Posting by GKH on 07/15/10
BP executive Kent Wells went so far as to say there is “no more oil in the Gulf of Mexico”. That’s a bit of a mis-under-statement. After almost three months of scrambling, destruction, and devastating loss and death in the Gulf, we can finally begin to address the error of offshore oil drilling, develop and promote new renewable sources of energy, and clean up the terrible mess. Let us consider the options of clean energy resources and change the way we experience life on this planet. We can still have all we want without perpetuating the addiction to oil. It has been going on for far too long. Jimmy Carter is still right:
“We must look back in history to understand our energy problem. Twice in the last several hundred years there has been a transition in the way people use energy.
The first was about 200 years ago, away from wood — which had provided about 90 percent of all fuel — to coal, which was more efficient. This change became the basis of the Industrial Revolution.
The second change took place in this century, with the growing use of oil and natural gas. They were more convenient and cheaper than coal, and the supply seemed to be almost without limit. They made possible the age of automobile and airplane travel. Nearly everyone who is alive today grew up during this age and we have never known anything different.
Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.” -Jimmy Carter, April 18, 1977
Click here to read Jimmy Carter’s in depth address to the nation and how what he recommended for that era, still valid today.
Tags: clean energy, deepwater horizon, end the drilling, jimmy carter, kent wells, offshore drilling, oil spill
