When the BP oil disaster was raging this summer, much of the country was engaged in a conversation about how we could prevent something like this from ever happening again.
If there were an easy answer to that question, we would have found it already. Oil drilling is inherently dangerous and dirty. As long as we keep drilling for oil, there's simply no way to guarantee against another disaster. Sure, we can reduce the odds -- the new drilling regulations announced by the Interior Department last week might make another accident less likely, but they don't address the fundamental challenge: getting off oil as quickly as possible.
President Obama dedicated his first Oval Office address to make public his commitment to reduce America's oil dependence. He reiterated that commitment in his recent Rolling Stone interview and in his latest weekly address. The President can take credit for making several down payments on this pledge: enacting the first increases in vehicle efficiency in more than twenty years, announcing a rule-making process to regulate emissions from medium- and heavy-duty trucks, and beginning a process to set standards for cars manufactured in 2017-2025. He's justifiably proud of the effect that these will have, but he was also right when he said this: "Is it enough? Absolutely not."
That's just it: There's nothing wrong with making oil rigs safer or cars slightly more fuel-efficient. It's just not enough. Really solving the problem requires a deeper level of thinking about transportation in America.
Currently, more than seventy percent of the oil we consume goes into a transportation system that's been neglected for decades. Much of that oil is used in cars, trucks, and SUVs. We won't ever meet the challenge of breaking America's oil addiction as long as we're tinkering around with modest increases in fuel economy. We need to electrify transportation and put the internal combustion engine in our rearview mirror.
Furthermore, according to a new report from a bipartisan panel of experts, our entire transportation infrastructure will require major investment in the coming decades. If we don't -- our whole economy's at risk.
But let's not just reinvest -- let's also redefine. High-speed rail and other alternatives to cars and trucks demand the kind of forward-looking commitment in this country that they're already getting in China and Europe. This shouldn't be a partisan issue (which is what too many candidates for office this election are trying to make it) -- it should be a patriotic imperative.
At the same time, we need to find ways to reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled and to prioritize transit-oriented development that doesn't promote single-driver long-distance commutes. Cities like Portland, Oregon, with its successful reintroduction of streetcars to revitalize its downtown and its first-in-the-nation bike-commuting stats, have already shown what can be done with the right planning and investment. Let's make it a national mandate.
Most of all, though, corporate and public policymakers need to "think different" about how we get from here to there. We have a choice. We can stick with the old ways and watch as the rest of the world waves goodbye from a bullet train. Or we can reinvent ourselves as a nation that won't be held hostage to gas spikes and gridlock.
If we want to avoid another oil disaster, it's an easy call.
Follow Michael Brune on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bruneski
every time i would come on this site in the spring and early summer and point out that NOAA and other sources had Obama admin estimates at 10% of what most likely were the real oil numbers being released - members of Obamas typing army would come here and scream at people like me and say that we were "teabaggers" and "liars".
The same thing has happened when we came here more recently to point out that the administration is lying on how much oil was cleaned up or "evaporated".
Im no repub - im a lifelong dem who has worked on enviro issues for close to two decades in DC.
This is a horror and if it was the Bush admin doing this - everyone here would rightly be calling for blood...
and who took more money from BP than any other politician ever? Obama.
and who gave a enviro waiver to BP for all their offshore wells in the Gulf? Obama.
The people who are willing to defend Obama for these indefensible lies are not being good to the long term interests of our planet, nation or the Democratic party.
These same people called us liars back during the 2008 primaries when we tried to point out that Obama was taking record dollars from oil company and big coal execs ...
seems we were right on that too....
So who are the "liars" ...
A new 11 year sunspot cycle has begun. Two solar threat events missed earth so far this year. According to NASA, if either had hit earth's geomagnetic field, 130 million Americans could lose power for protracted periods of time - perhaps several weeks - at a cost the first year of between $1 trillion and $2 trillion.
Similar to the combined cost to date of both current wars!
See: http://www.aesopinstitute.org
The steps necessary to rapidly reduce dependence on the power grid can accelerate development of inexpensive, decentralized, green systems.
This opens a politically workable way to accelerate the development of cheap green power.
We need to focus on that objective. Why would anyone fight it? There is likely to be widespread support for what needs to be done.
Cheap green power can supersede the fruitless debate over climate change.
And effectively fight Global Warming, goose the economy, generate lots of manufacturing and installation jobs and reduce dependency on oil and unstable areas of the globe.
See Moving Beyond Oil, and Running on Water, on the same Aesop Institute website.
Both outline low cost alternatives that are expected to power automobiles and trucks. Future versions might become power plants when suitably parked. No wires needed.
Such vehicles may pay for themselves as investments!
Imagine what the goverenment and the Sierra Club could accomplish after calling attention to the little recognized threat of massive power failures due to solar flares!
Rise to the challenge!
No one is going to build a high speed rail line in our communities out here but how about a trolley line? We have torn them all down when cheap energy arrived and everyone got a car. Now we find cars are deadly, costly, and polluters.
We don't have to have expensive high speed rail but in some places it makes sense. We do need I think to turn the clocks back and offer public transportation in the form of trolleys or surface rail.
To paraphrase "The Prophet" Why do we build walls between our homes and our fields?"
Better planning would be a start to a "Sustainable Civilization". Is there a better goal?
Canada is your largest supplier of energy and yes, we are experiencing a crisis dealing with the tar sands so you can air condition driveways in california. There is now a pipeline planned to transport the oil to the pacific through british columbia to sell to asia.. Don't count on that one going through anytime soon...
Yes there is that much oil, gas, potash, water, copper, nickel, gold, diamonds and just about everything else here. But canadians are not endorsing this debauchery with a collective thank you, a lot do not approve and in some parts of our country the majority don't.
We are not some third world charity case, we already have wealth and our social conditions are the envy of the world. Our environmental consciousness will inevitably surface. Most importantly we don't need the tar sands to survive, even though they are now the largest reserves on the planet.
My point being, that public outcry right here in canada might very well help your cause and force you to either conserve or do what you do most of the time.. Invade..
I have a standing bet with my friends that before I die, americans will occupy strategic parts of my country because of your needs for our resources and our unwillingness to supply them for some environmental reason, or perhaps a terrorist plot(yeah right!). it's a fair bet..and i'm getting older by the minute...
Sorry Canada but we Americans have lost out democracy with a Supreme Court ruling that gives corporations the rights of citizens but not the responsibilities.Out corporate leaders will rape your assets and screw you good.
This syndicate has already thwarted the release of the Hydrogen Economy which would let everyone operate a pollution free hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. You bus and taxi transit system would be pollution free as well.
Burlington Northern has a hydrogen fuel cell electric powered locomotive that produces no pollution and it travels at a speed that does not kill avian or animal wild life as high speed bullet trains often do.
The Honda FCX hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is production ready and will get you 270 miles on a tank of hydrogen gas. But the oil cartel is not installing hydrogen gas pumps on their service station lots.
So we do not need new ways of doing transit, we just need to protest for the release of the Hydrogen Economy.
The ugly Oil Cartel will not step aside gracefully for the release of the Hydrogen Economy.
And the last time I checked, the aforementioned syndicate has complete control of the Congress, Senate and the Administration.
The allied Corporate Media is embedded in that syndicate membership and as a result, the average fast food eating American has never heard of hydrogen fuel cell electric power generation.
Public transportation can be run on biodiesel and electric from a steam emitting source like nuclear.