As oil prices hit a new high of $46.91 a barrel this week, you might have thought that John Kerry's $30 billion initiative to end America's dependence on oil would start to have real resonance with voters. After all, Kerry has identified one of the most important issues facing America today: Oil addiction is so severe that the United States consumes one barrel out of every seven produced in the world.
But how do you convince a U.S. electorate so completely hooked on oil than it needs to go cold turkey, or at least undergo a period of withdrawal?
I have a bold suggestion: Why not launch a national Day Without Oil?
Not long ago, I decided to give this Day Without Oil idea a try. How hard could it be? After all, I was living in Brooklyn at the time, so I'd already won half the battle; I'd leave the car parked on the street and hope I didn't pick up with a parking ticket.
My day began in the bathroom, and immediately I encountered problems. I'd have to carry off the rough-and-ready look, as oil-based products play a role in shampoo, shaving cream, deodorant, and toothpaste. There was also going to be a lot of water to clean up; my shower curtain was also an oil product.
I was going to have to make do with only limited vision, too, as both my contact lenses and plastic-lens eyeglasses came from petrochemicals. Worse still, I'd have to dress my baby son in cloth diapers instead of the normal disposable ones. (What a bad time to have made the switch to solid food!)
I left my house and encountered still more problems. All New York streets are paved with asphalt; as such, I'd have to be Spider-Man to traverse the city without setting foot on oil. Even breakfast at my local café was a problem. Eggs and coffee came courtesy of a nonstick pan and a heat-resistant glass pot -- products of the petrochemical industry. At least I could pay in cash. All credit and debit cards are oil products.
This Day Without Oil wasn't going to be the most productive day of my working life because I couldn't use the computer or the telephone, both of which depend on oil-based plastics to function. Nor could I relax and listen to music or watch a movie; CDs and DVDs also contain oil. Not to worry, I thought: I'd make the most of the problem and skip out for a round of golf. Foiled again: Golf balls contain polybutadiene, another petrochemical.
The list of oil products on which we depend to live every day of our lives goes on. Without oil there would be no plastics, nor many of the chemical-based medicines we take for granted. Perhaps most important, America would go hungry without oil: Commercial agriculture would grind to a halt without oil to run farm and food-processing machinery or to make fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides.
A national Day Without Oil, it appears, is simply too difficult to achieve. Luckily, though, America doesn't need to go cold turkey to break its addiction. It just has to learn to use less oil.
A combination of different energy strategies embraced by the Kerry campaign could make a difference in a very short time and ensure that America, and the world, retains access to ready and affordable supplies of oil for generations to come without resorting to global conflict, economic recession, or destruction of the environment.
Raising fuel-economy standards for new cars and light trucks to 40 miles per gallon could cut annual oil consumption by 1.5 million barrels a day within eight years, according the Union of Concerned Scientists, a goal that could be helped by the more widespread adoption of hybrid automobiles. Using cleaner-burning fuels such as natural gas and, yes, even nuclear power, for producing electricity in the short term would buy time for serious, government-funded projects to develop multiple sources of renewable energy -- hydrogen, photovoltaic, wind, water, and biomass -- to determine which will be competitive against oil and coal in the energy marketplace. And using new technologies such as carbon sequestration -- the method of capturing carbon dioxide from the fossil-fuel-dependent industries and storing it deep underground -- as well as establishing carbon-emissions trading markets could dramatically reduce the amount of harmful greenhouse gas that are being trapped in the atmosphere. In these ways, the United States would be establishing a sustainable energy blueprint for all the world to follow.
If that sounds a like a daunting list of “to-dos” in order to end our oil addiction and prevent an economic and environmental catastrophe, well, it is. What's more, we need to start working on them right now.
Perhaps there is no better time for America to try to live a Day Without Oil -- and fail. It would be just the wake-up call the nation needs.
Matthew Yeomans is the author of Oil: Anatomy of an Industry, published by the New Press.
