Drill Baby Drill

It’s easy to blame BP’s gulf oil spill on irresponsible profit-hungry corporations and the politicians that do their bidding. This includes the republicans (above video) enthusiastically cheering “Drill Baby Drill!”

It also includes the democrats – President Obama campaigned against republican oil enthusiasm:

Then, once in office, wrongheadedly embraced expansion of offshore drilling:

I also want to point out that the L.A. Times, which has been a very good source of up to the minute reporting on the gulf oil spill, recently editorialized in favor offshore drilling – covered by Jessica Hall here at Creek Freak. Here are a couple excerpts from the L.A. Times editorial:

It’s time to let go of the past — the past 40 years — and allow some offshore drilling. It’s about the principle as much as the production. And it also could be about principal: California’s governor could follow the example of Louisiana’s and demand state royalties for drilling in federal waters.

Environmentally, drilling is much safer than in 1969. There are new technologies.

Then goes on to conclude with:  

We’re anxiously awaiting our next transportation mode. Meanwhile, we’ll need to keep pumping gas — some of it from the Santa Barbara Channel.

It all sounds pretty hollow now.

The solutions? I don’t have all the answers, but I would using our collective shock and despair over the oil spill to commit ourselves to reducing demand for all this oil. Step away from the car. Ride a bike. Walk. Take the bus or the train.

I don’t think that everyone can bike for every trip tomorrow… but there are lots of short trips that are very bikeable. 40% of U.S. commute trips are 2 miles or less, and 90% of these are taken by car. If you’re interested in helping shift to less car-addicted lifestyle, try putting a map on your wall with a circle around your home, showing a 1-mile and/or 2-mile radius. Then use that map to remind us take the local trips by bicycling or walking. Get involved in making your neighborhood more bike- and pedestrian-friendly.

A couple more videos to  help with this – first a beautifully-hip corporate-sponsored challenge to bike those shorter trip:

Then a clever humorous look at why we should take a bike instead:

Good luck to us all. We’re going to need it.

(There’s a lot more to write about all this…  I suggest creek freak readers also read Mark Gold’s recent excellent recent piece Paradise Lost at Spouting Off.)