It’s time.
There are real national security concerns as to why we should move to greatly reduce our oil consumption.
The strategic necessity to use oil means the United States must spend tens of billions of dollars every year to protect the oil supply for the entire world, it funds terrorism, and it allows oil-rich nations to have enormous leverage over oil-dependent nations.
We have post-oil technology now. We should embrace it.
Today, when we send our young men and women off to war, we pat them on the back, and thank them for their service.
We throw parades and homecomings upon their successful return. We sadly salute the caskets as they go by. Then we drive down to the neighborhood gas station and fill up. And nobody makes the connection.
No one sees the irony.
Why do we continue to pour enormous resources into an area of the world that has cost us so dearly, in both human and financial terms, over the last 40 years? We do this to maintain the global oil market for the entire world.
What if we didn’t have to do this?
Seventy percent of the world’s oil is used for transportation. When the United States went to the Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991, maintaining the flow of oil was absolutely necessary for the global economy. However, with today’s rapidly changing transportation technology, it is time to revisit that notion.
Moving away from oil as the primary transportation fuel will yield enormous national security benefits.
The world would not have to buy oil from organizations and countries hostile to our way of life. We could defund the terrorists and the countries that sponsor them. We could bring our troops home from the Middle East, save lives and stop spending 81 billion dollars annually to maintain the oil infrastructure that funds those terrorists and hostile countries.
The time is now.
Technology alternatives to oil exist today.
If we don’t, the world will continue to fight wars, manage conflicts, lose thousands of lives, and spend enormous financial resources to maintain the status quo. It’s time to admit that. It’s also time to change.