Posted by
A Country Girl's View on Thursday, June 19, 2008 5:30:25 AM
As usual, we Americans wait until the situation is in crisis mode before we act, but now it will take more than just drilling. Even if we start drilling tomorrow in Alaska and off the coasts, it will be years before any oil reaches the gas pumps. Yes, of course we need to drill in a responsible, high-tech way, but right now, right this minute, we also need to really start to consciously think about ways to conserve fuel, not just the gas we put in our vehicles, but our use of electricity,air conditioning, heat usage, water use, etc. You can be conservative politically and also be a conservationist (what a shock!). The Liberals will be running around like chicken little, hugging their trees, but they don't have a clue except to scream for "government action"! They want the government to solve every problem, when if they would just let American ingenuity and private enterprise have some freedom to do what they do best, we could begin to get a toehold on some solutions. Yes, the government has to mandate strict requirements for automakers to really rev up their mpg ratings and produce more flex-fuel vehicles, but we need to be able to fuel up those alternative energy vehicles, don't we? Let's get building more refineries so we'll be able to process the oil from the new fields, and oh yes, how about a bunch of new nuclear plants? Let the government have a big money prize available to the first inventor/engineer/company to design a mass-produced low-cost fuel efficient engine or complete vehicle. America needs to rally behind this effort, the same as we did during WW II, when everything and everyone was geared toward and working for the war effort. We can do it.