Future U.S. policy must be green
I’m sick of Republicans twisting energy facts to fit their agenda. Since World War II, it’s been U.S. policy to maintain a military capable of winning wars on multiple fronts simultaneously against near-peer nations. This means maintaining dominance with a whole lot of jets, tanks, and warships.
For example, the U.S. Air Force has the most aircraft in the world. Russia is second. The U.S. Army is third. The U.S. Navy is fourth. China is fifth. India is sixth. The U.S. Marine Corps is seventh. Our military has more aircraft than the next five nations combined, and that’s just aircraft. Jets, tanks, and warships have one thing in common: They need fuel, lots of it, and it comes from oil.
While we have the world’s largest gas-guzzling military, the U.S. only has 2.1% of global reserves. We’re not even in the top 10. Because we’re so oil-poor, it’s been longstanding policy to preserve domestic fuel capacity and use up the rest of the world’s oil first; feed ourselves while starving the enemy. That’s why we’re so close with the Saudis, who rank second with 16.2%. It’s why the CIA has constantly interfered with first-place Venezuela’s self-governance since the ’60s, and participated in ninth-place Libya’s coup in 2011. It’s why we fought in fifth-place Iraq and sixth-place Kuwait, and why we maintain a domestic strategic petroleum reserve.
Maintaining our position as a world power is completely dependent on unsustainable resources in other countries. See the problem here? Increasing domestic oil production only hastens the fall of our empire. Oil that’s burned up in your daily commute is oil that can’t fuel jets, tanks, and warships. Meanwhile, a few weeks ago, the most expensive energy auction in history resulted in private companies willingly paying $4.37 billion for access to wind energy off the coast of New York and New Jersey.
Environmental reasons aside, the U.S. is the land of the almighty dollar. That bid wouldn’t have happened if those companies weren’t going to make billions as a result. Future U.S. policy must be green. The shift to renewables keeps us a global superpower, period. Sure, carbon taxes and climate treaties are a tree-hugger’s dream, but they’re also effectively sanctions that prevent our competitors from accessing oil reserves. And of course, there’s the systemic rabbit hole of climate refugees swarming our borders, disappearing potable water supplies, food insecurity, etc. They can’t be avoided at this point, but could still be limited. Complaints about lacking perfect green technology or high gas prices are moot.
It’s not like the hippies have warned us for 60 years while we sat around and did nothing, right?
Justin Sims
Uniontown