On Wednesday President Obama released statements pertaining to the current oil crisis and showing his sway towards more renewable energy. His plan of action is to cut America's imports of oil from other countries by a third by the year 2025. Many republicans feel that he should be addressing the rising oil prices head on rather than planning for the future and not showing immediate results. The thought that he is ignoring the rise in oil prices as a way of gaining America’s support for alternative fuel sources has been brought up, but seems borderline conspiracy theory in my opinion. Americans seem to be growing more paranoid and skeptical of the government’s intentions and while, I myself do often question the reliability of the government, I also think that in this situation Obama is simply thinking in a way that many other countries have began to follow through on. The search for reliable and affordable alternative fuel sources could have been up and moving decades ago, but America’s heavy dependency on oil and the oil companies dependency on American’s support has crippled the evolution towards a more sustainable future. The Texas economy was once built on the discovery of oil, which in moderation would have been all right, but instead resources were exploited. It seems that Obama is the first president to truly address this issue in a forward thinking way, particularly with the crisis in the middle east going on, and the fights for oil that seem to spring up in new locations yearly. With higher fuel efficiency standards being set at the end of this year, and the country becoming more self sufficient, I think that we are on our way to a much more environmentally conscious and affordable standard of living. Because Obama has chosen to make such a controversial stand I wonder what his next move will be. Energy and oil are two very important issues in an ocean of even larger dependencies we as a society hold under our belt. This positive change could possible cause enough outrage and support that all things be reconsidered down to the very standard of living in an average American’s daily life. People are ready for a self sufficient, renewable future, some just don’t know it yet.
I really appreciate your post.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that the line of thinking of republicans about Obama's motives, are not completely off base. Though, I don’t think he is ignoring the issue in the immediate, rather he is trying to do more than put a band aid on it. Renewable and clean energies should be considered the new frontier. A race should be on to advance or claim in the property, much as the whole of Europe raced to claim the America’s. We need that kind of grand thinking about alternative fuels and geothermal, wind, and solar energies. I think a majority of Republicans stand on the side of science that disagrees with the impact on our environment from our addiction to fossil fuels. This further aides their need to have government stay out of people’s rights to run whatever kind of business they want.
The true turning in events for this will be as you said, when people decide they want a renewable future. That is really what it’s all about. I don’t think enough people put thought into where there dollars go. Money holds the key to reform. People need to invest in clean renewable energy by buying renewable products and supporting companies that use renewable resources. This is one of the things I love about social networks. When you find out a company is doing something good or bad when it comes to the environment, you can let all of your friends know and they can let all of theirs and so on. This information can then go straight to register.