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I have children. I understand wanting their future to be brighter than ours, I really do. But this malarky about not drilling and using American oil reserves, or America’s other fuel reserves is really beginning to get on my nerves.

I understand the concept that has prevented drilling in ANWAR. Somehow, we got it in our heads that caribou and their continued existence was more important than our own. Seriously, i think we need to take a new look at environmentalism and figure out what it really means.

We are currently theonly species on the planet that worries about the deaths of other species. Nothing else cares. Cats don’t care if you eliminate all the mice in the world. They’ll change their breeding habits and produce fewer kittens as the food wans, but they won’t actually build habitats for the mice. This is, in large aprt, what makes us a higher life form.

However, aprt of being a higher life form is also being rational. Chief Joseph once said soemthing along the lines of what becomes of the animals of the forest soon happens to man. As mucha s I respect the sentiment and propose management of our fellow species, I do not think we need to put the needs of caribou, or any other animal, above the needs of humans.

We’re not, you say. We have to change the way we live for future generations of humans. Yup, heard the arguments, saw the movie. Read Michael Crichton’s fictional response too and somehow his fiction seems as logical as some environmentalists’ facts. The simple truth is that we are choosing saing the environment over ourselves.

I won’t even argue the quality of life issue, that one I leave to individuals to decide. What I will argue is the advancement of the species– man will cease toe volve and adapt if he ceases to use the tools placed around him. Do you remember your basic evolution instruction from school?  Primates are separated from other animals because we are tool users, but now, we are figuratively cutting off our thumbs and preventing ourselves from using the tools that we have developed.

We know that there are huge reserves of oil and coal in American lands, but we won’t use the coal because it contains sulfur and might produce acid rain. We won’t drill for oil because it mgiht spill and destroy the arctic tundra where almost nothing lives anywhere. We won’t build nuclear plants because there might be another Chernobyl.

Nobody officially wants to call for a return to the pioneer days of raising our own food on individual plots of land, but they may as well have. People want me to think about the carbon footprint created when I eat bananas from honduras, grapes from Chile and salmon from the Pacific Northwest. Apparently, they want me to give up modern medicine (requires the use of plastics made from oil and chemicals that create life-saving drugs), culture (who has time for it when you break your back every day raising organic tomatoes), book and newspapers (petroleum-based inks) and dozens of other things I cannot begin to list. They also want me (and you) to give up electricity since there is absolutely no way to produce enough power through sustainable means to power the national electric grid.

Where is the common human decency?  Do these environmentalists not understand that the poor will be the first to suffer? It’s not like the rich will be going without heating oil or electricity or gas.

Worse yet, these same environmentalists call for new innovation to solve the problem of using fossil fuels to run our lives, but they seem to be forgetting that innovation generally requires education. And, by this fall, some school districts are considering eliminating school buses due to the high cost of gas.

So what if some kids an’t get here. That’s one less test we have to grade. And, rapidly, much faster than any climate change might be occuring on the planet, the education level of the American youngster drops. Likewise, the economy and standard of living drop and suddenly only those capable of the back breaking labor of a family farm or those who are already wealthy survive.

Enough already. Survival of the fittest should be something that we have overcome through a higher consciousness, but these insipid little games with our resources are dragging us back to the not so good old days. I don’t want my children to live there. I want them to live in a bustling modenr world with high-powered gadgets and the ability to survive common childhood ailments.

So, instead of having to have those children reinvent civilization after we blow it, couldn’t we just drill for oil now and let them reap the rewards?

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