Drill Baby Drill

Some people are pitching an old idea with a new mantra.

Cameras panning the hall at the recent Republican National Convention captured an astounding scene of frenzied faithful chanting "drill, baby, drill!!!" - with xenophobic fervor.

Although there was an uncomfortably delivered and hollow seventh-grade-student-council response to calls for an all-inclusive energy policy - Palin's "like we don't know that already"line - the message was clear: if Republicans are elected in the fall, oil and gas interests will continue to drive our energy policy.

For those with short memories, that's what got us to where we are today.

George W. Bush famously stated in his January 2006 State of the Union Address that we (the United States) are addicted to oil. In a rare moment, his words rang true. So if in fact we are addicted to oil, wouldn't a policy of "drill, baby, drill" be like the drug addict who thinks the solution to all of his problems is better access to heroin closer to home?

Thomas Friedman, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times, has an interesting take on the "drill, baby, drill" chant. He likens it to a group, on the eve of the information technology (IT) revolution, chanting "typewriters, baby, typewriters."

Friedman predicts that America's economic place in the world over the next few decades will be determined by how well we innovate with green technology - not by how much more oil we can exhume from our beachfronts and natural parks.

Check out his article on the subject; it's an interesting and thought-provoking read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/opinion/14friedman.html