This is a guest post by Ann Mesnikoff, director of the Sierra Club Green Transportation Campaign. Be sure to join the Green Transportation Group on Climate Crossroads.
With as many as 5,000 barrels a day of oil spewing from BP's Deepwater Horizon site we have a stark reminder that our addiction to oil does come at a steep price. It certainly is a "blowout" to use the technical term.
Deepwater is 50 miles off shore, which sounds like a lot, but with everything from fisheries, wildlife and beaches and coastal tourism threatened, it clearly is not that far when thousands of barrels of oil are bubbling up to the surface. In attempt to stave off disaster along the coasts chemicals are being dispersed to break up the oil and fires are being lit to try to burn it off.
This one giant disaster, which could match or exceed the infamous 1969 Santa Barbara spill that proved a turning point for limiting offshore drilling, should force us to assess what we can do to cure our addiction.
We have a transportation system that is almost entirely dependent on oil, guzzling some 13 million barrels worth every day. Just our 240 million registered vehicles drive some three trillion miles - two-thirds of which are driven in urban areas - and consume nearly nine million barrels of oil per day.
Not that the cure is fast or easy, but if we don't act now, calls for Drill, Baby Drill will come and billions more dollars will leave our economy. Both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) have issued prescriptions for oil independence.
EPA's prescription is a mix of continued strengthening of vehicles standards for cars, heavy duty trucks, airplanes and trains, more electric vehicles, and investing in transportation choices and other measures that will reduce how much we drive. Using 6.7 million fewer barrels of oil every day by 2030 is worth fighting for.
DOT has also issued a very detailed prescription (PDF): Some 605 pages of strategies to reduce oil consumption and greenhouse has emissions from transportation - given the "illness," the prescription doesn't differ too much from EPA's - we have to deal with vehicles, fuels and how we move stuff and people. DOT details how we can reduce carbon-intensive travel, which will largely overlap with oil intensive travel. DOT notes:
The spill is a reminder of the consequences to our environment as we look for oil in more and more difficult places.
Our addiction to oil has another side - the dollars gushing out of our economy to pay for oil. T. Boone Pickens keeps track monthly of the cost of importing oil. In March 2010 alone, we imported 324 million barrels of oil at a whopping cost of $27.6 billion. At this rate we could send more than $300 billion overseas to pay for oil - that's no small price.
So, as oil continues to gush from the sea bed a mile down and the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has called the "leak" of national significance, and cabinet secretaries are heading down to look at the mess, we should take good look at prescriptions from EPA and DOT.
With as many as 5,000 barrels a day of oil spewing from BP's Deepwater Horizon site we have a stark reminder that our addiction to oil does come at a steep price. It certainly is a "blowout" to use the technical term.
Deepwater is 50 miles off shore, which sounds like a lot, but with everything from fisheries, wildlife and beaches and coastal tourism threatened, it clearly is not that far when thousands of barrels of oil are bubbling up to the surface. In attempt to stave off disaster along the coasts chemicals are being dispersed to break up the oil and fires are being lit to try to burn it off.
This one giant disaster, which could match or exceed the infamous 1969 Santa Barbara spill that proved a turning point for limiting offshore drilling, should force us to assess what we can do to cure our addiction.
We have a transportation system that is almost entirely dependent on oil, guzzling some 13 million barrels worth every day. Just our 240 million registered vehicles drive some three trillion miles - two-thirds of which are driven in urban areas - and consume nearly nine million barrels of oil per day.
Not that the cure is fast or easy, but if we don't act now, calls for Drill, Baby Drill will come and billions more dollars will leave our economy. Both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) have issued prescriptions for oil independence.
EPA's prescription is a mix of continued strengthening of vehicles standards for cars, heavy duty trucks, airplanes and trains, more electric vehicles, and investing in transportation choices and other measures that will reduce how much we drive. Using 6.7 million fewer barrels of oil every day by 2030 is worth fighting for.
DOT has also issued a very detailed prescription (PDF): Some 605 pages of strategies to reduce oil consumption and greenhouse has emissions from transportation - given the "illness," the prescription doesn't differ too much from EPA's - we have to deal with vehicles, fuels and how we move stuff and people. DOT details how we can reduce carbon-intensive travel, which will largely overlap with oil intensive travel. DOT notes:
The spill is a reminder of the consequences to our environment as we look for oil in more and more difficult places.
Our addiction to oil has another side - the dollars gushing out of our economy to pay for oil. T. Boone Pickens keeps track monthly of the cost of importing oil. In March 2010 alone, we imported 324 million barrels of oil at a whopping cost of $27.6 billion. At this rate we could send more than $300 billion overseas to pay for oil - that's no small price.
So, as oil continues to gush from the sea bed a mile down and the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has called the "leak" of national significance, and cabinet secretaries are heading down to look at the mess, we should take good look at prescriptions from EPA and DOT.
Every person has his or her opinion. For example, people care much more about their heath. so They would like to buy fitness shoes like mbt shoes,vibram five fingers.and you will find some website selling them at discounted price when you put keywords mbt.vibram fivefingers in the Search Box. http://www.pickmbtshoes.com
Posted by: mbt | June 19, 2010 at 01:42 AM