This is a guest blog by Environmental Action Internet Organizer Dan Stafford. Environmental Action was born out of the first Earth Day in 1970. With over 100,000 activists in all fifty states Environmental Action combines on the ground activists with seasoned environmental know how, to fight for the change we need, not just the change we can get.
Dan Stafford has worked with Environmental Action since May of 2005, having spent the previous ten years working as a field organizer for various state and national eco groups from coast to coast. Dan is currently based in Denver, and you can keep up with his tirades at www.environmental-action.org/blog
My friends at Progressive Future have asked me to guest blog over here to talk about the reality that as we celebrate our independence from Great Britain 232 years ago we find ourselves wholly dependent on another form of tyranny, namely, oil.
There is no doubt about it, our country is painfully addicted to the nasty black stuff, and it's going to bring us down as a nation unless we break free, not just from foreign oil, but from all oil.
Now some people are saying that the solution to our oil crisis is to drill for more oil off the U.S. coast. As Jon Stewart pointed out on the Daily Show last week, that's like a coke addict saying, "I have a cocaine problem. I’m out of cocaine. What say we turn the kids’ rooms into cocaineries." God love Jon Stewart.
Here's the reality. We are terribly addicted to an energy source that is literally choking us. Drilling for oil is dirty, dangerous and unpredictable. Shipping oil is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Both drilling and shipping lead to massive oil spills that
choke the environment and poison our people. Processing and burning the stuff leads to global warming. There's not a single aspect to oil that is good, unless you're a shareholder with ExxonMobil.
There's a reason the movie was called, 'There Will Be Blood', and not 'There Will Be Happiness'.
And frankly, I've had it up to here with oil getting a free ride. In 1776 the founding leaders of our country declared their independence from an unfair and unjust ruler, and while the names have changed - from King George of England to CEO Rex Tillerson of ExxonMobil, the offensives conducted by each are shockingly similar, and I'd like to take a moment to make some comparisons:
He [King George] has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good
Big oil repeatedly flaunt the environmental laws of the United States of America - from oil spill clean up requirements to safety regulations on their pipelines.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance
Between 1990 and 2008, the oil and gas industry has contributed $219 million to federal political campaigns.
Recipients of these funds repeatedly hold up or squash legislation in the Congress that would be negative to big oil
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice
It's estimated the big oil receives $15-35 billion in subsidies every year from the government. The EPA's requested budget for 2008 was $7.2 billion. Where's the justice?
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power
Iraq? Anybody?
He has made Judges dependent on his will alone
A couple weeks ago the Supreme Court determined that the 33,000 Alaskans most affected by the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 (largest in U.S. history) would receive $15,000 each in
compensation for loss of health and work capabilities - that's about $750 for each year since the disaster
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people
When Katrina hit, over 8 million gallons of oil were spilled into gulf waterways, and onto the land - the second largest oil spill in U.S. history. Currently, millions of acres of coastline are open to oil drilling and they want more. Last year, a carrier in the San Francisco Bay spilled more than 50,000 gallons of oil, killing hundreds of birds and fish. The list, sadly, goes on and on.
The bottom line is that over the last century we have slowly but surely become intertwined with a new tyrant - big oil, and it's time for another revolution. It's time for a clean energy revolution. And, just like for our founders more than two hundred
years ago, there are solutions to our problems. Clean cars, public transit, alternative fuels, and renewable energy sources to name a few. But before we can implement these solutions, we need to, metaphorically, stop quibbling about the price of tea, and declare
our independence from oil.
I encourage you all to join in the fight, engage in the battle, and join the revolution by declaring your independence from big oil - declare it in the choices you make in every day life, declare it to your elected officials at July 4th events this weekend, and
declare it at the ballot box in November. We've got a great system here in the U.S., and it's time we made it work. I'll end with some one of the most beautiful passages from the
Declaration of Independence, and wish you all a happy Independence Day.
"In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose
character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler
of a free people."
