How to Tell if Bush is Serious about Ending US Dependence on Foreign Petroleum
Bush said last night he wanted to end the dependence of the United States on foreign petroleum. That is not the right goal, since if we just burned coal and ran electric cars we could be independent. But we'd accelerate global warming and give ourselves black lung.
The goal should be vastly reducing our use of hydrocarbons. Global warming is going to drown a lot of our coastal areas and send hurricanes on more of our cities if it keeps accelerating this way. Once the arctic shelves go into the drink and the ocean heats up sufficiently, you could have a rise in sea level of 20 feet. New Orleans, as bad as it was, would look like a picnic in comparison with this level of catastrophe.
The way you could tell Bush was serious would be if he ordered the Pentagon to use green sources of energy where possible. If a major US bureacracy spent even a few billions on things like solar power and electric vehicles, there would be technological breakthroughs and prices would plummet.
Or Bush could rescind some of his tax cuts for the super-rich and use the money as incentive for green energy.
But as long as Bush, who is as he keeps reminding us, the chief executive officer of the US government, doesn't even require his own employees to try to use less petroleum, then all he is doing is mouthing plattitudes he stole from Al Gore and John Kerry, without intending to do more than flap his lips.
In the old SPD/Green government in Germany, substantial strides were made toward profitable solar power companies, because of government investment and support. That is what a real energy policy would look like, Mr. Bush. Get one.
posted by Juan Cole @ 2/01/2006 06:31:00 AM
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You might be surprised to find out who the biggest buyer of renewable electricity is.
As long as Bush proudly refuses to read newspapers, relying instead on daily briefings (and we know he ignored at least one of those in favor of "His Damned Goat), he is not the actual Chief Executive. The actual Chief Executive is who ever prepares the briefings, decides whether to let him read the briefings, and explains the briefings to him, and then decides whether he should believe the briefings.
Whoever is top dog du jour on his staff is the actual chief executive. One can only imagine the extent to which NSA intercepts would aid the Chief Executive du jour.
The problem termed global warming or climate change is at least two orders of magnitude greater than anything mankind has faced in recorded history. To compare it to Katrina on New Orleans, it is as though Katrina's storm surge were to occur on every coast every day for the next two hundred years. Factor on top of that the destruction of financial institutions, widespread famine and a total lack of civil order.
To prevent such a future requires two things to happen. The major carbon producing nations need to rethink geographic development patterns, monetary systems and national purpose. The other things is that humankind needs to reduce its population to three billion people or fewer.
Neither is likely to occur. Well, not true, exactly. The first will not occur. Instead, war, famine and carbon based energy sources will force certain nations to give up protection of human rights for its citizens in favor of protection of "national interest." All political parties with a perceived stake in the future government will go along. Ergo, Democratic acquiescence allows Alito.
This development will lead to the second occurrence in a non-pretty way.
Bush has no intention of reducing dependence on foreign oil, only on dependence on foreign oil producing governments.
(please use this and not the earlier post. thx)
As long as Bush proudly refuses to read newspapers, relying instead on daily briefings (and we know he ignored at least one of those in favor of "His Damned Goat"), he is not the actual Chief Executive. The actual Chief Executive is whomever prepares the briefings, decides whether to let him read the briefings, explains the briefings to him, and then decides whether he should believe the briefings.
Whomever is top dog du jour on his staff is the actual chief executive. One can only imagine the extent to which NSA intercepts would aid the Chief Executive du jour.
The problem termed global warming or climate change is at least two orders of magnitude greater than anything mankind has faced in recorded history. To compare it to Katrina on New Orleans, it is as though Katrina's storm surge were to occur on every coast every day for the next two hundred years. Factor on top of that the destruction of financial institutions, widespread famine and a total lack of civil order.
To prevent such a future requires two enormous events. The major carbon producing nations need to rethink geographic development patterns, monetary systems and national purpose. The other thing is that humankind needs to reduce its population to three billion people or fewer.
(An example of radical change to development patterns would be to abandon New Orleans and allow the Mississippi River to seek its own path to the Gulf, from Baton Rouge to Houma. The money needed to protect NO, ultimately a futile project, is needed elsewhere.)
Neither enormous event is likely to occur. Well, not true exactly. The first will not occur. Instead, war, famine and carbon based energy sources will force certain nations to give up protection of human rights for its citizens in favor of protection of "national interest." National interest here means the well being of the wealthy and powerful. All political parties with a perceived stake in the future government will go along. Ergo, Democratic acquiescence allows Alito.
This development will lead to the second occurrence in a non-pretty way.
Bush has no intention of reducing dependence on foreign oil, only of reducing dependence on foreign oil producing governments and reducing the access to precious oil within this nation's borders.
