Once again, President Bush is after the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drill for oil. While he blames Democrats for the high price of oil, because they have protected the Arctic Refuge, the facts are far different from his words.
Just like his lies of weapons of mass destruction that did not exist to con the American people into initially supporting his war in Iraq. Bush's statements about the great arctic refuge are as far from reality as his IQ is from being genius.
Reports by the U.S. Geological Survey under the Bush administration found that, at most, drilling in the refuge could lower the price at the pump by one cent a gallon in 20 years.
Meanwhile, had we followed the guidance of most Democrats, we would have raised the corporate average fuel economy to 39 miles per gallon 20 years ago, such that cars today would have averaged at least that efficiency. At that efficiency, demand would have been way down, and the amount of miles people could go for each gallon would have been way up. We simply would not have had the $4 a gallon gas that we have today.
That is reality. Media need to do their duty and hold our commander in chief, as well as any other propagandist for the oil industry, accountable to the facts.
With the amount of money spent in the wars in Iraq, we could have all of our electricity from solar, wind, waste methane and geothermal. We could have electric cars and high speed trains going more than 200 miles per hour, getting more than 20 times better fuel efficiency per passenger than planes.
These solutions would help to solve the climate crisis, which threatens the lives of billions of people this century. These are the facts, where is the accountability in the media? Journalists should challenge lies by our commander in chief, and get to the reality of this issue. Otherwise we will continue down the road of wasteful overconsumption, with any increased drilling being burned away in the SUVs and Hummers.
It took hundreds of millions of years for nature to create the oil that we have burned more than half of in 100 years. We have the technology to generate all of our power cleanly through renewables. We just need to follow the Democrats and their guidance to achieve it.
Chad Kister is an author and resident of Athens
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Letter to the Editor
