A new debate on an old problem

The proposals spelled out in President Obama’s speech at Georgetown, last Wednesday on lessening the nations dependency on oil from aboard is an encouraging one. It is also a topic that has been repeated multiple times throughout different presidencies. But even with the cry for the American people to become more energy efficient as a nation, we still have not cut our ties with foreign oil.
Thinking back to it, during the Bush administration, the talk of the US people becoming energy efficient was on the drilling up in Alaska and taking oil from this country. This obviously got knocked down, and even still did not address our addiction with oil. As the Bush Administration moved out of the White House, and the Obama Administration moved in the focus has shifted to looking at cleaner energy, instead of having the focus primarily on drilling. That was the focus of the conversation at Georgetown University.
After reading the reviews of the speech, I could not help but think of Will Steger’s speech last week on climate change, and how he talks to climate skeptics on climate change, especially when it comes to fossils fuels, and how he frames the problem more in terms of security. Reading Obama’s speech our energy problems were frame again as a security matter, but more so as an economic solution. Obama’s plan would have it so that trucks would be more fuel efficient, higher fuel efficiency for cars, and possible drilling for natural gases and oil, and a possibility of opening up nuclear plants for energy. He made the claims that even though the on starts of these programs are going to be high they would create jobs. And the investments made now will be paid off in the future.
The interesting thing about Obama’s speech is the fact that Obama mentioned the option of drilling in this country for oil and natural gases. Something I thought we were trying to get away from. This new approach, in my mind is a way to gain support of both sides of the political spectrum, those on the political right who are more in favor of drilling in this country, and those on the left who are more open to alternative energy sources.