And wouldn't our military be stronger because our servicemen would be spread a little less thin across the world?
We can do it. We can absolutely do this. It won't be great for the environment. I understand this. But I care far less about where America stands than I do about what America stands for. And the environment I'm far more worried about is a global environment where we no longer control our fate. There's a whole lot more pieces to this puzzle that I'm probably not aware of, but for a layman's look at it, what's wrong with this picture? Feel free to tell me I'm a moron, if anything, it's a learning opportunity.
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