Energy

Any of you old enough to remember the first Arab oil boycott, in the 1970s? I do. Standing for hours in line to get a ration of gas, then only being allowed to buy gas on alternate days, we all resolved to do what we must to keep from getting ourselves into a situation like that every again.

And for a brief time, we had a serious seeming run at it.

We bought smaller, more gas efficient cars. Turned down our thermostats. Looked into wind and solar power. We talked about public transportation rather than every American getting into a personal car every time we had to go somewhere, about making cities more hospitable to walking.

Then OPEC got smart and began portioning out gas in sufficient quantities to seduce us into thinking the issue had gone away. And we took the bait. Who could have imagined highways full of SUVs or military type Hummers navigating the narrow streets of our cities? Or 10,000 square foot houses for families of three?

Human hubris outstrips any human survival instinct. Today the news is that President Bush is begging the Saudis to increase their oil production. Nothing about conservation or alternate energy. Only about how to speed up the draining of the earth's dwindling supply of fossil fuel.

If you were a cynic, you might think the fact that our President and Vice President got rich in the oil business, blinded them. In the past ten years the Greenland ice cap has, because of warming climate, lost a volume of ice equal to the size of the states of Texas and Wyoming. Hear that, Mr. President and Mr. Vice President?