COLUMNIST: EXAMINING THE ENERGY SHORTAGE

The television news lately has been warning us that we are coming to an end of our supply of oil. The news is that we have nearly depleted our oil supplies. We are perhaps facing a time when the prices of gas and anything that is an oil by-product will be in short supply. Electricity is one of the things we will be able to produce less of.

The powers that be are considering releasing the oil that has been held in reserve for use in emergency situations. The powers that be see this as a solution. It will be a temporary one at best.

Seems like I remember an energy crisis back in the early seventies. We decided we would overcome this by using less energy. We sealed all the factory and office windows; we created sick building syndrome. We turned off all the lights in stores when the stores closed. We shut down streetlights. Some cities even stopped decorating with lights at Christmas.

All the solutions we have come up with are simply temporary at best, harmful at worst. We have known for decades how to produce energy without using oil. Anything that is produced using oil can be produced without using oil.

For years now farmers have been unable to grow hemp in the United States. Hemp is a very useful plant. It can be used to produce anything that now comes from oil. Soybeans are also a useful alternative to oil products.

We have known for a very long time how to produce electricity from the wind. We have known how to use electricity to run just about anything that needs power. The electricity can be produced from wind. Good, clean, free wind.

We have known for a very long time how to heat our homes by sunlight. Good, clean, free sunlight.

Could it possibly be that the fact that these sources are free that is the problem? Hmm, could be.

America has always been a country whose people believed in progress. We have always been in love with new advances. We have gone from steamboats to transport goods, to railroad, to diesel powered trucks. If you will read history you will find that each of these advances caused some people to loose fortunes, and others to make fortunes. We have always just accepted that as the price we pay for progress.

But that was before the people who had invested in the obsolete had the power to influence the government that controls such things. The ones who produce plastic are the ones behind the laws that forbid the growing of hemp. The ones that produce oil and gasoline are the ones that are behind the slow advance in developing products that can be made from alternative methods.

Our government is only a reflection of the people. We have let our government become a self-perpetuating monster. We have created a government that is no longer controlled by the masses. We have become lazy and unconcerned. Most of us have lost our voice; we have given our voice to the big producers, the ones with the money.

Releasing our stores of oil is not the total solution. It may ease the current crisis, but sometime in the future we will run out of oil. There will be no more reserves to tap. We will have taken all the oil mother earth has for us. What then?

We need to use the technology that we have had for so long to use other sources for energy besides oil. It is time to advance beyond the need for oil. Yes, some will lose fortunes, some will make fortunes. That is life in all its pain and all its glory.

The American Indians warned us long ago that we were putting our very existence in danger by not honoring Mother Earth. We were warned that all things are connected. The idea is that creation is like a web. At that time they were meaning a spider web, not the world wide web, but either one will give the same image. We and all creation are connected to the extent that we are all, in essence, one being. If one strand is disturbed, the whole web vibrates. If one strand is cut, the whole web is weakened. If enough strands are cut, the web collapses.

Of course we were smarter than the Indians. We were more advanced, more evolved. We knew better, or did we?