something has been bothering me for a few weeks, and as i was reading the news about the endangered polar bears this morning, it occurred to me that what’s been niggling at the back of my brain is my puzzlement over the seeming about face by the bush administration on america’s oil dependence. george’s recent declaration during the state of the union address, that america is “addicted to oil” was particularly perplexing if you consider his political stake in perpetuating petroleum consumption – common sense says you don’t bite the hand that feeds you, and bush has long played patsy to the lobbyists of the industry. not to mention the potential implications if the more controversial allegation that bush was in bed with the saudis, (who were, in turn, supporting bin laden, who then carried out the september 11th attacks over oil negotiations), is true.

i can only presume that since heretofore he’s only encouraged furthering oil consumption through supporting suv tax breaks and drilling in alaska, (and implicitly supported those industries already dependent on petroleum through his refusal to sign up to the kyoto protocol, as well as watering down official climate research results), that the sudden 180 is not inspired by any sort of sudden revelation or change of heart. the thing that confuses me is what the political motivation behind the curtain is.

bush has called for investment in alternative energy sources as a way to break our dependence on the middle east. yet only days later it emerged that the national renewable energy lab faced a $28 million shortfall due to budget cuts. he said we had to “move beyond a petroleum-based economy”. yet only days later has tripled the estimated profits that ANWR drilling would contribute to the gdp. the contradictory signals are coming fast and furious, and none of it makes sense.

none of it makes sense, that is, until you consider that the element which is missing in the equation above is “conservation”. because conservation would require people to use less and recycle more, and that spells bad news for an economy designed to be driven by consumer spending. And conservation is the one thing which bush has continually failed to call for. he’s never suggested we drive smaller cars, or make less plastic. he’s never suggested that our resources are finite, and that the environmental benefit might be a reason to wean ourselves from gas and oil. even the california electricity crisis, (a wakeup call if ever there was one, with the spectre of a country-sized state cast into darkness), was used as a call to find more fuel, not use fewer televisions.

and somehow it all now sickly makes sense. bush has no intention of saving the world – his motivation is to save his ass with those voters who blame him for spiraling energy prices and our inability to flex more muscle in the middle east. it’s another self-serving initiative which will fail spectacularly due to the inability to grasp the global implications of petroleum politics. and the fact is that no matter how many cars switch to ethanol, or houses heat by solar…as long as we continue to consume (and are encouraged to do so) at the current rate, we will always be beholden to whoever holds the most land/oil/water…

when the trickle from the tap is as precious as gold, it will all be too late. the only question is whether bush has any real interest during the rest of his term in helping to head us in the right direction before we arrive at that dead end.

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bush, oil, fuel, anwr, drilling, alaska, economy, state of the union address