One side says "Drill in Anwr! Drill offshore! Drill! Drill! Drill!"

The other side says "Drill the land you already have!"

Why no one is suggesting simple conservation?

[QUOTE]Don't Drill; Cut Demand

Measure twice, cut once." Dad must have told me that a hundred times every time we built something. He never wasted an inch of a board and when we were done I could have put the scrap lumber in a lunch bag. It was good advice then, it's good advice now. Before we do something that can't be undone we have to make sure it is the right thing to do.

I hope the people who represent us in Washington listen to that old warning and think before they act.

The issue now is whether or not to open a lot of areas that have heretofore been closed to drilling for oil. For a long time those areas have been off-limits to the oil companies, and for good reason. Ever since geologists discovered that oil deposits lay under places like Alaska and off the shores of many of our states, the oil and drilling companies have been licking their chops to get at them. Now they see their chance.

As I write this, oil on the world market is selling for over $130 a barrel. Gasoline that you and I put in our cars costs around four dollars a gallon, diesel fuel that heats homes and powers the nation's trucks is a dollar more than that, and the price of everything that touches petroleum has gone through the roof. In short, it looks as though our economy, which relies on oil for just about everything, may be on the brink of a meltdown.

Panic is the word of the day.

But laws passed as a result of panic are almost never good laws. In this case repealing laws in the midst of a panic isn't a good law either. Think about what it would do.

First of all, I don't call myself a "tree-hugger." Ecology is great: comfort and economics are greater . Drilling there would do nothing to lower fuel prices now. By the time the wells are drilled and the oil gets into the refineries and from there to us consumers it is hard to tell what the price of oil will be. I would bet that prices will be higher, but increasing the supply is not the answer.

Those of us who were buying gasoline in the late 1970's know why. At that time prices went up and fuel was scarce. Remember, my young friends, there was a time when numbers on our cars ruled what day we could buy gas. Odd numbers on odd numbered days, even on even. That is how scarce gas was. And for a little while we learned about conservation. We drove less, carpooled, and found ways, including buying more fuel efficient cars, to use less.

If, for any reason, the price of fuel goes down (and now "down" will mean a price under $3.00) I have absolutely no doubt that within a year people will forget about conservation, hybrid cars, alternative energy sources and all the technological advances that will reduce our use of fuel. Why? Human nature.

It is human nature to procrastinate. No one notices the hole in the roof until it rains; the car inspection isn't due until NEXT month; taxes are not due for two months, why pay them now? We even rely on that last gram of toothpaste, "There's always enough for one more brushing," right?

Increase the supply of fuel and conservation will disappear, trust me. It happened before, it will happen again. We vote down an increase in taxes even when we know, down deep, that it is necessary. We vote for every politician who promises more than his opponent, even when we know, down deep, that he or she can't deliver.

No one will ever repeal the law of supply and demand and the way the world population is growing and with ever increasing industrialization, demand is bound to increase. As the demand goes up for a product and the supply stays the same, the price will naturally go up.

The answer?

We simply have to reduce our demand for petroleum products. That means finding other ways to move ourselves and the stuff we use, moving less stuff fewer miles, building other ways to generate electricity, using less of the products that come from oil and, in short, getting "greener."

Finding new supplies of oil is short term; sooner or later even the largest supplies of a finite product will run dry. We have the knowledge and resources to do what a large part of the world cannot do: replace brute strength with smart technology. Oil, coal, gas and even nuclear fuel represent brute strength, the Industrial Revolution's way of doing things. We can do better. Instead of drilling oil wells in places that we have said in the past were unsuitable and/or dangerous, we need to find ways to generate power, move our goods and ourselves, grow our crops and sustain our economy without depending on King Oil.

If we put a man on the moon in under a decade, reducing our use of oil by half in that time should be a walk in the park. All it takes is the will to do it and a leader who can inspire us.

Source [/QUOTE]