Friday, October 9, 2009

Nothing Else Matters



Oil. It causes wars, dictatorships, pollution, sickness, cancer, and it will be the greatest national security threat America has ever faced. I am not even speaking of global warming, but something easier to understand and imminently dangerous.

Oil is a limited nonrenewable resource, and we will be running on empty in the near future. The American empire reached peak oil in the 1970s, and our domestic production declined ever since, causing a corresponding dependency on foreign oil from unstable dictatorships in the Middle East.

Not only has cheap, easily accessible oil been drying up for America, but a recent report by the British government indicates global peak oil may be reached in the next decade or two. Sure, a few large oil fields are discovered every couple years, but these finds are drops in the bucket compared to the immense and growing international consumption.

We will very likely see gas soaring toward $10 per gallon in the near future. Our central national priority must include finding ways to reduce consumption, increase efficiency, find alternatives and conserve the remaining fuel for imperative transitional energy to a sustainable, clean energy future with solar as the dominant source.

Not only would gas near $10 per gallon hurt individuals directly, drastically impacting our economy in obvious ways, but this cost would vastly increase the cost of oil-subsidized food production. In addition to consumption of millions of gallons of oil for our most essential necessity, we rely on millions of gallons of fertilizer and pesticides produced from nonrenewable fossil fuel that will soon become exorbitantly costly. Additionally, all the countless plastic products, chemical drugs, artificial food additives and household materials made from petrochemicals will eventually become incredibly more expensive.

What will we do? For our children to survive, we must immediately transform toward a sustainable food system. We waste billions subsidizing unsustainable, monopolized corporate factory farms and agrichemical industries that produce the unhealthiest foods, which also increases critical healthcare costs. Instead, we must subsidize smaller, localized, sustainable, healthier and environmentally wise farms. We also need to deeply invest in non-petrochemical alternatives, such as advanced plant breeding, organic fertilizers and advanced water conservation technologies.

Because our incompetent government is ignoring this extreme national security threat, and the potentially dark future increasingly promised for our children, I am strongly considering a second campaign for U.S. Congress. Unfortunately, I do not have the wealth or elite connections to run as a major party candidate. I am also morally opposed to taking campaign donations from lobbyists of dangerous and unethical corporations that are diametrically opposed to democracy and the public interest.

Unlike the cowardly, self-interested political shapeshifting from “professional” Blue Dog politicians, I will take only one principled position, and that is fearless representation of the Public Interest and the Public Good, not elite private interests on Wall Street.

Please google Crude Awakening and please God, help Homo sapiens survive the extreme global security threat of the oil crash.