AltEnToday

“C’mon guys, you know you want a little more of the good stuff. One more hit, baby. Just one more toke on the ole oil pipe. I promise, next year, we’ll all go straight. I’ll even put a wind turbine on my presidential library. But for now, give me one more pop from that drill, please, baby. Just one more transfusion of that sweet offshore crude.” ~ Thomas Friedman, quoting a theoretical George W. Bush

Thomas Friedman, the controversial and insightful commentator and author of the widely popular The World is Flat, has apparently taken quite a position on alternative energy in America. And frankly, I tend to agree with him on many of his points. This column, titled, Mr. Bush, Lead or Leave was one of his latest forays in to the world of energy commentary and policy.

This latest column is thought provoking in the fact that he points out the troubling reality of what we’re hearing from our political leadership. Our addiction to oil is our fault after all - not that anyone in Washington wants you to remember these pesky details. The New Deal - the revitalization of America - also included our national transportation infrastructure… Providing networks of roads for military vehicles and guess what else? The colossal American automotive culture was born and reinforced time and again. In James Howard Kunstler’s The Long Emergency, he describes the world we’ve created of strip malls and suburbs (growing further and further outward) as a terrible misallocation of resources - and I’d tend to agree with him (although, truthfully, not to the depth and despair that he elocutes).

But, before I tangent too far, I’d just like to say that I agree with Mr. Friedman. I hope that our collective national leadership (including public, private, and media) can steer the conversation towards the future of American prosperity, and past our excellent but short-lived affair with oil.