Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

Yesterday (Monday), Tweedle Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling, claiming that it was necessary because “in the short run, the American economy will continue to rely largely on oil, and that means we need to increase supply here at home.”

However, experts point out that in that same short run, offshore drilling will have little effect on national oil prices, because such processes take years to institute and develop. Not only that, but the amount of oil we would get from destroying our coasts – something that cannot be reversed – is, by some estimates, a mere 920 days of typical US consumption. Do we really want to destroy our country’s vibrant coastal life, “from sea to shining sea,” for a lousy 920 days of slightly reduced gas prices, ten or twenty years from now? As Roger Blanchard put it, “It will be like burning the furniture to keep the house warm in mid-January. It will be a desperate move that won’t result in much.” Of course some argue that the drilling could help ease us through as part of a larger plan to wean the nation off oil, but again – the oil production could take years, and the damage cannot be reversed. Shouldn’t we use those years to develop something better?

What our nation’s leaders SHOULD be trying to figure out is how to use less oil, not how to get more. If you have a drug problem that’s bleeding you dry, you QUIT. That’s the logical thing to do. The longer you let it go, the more trouble you get into down the line. Eventually, you get to the point where there is just no turning back (disease, crime, prison, death) – and you think to yourself, “God, if only I’d known then what I know now.” Oil is our drug, and we’re approaching that point of no return (and of course the nation’s “dealers,” Big Oil, aren’t complaining).

Unfortunately, though, since “offshore drilling” and “oil exploration” sound like an easy fix to an immediate problem, many Americans are going to jump on this bandwagon without ever asking how it runs.

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