Supposedly dwindling supplies of oil prompted the chants of drill, baby, drill that polluted the public discourse during the presidential election.

Did we miss something?  When oil was $147.00 per barrel, which occurred ages ago (five months as this is written) Big Oil had its army of schills screeching for relaxing environmental protections so they could help America achieve energy independence.

“Just let us at that oil that’s off limits in two miles of water all around the country, and we will rescue the country from the evil oil empires and godless communists/socialists who are holding our economy hostage.”

The chanters have fallen silent.

Did the supply of black gold suddenly increase?  No, the price of oil suddenly fell due to the world economic slowdown and decreasing demand for oil.  So, for now we don’t need to exploit those off shore oil assets.  The fact that drilling for oil in two miles of water is only economically feasible when the price is well over $100.00 per barrel has nothing to do with it.

What would the reaction be if we forced the oil companies to drill for that oil in the interests of national security, or better yet, cut them out and let the government do it.  Cries of socialism, communism, collectivism, and other denigrating isms would abound.  Oil companies are the best to judge when the time is right to gut environmental protections in the interests of energy independence, not the people or the government.

When will we need to drill, baby, drill again?  You got it, when the price goes up again.  It really has nothing to do with supply, it only has to do with price (which of course goes down when demand decreases).

So, by extrapolation, if we could decrease demand for “burning oil” to close to zero, how close to zero would the price go? 

Notice the question about burning oil.  There are lots of other things we use oil for.  Here is a video that shows some of them.

http://endependence.info/research/videos-c-1-v-59.html

The disconnect between the false “public good” signified by the oil companies wanting to drill off shore when the price is high (but not now) added to the fact that the carbon dioxide released from the oil we burn will last for up to 100,000 years add up to a “just say no” moment.

This blog post from gristmill cites evidence that the carbon we spew today will be with our kids for a mighty long time.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/12/1/103641/313#1

The decreased demand due to the recession has cut the price of a barrel of oil by 66% since July 2008.  What if we didn’t fall for the trick again?  What if we keep consumption at this level or lower when the economy starts to rebound?

How long would it be until the oil companies demand the right to drill for $30.00 per barrel oil in our off shore waters?

The law of supply and demand for burning oil can be used as a weapon in the war for endependence = energy independence that ends dependence on polluting fuels.

The hierarchy of contributions to endependence:

Personal, local community, state, federal, global.

Are you fighting the War for Endependence?