Month 6, Day 5: We Cannot Afford This Kind Of Cheap.

The Chicago Tribune ran the same AP story, but they handled it a little differently. Since they’re not a Murdoch paper I felt more comfortable using words of more than one syllable.

The destruction of the Gulf of Mexico makes it clear: fossil fuels are far more expensive than we think. Years of extensive government subsidies to the oil industry kept prices artificially low, and “externalities” like environmental destruction, health effects, expensive wars and catastrophic climate change are never figured into the price we pay at the pump. That must change if we are to survive and prosper. President Obama is absolutely correct: we can procrastinate no longer when it comes to building a clean energy future. When nay-sayers claim that getting off fossil fuels entirely is “unrealistic,” they forget two important facts: first, America has a long history of solving difficult problems with creativity and gusto — and we’ll create a renewable energy system with the same spirit. Second, the devastated Gulf of Mexico makes an irrefutable case that continuing to depend on oil is more than “unrealistic.” It’s suicidal.

Warren Senders