ARE WE ADDICTED TO TURM-OIL?

“The lights are on, but you’re not home…..might as well face it you’re addicted to love" (Robert Palmer) This could be the song Americans use as a theme and just replace the word "Turm-Oil for love." Ask anyone and they’ll tell you they want to live in a safe environment where their children can have opportunities they didn’t have and they want to be able to prosper. They would add that paying down our debt and reducing spending stands in the way.

So how do we make this way of life happen. It doesn't take an Einstein to come up with ways to solve some of the issues that we currently face. The first thing would be able "to live in a safe environment." Which is why we have police, fire and ambulance, doctors, FBI, CIA, Secret Service, Border Patrol and on and on; since this is part of the everyday business of having a country and the first defense, we leave this alone.

Where else can we cut? One place could be the Military. U.S. military spending – Dept. of Defense plus nuclear weapons – is equal to the military spending of the next 15 countries combined. You do not need me to tell you that we have been in a constant war stance for a long time and it may be time to stand down. Oil arguably has been the main reason for a lot of these wars: “Shortly after the Marines rolled into Baghdad and tore down a statue of Saddam Hussein, I visited the Ministry of Oil. American troops surrounded the sand-colored building, protecting it like a strategic jewel. But not far away, looters were relieving the National Museum of its actual jewels. Baghdad had become a carnival of looting.” A statement by Peter Maass, Author.

Oil comes with so many strings attached that it is almost impossible to quantify the total cost of it. But it is safe to say that, exploring, drilling, shipping, protecting against environmental damages of, defending against terrorism caused indirectly from oil here and in other countries is very expensive and has taken a heavy toll. The money we spend so foolishly could be used here, to build schools, take care of our debt to our seniors and rebuild our roads.

Oil cost money, it’s not free, pollutes and when it’s burned it’s gone. Even the local drillers that want what’s under our feet can’t guarantee no turm-oil from their operations, as we all know. We will never know what could have been if the BP oil spill had not happened. So why do we continue to talk about drilling? It’s an addiction to turm-oil.

Let’s try a different way; it’s the only thing left. We have been at the drill, drill and drill game for a long time. We will be paying for the damage this energy source created for years to come. I know that standing down means we won’t be the most powerful nation in the world with thousands of planes in foreign airfields, but we could be the most forward looking nation in the world, leading the way to a cleaner earth. Let’s spend on health, education, transportation, renewable technologies, medicine and infrastructure.

We have been toying with solar energy, wind energy, geothermal and hydro. Now we even have electric cars and we can add more public transportation that runs on clean electricity. The future does not have to include turm-oil. We need more investment in renewables not less.

By George Lopez