Resources

This is an oil well-common in the forests around here and growing more common as the price of oil increases. The mountains of Western Pennsylvania were one of the original boom landscapes in the late 1800's when the demand for oil first began. With a barrel of oil at over $100 it has become economical to drill new wells and reopen old ones that may have a few drops left underground. There is currently disagreement about drilling in the Allegheny National Forrest, where private owners have mineral rights to what is beneath the surface, but Legally, it Will be done for the week or two worth of oil left that America will blow out it's collective tailpipe. As I watch food prices around the world rise while the World Food Bank calls on rich nations to face their "moral imperative" to help feed the suddenly desperate hungry-made poorer as the cost of oil inflates everything along the food chain and we grow corn for ethanol - I fear it is a portender of the future which unfortunately many Americans continue to ignore. Where were the solar panels on all those mansions built in the last decade? Where were the gas mileage standards when there were already vehicles making 35 mpg in the 1980's? What has been in the people's heads who have bought all these trucks and SUV's? I do not think that the average citizen understands the gravity of the shortages facing this planet-in the seas, in the energy supply, in the water quality, in the chemical pollution and habitat losses-in everything that an island runs out of when the populations gets too big and consumes too much. Another two billion people in China and India have gotten a taste of the American lifestyle and by God or Hell they want and believe they deserve it as much as we do. I still beat my head against the wall trying to get people to turn the lights off when leaving a room. I suggest to them that they walk or bicycle or buy a scooter to travel the few miles around this town. Maybe it will require $4 or $5 dollars a gallon to force real change in peoples habits, which at the same time might solve some of the ills caused by the obesity epidemic.I have not fallen into despair for I have seen innovation in a few places, but the leadership from Washington has been pathetic for decades, and time is running out. I always used to say to my kids that this was going to be the critical century for humanity, and taught them to live simply by my example, but even in my warnings there was an expectation that the crisis might not come until their children's lifetime... I see now that it has already begun and is a slow process that unfolds right before our eyes. People have simply chosen to ignore it from cowardice or shortsightedness. So carbon limits and all the other innovations that should have begun years ago were ignored in order to "prevent economic hardships"... well, sorry, but the economic and social consequences of the problems facing this world will Not go away merely because people hide their heads in the sand. We spend trillions of dollars on weapons while people go hungry?? Where is the moral outrage in every kitchen and living room? We expect medicare to buy our insulin while we stuff ourselves with Twinkies? Where is the personal responsibility to pick up your own bootstraps? Go walk a mile, and buy a moped, or a hybrid... and turn your damn air conditioning down and cool your feet in a stream ..Might do you and everyone else in this world some good..