Our Addiction, Our Fault

Few have really reported about the Gulf Oil Disaster in a way that really speaks to me, until William Rivers Pitt in “Our Fault, Too.” I was standing in a café a few weeks after the Deepwater Horizon’s initial blowout, reading a bulletin asking people to boycott BP and I thought to myself ‘if people boycott BP, that would mean they drive cars, and regardless, are part of the problem.’ Pitt feels the same and I insert a large part of his article:

But here is something to remember: it's our fault, too. Yours and mine.
If you own a car, it's your fault. I own a car, so I own a share of the blame. If you own more than one car, or own some gargantuan gas-guzzling SUV, it's your fault. If you ever thought a Humvee was cool, or ever owned one, it's your fault.
If you ever voted in an election based on the high price of gasoline, it's your fault.
If you ever voted for a politician who went on to deregulate the oil industry from their seat in a committee, it's your fault. If you didn't vote to remove that person from office after they voted to deregulate such a dangerous and polluting industry, it's your fault.
If you eat food that is not grown locally, it's your fault, because your food had to be brought to you on the backs of trucks that need gasoline to travel. If you eat food grown on an industrialized farm, it's your fault, because the machines used to cultivate that food need gasoline, too. Even if you eat food that is grown organically and locally, they still use gasoline and oil, so basically nobody is safe from judgment.
If you fly on airplanes, this is your fault.
If your home has oil heat, this is your fault.
If you eat fast food, this is your fault….

This must change. Until it does, it's our fault, too.

Our addiction to oil is historic, Jon Stewart sums up the issue in this nice montage.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
An Energy-Independent Future
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America knows it has a problem with oil, and yet Congress still spends time debating where we will find the next source. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) wants to turn down oil from Canada for various reasons, we do not want to rely on foreign oil, but… alternatives simply do not take hold. It will take a catastrophic disaster to curb our driving habits, no pun, and to change our lifestyles, as we know them today.