Letter to the editor

I just sent this to our local paper:

The President’s recent lifting of the off-shore oil drilling ban and subsequent calls to begin exploration and drilling in ANWAR from John McCain and Michele Bachmann, right-wing media pundits, and everyday folks who feel squeezed and anxious from high gas prices, are all based on misleading information. Exploration is speculation, not a guarantee. What’s more, experts agree that no oil would be available from those sources for another decade and would make no dent in current prices. Granting oil companies rights to these resources would only insure their right to control the flow – and the profits – of whatever oil they find. We should capitalize on this moment, when attention to energy and environmental issues is high, to increase our use of fuel from renewable sources, not cling to a fuel source that is detrimental to our civilization in the face of global warming. Vehicles are in use today -- or can be converted -- that can run on electricity, biofuels, and solar energy. Congress should direct oil companies and the auto industry to spend the subsidies we give them on current and emerging green technologies that will not only provide jobs in the inevitable new economy, but also mitigate the havoc carbon-based fuels are wreaking on the world as we know it.