To hear President Obama and the green members of his administration tell it, all America has to do to achieve energy independence and end global warming is to stop using carbon-based fuels like oil, natural gas and coal, and instead use “clean” energy from solar, biomass, wind and other alternative sources.
Would that it were so easy.
The reality is that America uses the most energy among the nations of the world, but we also produce vastly more goods and services than all the others, and we do it more efficiently and cleanly.
To achieve that enviable position, we rely almost, though not quite, exclusively on those carbon-based fuels, and will continue to for many decades, even under the most optimistic “alternative future” scenarios.
That doesn’t mean we should not develop alternative sources. But it does mean we simply cannot afford to restrict America’s ability to find, develop and produce our own incredibly abundant supplies of old energy sources now as we accelerate making new sources commercially viable and consumer-friendly, preferably without government subsidies.
The problem is Obama and his allies in Congress, the environmental movement, and the mainstream media see the problem in black-or-white, either-or terms: Either we go green now as quickly as possible, or the world faces Apocalypse Now.
In the pages that follow, The Washington Examiner in conjunction with the Institute for Energy Research, a Washington-based think tank, lays out the parameters of this stark choice. Put most simply, stifling old energy sources with more government regulation is the road to political, economic and social ruin.
The wisest course for the long term is moving forward as rapidly as possible to increase our energy supplies from all sources by freeing our private sector to make that happen in the most effective possible manner.
Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner.