Juan
Perhaps lowering greenhouse gases does not go far enough either.
Given that about 5% of the world's population (ie USA population)consumes over 50% of the world's resource consumption, there is something unethical or even rascist while ever America assumes "exceptionalism" justifies such excess. And gives the right to go to war to protect "America's right" to excess resources eg Gulf oil.
This is exactly the same doctrine that in earlier times was used by USA governments to justify slavery (blacks were not entitled to equality because they were somehow lesser), dispossession of Native Americans (again lesser than White Americans), stealing of Mexican land (only White Americans will make best use of land such as California).
Isn't the equitable goal that no-one in this world should live in poverty? And doesn't this imply a dramatic drop in the 50+% excess usage by the 6%? Or are Americans more deserving? How much more - 80%, 40% - why?
Bush told Congress that “keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world”.
Whilst Washington will always maintain that the Iraq war in particular and its Middle East policy in general are part of a righteous struggle against evil and an idealistic crusade to spread democracy etc etc, this part of Bush’s address sounds like a not-so tacit nod to the view that costly US interventions in the region are in fact driven by the need to maintain US access to cheap oil. By pledging to “make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past” Bush seems to be offering some light at the end of the tunnel to a US public that increasingly opposes the war in Iraq.
But US foreign policy is not driven primarily by domestic energy consumption. As Noam Chomsky points out, “the critical issue is control, not access. US policies towards the Middle East were the same when it was a net exporter of oil, and remain the same today when US intelligence projects that the US itself will rely on more stable Atlantic Basin resources. Policies would be likely to be about the same if the US were to switch to renewable energy. The need to control the "stupendous source of strategic power" and to gain "profits beyond the dreams of avarice" [quoting US planners] would remain.”
The problem posed by oil is not one of mere efficient housekeeping as Bush pretends. It is one of imperial strategy, and should be understood as such. Cheap oil has been the lifeblood of the US-dominated post World War 2 economy, and thus would remain essential to the functioning of its imperial domain even if the USA itself ran entirely on wind power. Furthermore, given the desire to ensure that the global system does not pass to new management in the coming decades, oil represents a strategic weapon of vast potency, providing the US with what former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski described as “critical leverage” over its rivals. It was primarily these concerns that drove the policy to install a client government and a permanent military presence in Iraq, at the heart of the world’s energy producing region.
So the problem is not an American society addicted to oil. Rather, it is American state-corporate elites and institutions (and their counterparts across the world, not least here in London) addicted to the pursuit of economic and political power whatever the human cost. Those costs will continue to be paid by the western public – and, to a far, far greater extent, by the people of the third world - until the imperial nature of western foreign policy is recognised for what it is.
David Wearing
London, UK
www.democratsdiary.co.uk
"That is not the right goal, since if we just burned coal and ran electric cars we could be independent."
Personally I think an all electric economy is the answer. Then the focus of anti global warming tactics and petroleum independence could be focused on the power plants instead of spread out over many different industries.
We will be burning coal anyway, so a massive investement in clean burning plants is worthwhile. Then there are the alternatives such as wind, and solar (and maybe even nuclear) that can be added to the mix to produce a very robust green electrical power infrastructure.
A few billion thrown at storage battery (or like devices)and electric motor research might give us the battery equivalent of the 15 gallon gas tank and a purring equivalent of the hot rod.
To get to the "hydrogen economy" we would need vast hydrogen generating, storage, tranmission and distribution facilities. It would be cheaper and much less risky to put the same investment into the electrical power infrastructure and conversion of hydrocarbon powered devices to electrically powered.
Just a personal preference.
Professor,
You say in this post that Bush would get the Pentagon to use green energy first. Guess what? They do. Infact, the US military is the largest user of wind and solar energy in the nation. Dyess Air Force Base in TX is the first installation to be 100% powered with wind. In 2003, it was the largest purchaser of clean energy at any one site in the nation. Just a few months ago, two more air force bases announced that they too had turned to 100% wind, Fairchild AFB in WA being one of them. Edwards AFB in CA purchases 138,000MWh of wind which is over 60% of its needs. Ft. Carson, CO gets over 30% of its power from green sources. Many more bases are using green energy and this year several more will announce that they are powered 100% by green energy.
I think the question we need to ask here is: if the US military finds clean energy to be the fastest, cheapest, most reliable way to increase energy supplies and hold down prices....why are the Republicans and industry telling us different? Why is the American public being told that green energy is expensive and unreliable when the US Military is turning rapidly in that direction specifically BECAUSE it is cheaper and more reliable than fossil fuels?
One would think that Bush would be trumpeting the military's use of green power. Using it as an example for what this nation could achieve. Instead, most of this information is far from the public eye.
of course, he didn't mean it literally...
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