Oil Crisis Over

[duckmeat]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: PVVikeFan</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Finally we have a politician with some REAL vision and wisedom.

B. HUSSEIN Obama has come up with the solution to our current energy crisis.

It seems that all we have to do is properly inflate our tires and keep our vehicles tuned up. He made the statement that we can save more oil than would be produced by increased offshore drilling simply by keeping proper tire pressure. And we can save that much again by keeping our vehicles tuned up. WOW. What a "leader". If we turn off the lights in Duffield we may be able
to stop importing oil all together.

Go ahead and vote for him. But don't come around crying later. </div></div>

How out of touch is Barack Obama? He's so out of touch that he suggested that if all Americans inflated their tires properly and took their cars for regular tune-ups, they could save as much oil as new offshore drilling would produce. Gleeful Republicans have made this their daily talking point; Rush Limbaugh is having a field day; and the Republican National Committee is sending tire gauges labeled "Barack Obama's Energy Plan" to Washington reporters.

But who's really out of touch? The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.

Politics ain't beanbag, and Obama has defended himself against worse smears. The real problem with the attacks on his tire-gauge plan is that efforts to improve conservation and efficiency happen to be the best approaches to dealing with the energy crisis "? the cheapest, cleanest, quickest and easiest ways to ease our addiction to oil, reduce our pain at the pump and address global warming. It's a pretty simple concept: if our use of fossil fuels is increasing our reliance on Middle Eastern dictators while destroying the planet, maybe we ought to use less.

The RNC is trying to make the tire gauge a symbol of unseriousness, as if only the fatuous believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil without doing the bidding of Big Oil. But the tire gauge is really a symbol of a very serious piece of good news: we can use significantly less energy without significantly changing our lifestyle. The energy guru Amory Lovins has shown that investment in "nega-watts" "? reduced electricity use through efficiency improvements "? is much more cost-effective than investment in new megawatts, and the same is clearly true of nega-barrels. It might not fit the worldviews of right-wingers who deny the existence of global warming and insist that reducing emissions would destroy our economy, or of left-wing Earth-firsters who insist that maintaining our creature comforts would destroy the world, but there's a lot of simple things we can do on the demand side before we start rushing to ratchet up supply.

We can use those twisty carbon fluorescent lightbulbs. We can unplug our televisions, computers and phone chargers when we're not using them. We can seal our windows, install more insulation and adjust our thermostats so that we waste less heat and air-conditioning. We can use more-efficient appliances, build more-efficient homes and drive more-efficient cars, preferably with government assistance. And, yes, we can inflate our tires and tune our engines, as Republican governors Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Charlie Crist of Florida have urged, apparently without consulting the RNC. While we're at it, we can cut down on idling, which can improve fuel economy another 5%, and cut down on speeding and unnecessary acceleration, which can increase mileage as much as 20%.

And that's just the low-hanging fruit. There are other ways to reduce demand for oil "? more public transportation, more carpooling, more telecommuting, more recycling, less exurban sprawl, fewer unnecessary car trips, buying less stuff and eating less meat "? that would require at least some lifestyle changes. But things like tire gauges can reduce gas bills and carbon emissions now, with little pain and at little cost and without the ecological problems and oil-addiction problems associated with offshore drilling. These are the proverbial win-win-win solutions, reducing the pain of $100 trips to the gas station by reducing trips to the gas station. And Americans are already starting to adopt them, ditching SUVs, buying hybrids, reducing overall gas consumption. It's hard to see why anyone who isn't affiliated with the oil industry would object to them.

Of course, in recent years, the Republican Party has been affiliated with the oil industry. It was the oilman [richard] Cheney who dismissed conservation as a mere sign of "personal virtue," not a basis for energy policy. It was the oilman George W. Bush who resisted efforts to regulate carbon emissions. And most congressional Republicans have been even more reliable water carriers for the industry's interests.

John McCain has been a notable exception. He is not an oilman; he has pushed to regulate carbon emissions; and he opposed Bush's pork-stuffed energy bill, which Obama supported. He also opposed efforts to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and until recently opposed new offshore drilling. But now that gas prices have spiked, McCain is running for President on a drill-first platform, and polls suggest that most Americans agree with him. It's sad to see his campaign adopting the politics of the tire gauge, promoting the fallacy that Americans are powerless to address their own energy problems. Because the truth is: Yes, we can. We already are.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/ar...0.html?cnn=yes

Drill where ever- but face it if we are gonna get away from the ME oil we will need to build plants, with tax dollars , to make gas from coal.

[duckmeat]

There really isn't a short term solution here except for what Mr. Obama proposed.

The best solution is to just get away from oil all together I believe, as long and a painful process as that will be.

[PVVikeFan]

I found it kind of amusing the way B. Hussein kept telling us how McCain would carry on the failed Bush energy policy. He ripped the administration for tax breaks given to the big oil companies. The TRUTH, as it turned out, is that B. Hussein voted FOR the very policy he was damning while McCain voted AGAINST it.
Seems to me like B. Hussein is having a small problem with the facts. And with the TRUTH.

[sup-rbeast]

They both do...

[PVVikeFan]

The "Change We Can Believe In" slogan amounts to changing the facts to make you believe a lie. The only thing B. Hussein has going for him is a staff of VERY GOOD speach writers. Without a script to read he is fairly helpless. Probably the reason for turning down numerous invitations to appear on The Factor. MOST DEFINATELY the reason he is AFRAID to face McCain in a Town Hall Debate setting. Even Hillary Clinton said he was not ready to be President and that McCain would be a better choice. But of course she has to do her duty now and back B. Hussein even though she knows he is not fit to hold the office.

[sup-rbeast]

Same could be said of the things the GOP candidates said of McCain during their primaries...it's politics.

[PVVikeFan]

I don't recall any of them saying somebody from THE OTHER PARTY would make a better president. Since you seem to support B, Hussein, if he loses, and God help us if he doesn't, you should just donate more of your paycheck to the IRS each week. And if you think he would not raise your taxes DRASTICALLY you have lost touch. Just listen to some of his ideas. Seems like he favors free everything for everybody. Who pays for it?? His idea if giving the American public an "energy rebate" with a windfall profits tax on oil companies is just plain STUPID. They simply raise prices to offset the tax, so who is actually paying the tax??? The man has ABSOLUTELY NO EXPERIENCE that could possibly qualify him for the office. You probably don't realize that he has raised almost $1,000,000 PER DAY in pork barrell spending since being elected to the Senate. Of course that seems to go with the territory in that party these days. The Democratic party wants to see gas prices hit at least 6 bucks so they can try to move us away from oil. We do need to reduce our oil dependency but not at the price of our economy.

[BlueWahooChambordDevil]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: PVVikeFan</div><div class="ubbcode-body">It just blows my mind that a man running for President of the United States would actually make such a statement. But I could say the same thing if a 3rd grader made the same statement. It seems like a little Al Gore has rubbed off on him. </div></div>
hes an absolute joke

i swear to god if he gets elected.......im going to canada and leaving my passport at the border

hes the worst possible option right now

we would be better off voting for mickey mouse

[sup-rbeast]

Once I start bringing in $100,000 per year, I'll start worrying about my taxes being raised drastically...which isn't happening any time soon. You guys are delusional if you think 4 more years of our current policies won't put our country in depression.