More on the Big Slick

I sent the following letter to the Phila Inquirer this past week after reading a column on who is to blame for the spill in Monday's paper. The author, Charles Krauthammer, while saying that BP was to blame for the actual spill, spent most of the column blaming democrats and the environmental movement for the spill.

In the meantime, as the week progressed, there was more criticism of President Obama for not being mad enough about this horrible disaster. In my letter, I also criticized our president, but not because he isn't jumping up and down having a hissy fit or swearing, or demonstrating his anger in some emotional outburst. I don't understand how that would help. We just had 8 years of a president who flew by the seat of his pants and made decisions based on his gut. Look where that got us! As I said in my letter, I want the president to go on national TV, tell us the state of deep water oil drilling (like how many are there and how much oil we get from them). Maybe name some names, such as who were the government regulators who didn't do their job, who they interacted with and who at BP gave the orders that lead up to the explosion. 

But then, most importantly, tell us what we have to do to get off the oil addiction. What do we need to do, each one of us, to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. Challenge us. Be presidential...and willing to lose the next election by telling us what we need to hear, and need to do. 

To the editor: Mr. Krauthammer asks an extremely poignant question in this week's column, "Many to blame for oil spill". Why are we drilling in 5,000 feet of water for oil in the first place? Unfortunately, his answers leave much to be desired. It is simple, sir. Rather than spending the last 30 years weaning ourselves from fossil fuels in general and oil in particular, we chose to increase our dependence on these finite sources of energy. Starting with President Reagan (does anyone remember him unceremoniously removing the solar panels from the White House after then President Carter practically begged us to kick our oil habit), we ignored our ever growing dependence on energy from unfriendly sources, pretended that the changing climate was unrelated to the release of carbon into the atmosphere, and discounted the thousands of lives and trillions of dollars that we wasted on wars to maintain our habit. 

Think about it. Less than 10 years after President Kennedy challenged the scientific community to land a man on the moon, it was done, yet here we are, almost 30 years after the oil embargo of the 70's and we are worse off than before. I do agree with one point made by Mr. Krauthammer; President Obama does share some of the blame. Like all of the presidents since Reagan, he lacks the political will to tell the American people, enough is enough. Rather than being presidential and challenging us to face our damaging dependency, he has chosen a course of conciliation with the powers that represent the status-quo, and which encourages us, the American people, to continue to live our lives waiting for someone else to step up to the plate instead of the person each of us sees in the mirror everyday.