Let's Use ALL the Oil as Fast as We Can.

135-Minutes of Commute: Stand to the Side - Talib Kweli
I wanna write away
I wanna write here
I wanna write brave words to fight fear
Write dreams and nightmares
Might scare the folks stuck in the day
But nothing to say,
Well I'm way ahead by light years
So beware we keep the lights on
I wanna write the songs from right to wrong
Right on
Riding the light so you see in the dark
So deep you gotta be still like your beating heart
My words apply the pressure to make the bleeding stop
See the art, living right, eating smart
I wanna right to life, a right to death

It is not uncommon for me to see recently dismembered animals lying in my path on my way to and from work. At least once a week I swerve around a small stiff carcass. (Once I encountered one smack in the middle of the road near a cemetery that is the very reincarnation of my vision of Stephen King's Pet cemetery and I as I let it pass between my wheels I wondered briefly if it would rise from the dead, grab onto my undercarriage, and somehow burrow its way through the floor of my car as I drove 50mph.) One week I passed a beheaded deer 4 days in a row, and watched as its clearly exposed neck turned from bright red to mealy dirt. Whether I see more of them in the summer because people are driving more and subsequently hitting more animals, or because I have more sunlight with which to see, is moot. These bodies always leave me with an unsavory feeling inside. "Obviously," you think to yourself, but no. The feeling, I knew, was not due to the gruesome views, but what? Finally, yesterday, as I drove between the head of some rodent, perhaps a raccoon, (on my left) and its body a few yards down the road (on my right), I began to think about what havoc we homosapiens have wrought on mother nature.

In elementary school and Jr. High I was so concerned about the environment. This concern was partially due to a constant awareness of environmental issues, as drilled into my head by public school teachers. But I think I also genuinely cared. It made sense to me to try to save the environment. I turned off all the lights in my house whenever I felt they were unnecessary and took showers as quickly as possible. Today, I continue to follow these actions, but only because it keeps my heat and electricity bills down. I don't even know when earth day is!Where did this awareness go? I'm sure you can find it in a lockbox in Bush's oval office.

Two days ago the NYTimes published an article discussing an energy bill that is about to be passed, an energy bill that is years overdue.

"While the authors of the energy legislation said it held the potential to transform the way the United States produces and consumes energy, other lawmakers and critics attacked it as a wrongheaded giveaway at a time of huge energy company profits. They said it represented a missed opportunity to take serious steps to reduce the nation's reliance on imported oil or to cut American energy consumption."

It is ridiculous that the way Americans measure how successful an energy bill is is through the cost of gasoline. Europeans are paying twice as much as we are for gas. If Americans had to pay more for gas, I bet we wouldn't be so wasteful, buying inefficient trucks and SUVs, and driving for every little thing (perhaps we could lower the national average weight just by increasing gas prices! Oh the walking that would be done. Well, either walking or Texans else will be moving to cheaper pastures in droves). Luckily, there was one tiny voice of reason in the article:

" 'It's outrageous that this bill helps line the pockets of the oil and gas industry, which is already making record profits,' said Tiernan Sittenfeld, legislative director of the League of Conservation Voters. "

While not exactly what I was getting at, it is a good point nonetheless. And it bolsters my (not well-proven but nonetheless valid) point that Americans need to wake up, smell the foreign coffees we cherish, understand that G8 summit is called for a reason, and stop destroying our home.