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Two hundred and thirty-two years ago, our forefathers and foremothers brought forth a new nation, a nation that had divorced itself from onerous ties to another nation. Great Britain was using its American colonies, as colonial powers usually do, as its own royal cash cow. We didn’t sever ties with Britain because she insisted on appointing royal governors, or because George the Third’s profile was on the coins.
We severed ties because Britain was making us pay through the nose for tea, sugar, and other staples of life.
Fast-forward to 2008.
Other nations in the world are now forcing the United States, now a world power in its own right, to pay through the nose for another staple of life - oil. Not so long ago, President Bush rightly called our dependence on oil an addiction.
But instead of ‘dissolving our bonds’ with these oil-wealthy nations (and with the multi-national oil companies that perform their bidding), we dither and dither some more about how to get more oil from them, pleading with them to increase their production, to keep our unhealthy addiction going for a little while longer.
We know that our addiction is unhealthy for us, because it is causing our economy to tank; but it is also unhealthy for our planet. We know the planet is getting feverish, and we know why. And we know what we have to do about it.
We should not be drilling into sensitive wilderness areas or the deep ocean floor for a few more drops of our drug of choice; we should not be destroying more mountains in the Appalachian states or the far west to wrest coal, even dirtier and more harmful to the environment, out of the ground ... substituting one drug for a more harmful one.
Becoming energy independent while being sensitive to our economic and the planet’s environmental needs is tricky, but it can be done. The first step ... one we should all be taking every single day ... is conservation. This holiday weekend, take a few minutes and do something to button up your house, whether it’s as simple as spraying sealant around your home leaks - usually around holes in your walls such as electric outlets, pipes, and duct work - or whether you want to spend a day laying new insulation.
Before you leave for that picnic or festival, turn off all your appliances by unplugging them at the source.
Or do what you need to do to make your car more efficient ... make sure your tire pressure is correct, change your oil, check your air filter, remove all the junk from your trunk.
Let’s make this independence day the beginning of true independence for us, and for our posterity, by starting the process of eliminating our oil and fossil fuel addiction. One step at a time.
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