United States drilling won't help energy crisis

Gerald Lutzker |

6/29/2008 - 6/29/08

I feel compelled to respond to the June 15 letter, "Gas prices a hot potato," by Brigette Russell.

The argument that drilling in the vast oil reserves of Alaska, offshore, etc. is the solution to high gas prices, strikes me as out of touch with real solutions to this problem.

The only sustainable answer to the energy crisis is to develop alternative energy sources that do not rely on fossil fuel. The fact is, petroleum is a finite resource which eventually will dry up. In the meantime, the worldwide demand for oil, particularly driven by the oil thirst of the U.S., China, India and a host of other rapidly developing countries, can't be satisfied.

The environmental damage done by oil drilling has had huge consequences, and as evidenced by the recent outrage in Galisteo Basin, nobody wants this nightmare
in their backyard. Perhaps if the $300 million-plus spent each day for the five-plus years in Iraq were used for research and development of alternative energy sources, a solution would be at hand, or at least close. The $300 million is not the real cost of the invasion because it does not factor in the tens of thousand injured and broken soldiers who will require lifelong medical care.

More important, how do we calculate the loss, to date, of more than 4,050 American lives and the death and injury into hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, whose numbers are rarely reported in the U.S. media?

The article on "Rising gas prices" in last Sunday's edition of The New Mexican reported that most of the recent rise in U.S. gas prices is attributable to financial speculation.

All last week, it was reported on National Public Radio in expert testimony before Congress by the financial industry leaders that financial speculation is indeed driving up oil prices.

As reported, Bush could order in a pen stroke that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commissions regulate trading in these markets, ending the immediate spiral.

Unfortunately, this will not happen because it is not part of the Republican agenda to reduce the insatiable corporate greed nor the incomes of the mega wealthy in this country.

Another article the same day, "Oil companies get the OK to annoy polar bears," reported that the Fish and Wildlife Service issued regulations giving oil companies permission to "annoy and potentially harm" the endangered polar bear species off the Chukchi Sea on the northwestern coast of Alaska. This is so that the oil companies can search for oil. Are we so naïve to suppose that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is actually protecting the environment under the Bush regime?

Only recently did Bush acknowledge that global warming exists and early on dropped out of the Kyoto Agreement setting "us" apart from other developed countries looking to find solutions.

The damage from the Bush and Cheney oilmen agenda will have long-lasting and dire consequences for the entire world.

Sadly, the invasion of Iraq has morally and financially bankrupted this country and had nothing to do with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — and everything to do with oil.

Gerald Lutzker is a consultant to labor unions and management benefit funds, a woodworker and a resident of Santa Fe County.