Headlines provide yet more reasons to break our oil addiction

Portland Press Herald
July 19, 2006

The Middle East is again aflame. Meanwhile, most of the United States swelters under an oppressive summer heat wave.

These two events are, of course, completely unrelated. But embedded in both is a singular message: Our addiction to fossil fuels has made us vulnerable to forces beyond our command.

Neither Israel nor the Lebanese group Hezbollah controls so much as a drop of oil destined for America. But Hezbollah's decision to begin targeting Israeli cities with missile barrages - and Israel's military response - will surely be registering soon at a gas pump near you.

On Tuesday, the price of oil briefly surpassed $76 a barrel before jittery traders digested calls for a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Such is the tenuous balance between the world's supplies and demands for oil that almost any bad news translates to higher oil prices. And there's been plenty of both.

America's nation-building enterprise in Iraq has been, to be charitable, inconclusive. Rather than promote stability by example in the Middle East, the world's oil depot, it's had rather the opposite effect so far.

Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter, has seized on the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime as an opportunity to expand its influence. An all-purpose Mideast provocateur, Iran supplies money and arms to insurgents in Iraq, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip - where Israel is fighting the Palestinian group Hamas.

At the same time, leaders of the successor state to the Persian empire are defiantly researching uranium enrichment technology while threatening to disrupt world oil supplies in the event of a pre-emptive strike on its nuclear facilities.

A really, really bad day in the region could set oil on a course to meet or pass $100 a barrel, analysts now say.

Closer to home, much of the United States is roasting under temperatures that seem more appropriate for Death Valley: Saturday's 112 degrees in Chadron, Wyo., gives the flavor of it.

No reputable scientist would say this heat wave is the result of climate change. But most credible scientists do say that extreme events, like prolonged heat, extended drought and monster hurricanes, will become more frequent as the globe warms.

Many predicted effects of global warming are already occurring - warmer winters, less snow, earlier runoff, bigger wildfires, longer growing seasons, altered migration patterns, rising sea levels - the list goes on and on.

Let's be clear: Our global fossil fuel economy, now entering its second full-throttle century, is pumping the atmosphere full of carbon dioxide. CO2 may indeed be "essential to life," but like anything else, too much can kill.

We humans have more than doubled the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. If unchecked, this pollution could result in massive economic disruption in the coming century.

More recently, scientists have become alarmed that the world's oceans, once lauded for their CO2-absorbing capacity, are becoming more acidic. This isn't theory; it's measurable fact.

Falling pH levels may one day prevent marine animals from plankton and corals to lobster from being able to secrete the calcium carbonate shells necessary for their survival. Some scientists call this the single-most profound environmental change they know of.

Our children might forgive us for failing to embark on a national crash program to replace fossil fuels if we didn't understand the consequences of maintaining the status quo. Political obstinacy will not be an adequate excuse.

What can Maine do? We can start by embracing wind power. That means Mainers will have to accept wind turbines as a symbol of our connection to the land, much as we do lobster boats, rather than as an eyesore.

We can support state efforts to invest in biomass generators that burn wood fiber. We should aggressively investigate research into cellulosic ethanol, which might replace some of the gasoline we burn in our cars.

We should engage in a nonemotional debate - to the extent that we can - about the future of nuclear power, which at this point is the only non-fossil fuel energy source large enough to serve as a bridge to the hydrogen economy. The consequences of radiologic contamination are very real, but so are the consequences of a runaway greenhouse climate.

Most of all, we have to commit to think differently and to steel ourselves to act differently. Staying the course is not an option.

History shows that societies that fail to adapt, perish.

Theo Stein is an editorial writer for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram and can be contacted at 791-6481 or:

tstein@pressherald.com