I feel like it’s my birthday!
- a majority (54%) of Americans do not see more drilling as a solution to high gas prices
- the public overwhelmingly believes (76% to 19%) that policymakers should focus on investing in new energy technologies including renewable fuels and more efficient vehicles rather than expanding exploration and drilling for more oil.
- 63%) said that the Presidents proposal to open up public lands to oil and gas drilling is more likely to enrich oil companies than to lower gas prices for American consumers.
- (66%) said that the small percentage of public lands still protected from oil drilling should remain off limits because they are valuable natural resources that cannot be replaced.
About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
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Think of how different our situation would be now if eight years ago, Bush had actually done what he said he was going to do and provided tax incentives and subsidies to alternative energy sources.
We need to go for non-polluting, non-dangerous sustainable forms of energy….conservation, first and foremost, and the development of autos, for example, that require one-tenth the energy to do the same job. (Take a look at the car at http://www.aptera.com. I want one!) Second, quit investing into any alternative energy source that uses our increasingly scarce arable land to grow fuel instead of food. (The push to use ethanol is primarily a matter of politicians pandering giant agri-business corporations.)
It’s all a matter of long-term investment, folks. Spend a little money now, make (or in this case, save) a lot of money–and the planet!–later.
The easiest solution, which requires no heroic new technology or neighborhood-destroying drilling, is to end our dependence on the car by not building the typical suburban sprawl anymore. Instead of new subdivisions and strip malls, build new walkable small towns with a mix of uses, improve transit. We did it before World War II, and we can do it again.
Reduce and eliminate car usage and you’ve solved a lot more than just oil demand – lots of health problems, the consumption of our land by sprawl, etc.
Thinking we can drill our way out of it, as the industry wishes, is a false hope. Depending on new technologies to run cars on other fuels and keep our car dependency going is the wrong method. It’s time we took back cities and towns from the car and gave them back to human beings again.