AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH

Dear President Bush,

 
A crisis exists in our nation.
 
This letter is not about the crisis facing just our schools or financial institutions, as real and serious as though problems in fact are. This is a crisis which threatens us all, rich and poor, young and old.
 
At it's heart is the question of whether the people of this nation and in truth around the world, can continue to expect that the machine of industry can provide economic security for their families, maintain their way of living, and enable themselves even to find food to put on the tables of their children and other loved ones.
 
The crisis we are addressing within, is about which road we will chose to take towards assuring a secure energy future to power our economy and sustain our food supply.
 
We the undersigned believe our nation is at a crossroads. One direction will take us down a path towards a future built on a solid foundation of resources which are both abundant and sustainable. The other will commit us to an inevitable collision between our growing demand for food and energy and a forced reliance on finite resources which are rapidly depleting and have become demonstrably unreliable, both with respect to supply as well as the financial impact they represent for the people who depend upon them.
 
It is no secret that available supplies of fossil fuels are both volatile and finite. During the last twelve months alone, our nation has watched in helplessness as the prices for gasoline and natural gas more than doubled. Millions of our countryman are now forced to suffer without recourse as the cost of electricity produced from these same fuels skyrockets beyond the ability of many households to afford it.
 
It has been said, Mr. President, that "we "eat oil". In truth, worldwide agriculture relies on the production of nitrogen fertilizers produced from our dwindling stocks of petroleum. As the most recent census shows, are population is increasing rapidly as is the demand for food, both here and abroad. Absent an alternative, who will put the food on the plates of the world if our remaining fossil fuels resources are squandered on tasks which can just as well be handled by more abundant energy sources?
 
The fact remains however, that regardless of the direction of future short range movements in price, be it up or down, the exploding worldwide demand for these resources threatens to outpace the world's ability to produce or distribute them affordably. Still we indulge ourselves, against all logic, in acting as if these same relics fuels created hundreds of million years ago, will serve us dependably forever. In truth though, Mr. President, we know better.
 
Recently concluded studies completed by The U.S. Geological Survey (Open-File Report 00-320) reveal that the end of the Age of Oil is now at hand. As early as the year 2005 but most likely no later than 2020,  the USGS report declares that we will live to see the big "Rollover", as the affordable supply of oil no longer is able to keep pace with the worldwide demand. At this point, fossil fuels will become a "Seller's Market", and  absent an alternative, the consuming public will be held hostage forever. Still though, the beat goes on.
 
The giant oil industry will not give up the reins easily. Many within point to the Arctic and its priceless ecological bounty as the best fix for our energy woes. There's black gold in those hills, we are told. Enough oil to power an entire nation. These claims though, are not supported by fact. Please consider the following realities:
 
For decades, we have enjoyed a "buyers market" for cheap oil which has now nearly run its course. In just a few years, worldwide production will peak as it did in the lower 48 states nearly two decades ago. From that point into perpetuity, it will no longer matter how much oil remains beneath the tundra of Alaska or anywhere else on the planet. The Age of Oil will end as the cost and benefit of continued extraction slips beyond the means of national economies to exploit it as a practical resource.
 
Mr. President, our addiction to fossil fuels knows no bounds; it powers our industry, generates our electricity, fuels our automobiles and aircraft, fertilizes our soil. When the next round of price shocks come to our soil, abscent a viable alternative, who can be assured that long lines at service stations won't later be accompanied with disruption at the grocery counter, on the nation's power grids, at our workplaces, and in our living rooms?
 
An energy plan that ignores these realities is a plan for failure. America's continuing reliance on finite energy sources does nothing to address the problems that every American sees already in the nation's newspapers, on the radio, on the evening news, and with their own eyes from the gas pump to the power grids; fossil fuels are no longer adequate as a means of dependably powering our society. 
 
It is time Mr. President, to confront the truth and to boldly follow the only path that will save our energy driven culture for our children and for today's prosperity. For people already struggling to keep themselves warm in the winter and the millions more scrounging now to pay their runaway electric bills, seven years is too long to wait. Real solutions are needed which will add stability to our energy diet and will form the bridge we need today to assure dependable, clean, and affordable energy tomorrow.
 
The real solutions are as cheap and abundant as the sunlight in our skies, the wind in our faces, the fallen timber in our forests, and the water in our oceans. We must learn to grow but grow "smart", with efficient use of our resources and products. Please enact an emergency rescue plan that will work today using resources that we already control and can never run out of. Such a policy must provide for the inclusion of the following resources:
 
 
The need for cheap and abundant energy has in the past been the cause of war. Tomorrow after our precious shores and countryside are littered by the construction of trillions of dollars of exploding pipelines, leaky supertankers, burning refineries, and thousands of tons of pollutants, we will still be left far from our goal of controlling our own energy destiny. Policies which rely on the affordable availability of fossil fuels, whatever their source, will only lead us ultimately to empty well heads and broken hearts. 

Our future can only be based on a solid foundation, predicated on the prudent use of resources which we can not be embargoed and which we can never run out of. It has long been said that the use of renewable energy sources is a good idea. Now though Mr. President, its a necessity.

 
The staggering costs needed to build a new pipeline system for natural gas will ultimately be born by the public. History will only remember it as the latest case of tail wagging dog. Please don't ask us to spend trillions to reinvent, for a fleeting period, a fossil legacy which our creator chose instead to bury in peace, safely within the bowels of our only planet, to rest forever.
 
Let's put truth and common sense before the short term profits of a few to be paid for ultimately, over the long term, by the already struggling many.
 
Let's put food in front of pollution as we develop an agriculture which can survive beyond petroleum.
 
Let's leave the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as the timeless national treasure it really is.

 

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