Drill, Drill, Damn You!

To drill, or not to drill? This week, President Bush has resolved this dilemma in a predictable manner: by giving the starting signal to the new era of oil exploration along the U.S. coast.

As if feeling nostalgic for his life as an oil explorer in Texas, Bush now hopes to squeeze the last drop of black gold in the 50 states of the Union and to say goodbye to his fellow countrymen with an apocalyptic slogan: “Drill, drill, damn you!”

While in Europe–where we are still paying up to three times more per liter of gasoline–there is talk of efficiency and of renewable energy (we leave the nuclear option for another occasion), Americans can only think of what can be done to lower the price of a gallon [of gas], including prayers at the gas stations.

“Goodbye, from the world’s largest polluter!” was the graceful way in which George W. Bush bid farewell at the recent G-8 summit. Three years ago, in a surprising attack of honesty, the president acknowledged his compatriots’ “addiction” to crude oil, but everything he has done since then has been to encourage such addiction, and to go to bat for the oil companies, which contributed so generously to his rise to power.

With a “black hand,” Bush has, for over six months now, instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to continue to question climate change and to continue to postpone any attempts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Arnold Schwarzenegger has dared to denounce his audacity and to even give him classes in “Americanism”: “We can not wait for others to show us the way or to do what we should have done for ourselves.”

Even oil magnate T. Boone Pickens has asked Bush to change course: “The only way to reduce our foreign dependency is to invest in American technology and in alternative sources of energy.”

California, Arizona and New Mexico are now setting the course, but the rest of the country is mired in the age of “wells of ambition” (whose original title was “There will be blood”). During a recent trip from east to west, it was more than one thousand miles before we saw the first wind turbines or solar panels from the road. States such as South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma and large parts of Texas live with their backs to the wind and to the sun, buffeted by the perpetual ghosts of the Big Depression.

“The American life style is not negotiable,” were Bush’s–the father–historic words at the Rio summit. Bush, the son, now says the same, only using different words: “It’s time for Congress to address the pain that high gas prices are causing Americans.” That’s all, folks.