End of OIl

As a part-time resident of the upper Wenatchee Valley, and in the interest of keeping abreast of activities in Leavenworth, Washington, I subscribe to The Leavenworth Echo. One of my favorite sections in the paper is the "letters to the editor."

Most of the letters are what you would expect: local citizen thanks VFW for pancake breakfast fundraiser, middle school principal acknowledges teachers for another fine year, and the like. Some letters, however, bring out the "flat earthers." You know, those neo-conservatives who think George W. (Worstever) Bush is doing a great job as President of the United States.

Subjects can range wildly over the complete spectrum of issues. Here is a sampling of one that appeared a couple of weeks ago:

"We should be using our own domestic sources of oil instead of dabbling with dubious alternatives. Most liberals will try to sell you on the idea that the world is not running out of oil -- this is not the reality of the situation. There is enough oil in the world for the next hundred years at the current rates of consumption. In reality, the world is awash in oil, there is no shortage. The answers are that our liberal Congress pressured by environmental extremists have prevented the United States from drilling its own vast domestic oil resources in ANWR and off the west coast."

Most of the time, I just bite my tongue, but this time I couldn't resist. I fired my retort off to the editor of The Echo the following week.

"I was quite amused by the letter in the April 23 edition of The Leavenworth Echo. The really stunning part is that the editor apparently agrees (with the writer). Scientists everywhere agree that the end of oil is nigh. The question is whether it will result in a whimper in decades hence, or in a bang much sooner. You boys need to wake up and smell the petroleum while you still can."

Now, unfortunately, the editor of The Echo has this annoying habit of responding to letters in the same issue. I will abbreviate his rebuttal somewhat to spare you all his "ad nauseum" points.

"You're right, John, you can count me on the list of doubters who think we are running out of oil. What we are running out of is vision and courage. We are running short on the vision to challenge the radical environmentalists who have prevented us from drilling for new undiscovered reserves. I have no doubt that if we expanded our drilling efforts off shore, we would find more oil. And if we developed the oil in ANWR, the Colorado and Canadian oil fields, we could probably tell OPEC to keep its oil. But then the (scientists) would once again be proven wrong and we just couldn't have that, could we!"

My response to his response can be summarized in one word: lame. I love the fact that he needed more words to make his point than I did.