*EDITOR’S NOTE: In the June 2006 issue of our magazine, staff writer Jeff Alexander wrote a very perceptive and predictive article in regards to America’s pending energy crisis and dependence on foreign oil. In our current atmosphere of rapidly increasing gas prices at the pump and burgeoning prices of natural gas and electricity, we feel another publication of his article for our readers is right on target. It is important that as you re-read what was in our pages of Strip Las Vegas 5 years ago, you consider the following facts found in the U.S. Geological Report of 2008 and estimates made by the Energy Information Administration:

• 3 western U.S. states are estimated to have 503 billion barrels of light, sweet oil—enough to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil; enough to fuel the American economy for 2,041 years.

• 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world—more than 2 TRILLION barrels! Inside our borders we have more oil than all the proven reserves in the world.

The questions Mr. Alexander asked and the arguments he made in 2006 for our immediate need to use our own resources are incredibly apropos today. ~Editor, Laura Michaels

First of all, let me address the environmentalist folks. They’re wrong, naïve, and have overblown ideas about man’s importance and impact on the world’s environment. They’re constantly quoting the opinions of hundreds of scientists who delight in scaring the shit out of the American people with dire predictions that we are ruining the atmosphere by burning natural gas, driving our cars, using electricity, and other sinful excesses. With their guesses, they swear man, especially American man—is surely causing global warming and pollution that will destroy not only mankind, but all the creatures on earth; even the earth itself. Interestingly, though, they fail to mention that just as many hundreds of astute scientists refute that idea and don’t believe any of their gibberish. In the face of nature, man is an insignificant blip, even when all five billion of us climb into an SUV and pour out noxious gases. One or two volcanic eruptions fill the earth’s atmosphere with more noxious gases than all of our cars together have emitted—ever. So don’t give me this environmental bullshit. Sure, it makes sense to replant our depleted forests. It makes sense to not wastefully use natural gas and electricity. It makes sense not to drive such gas-guzzling cars. It really makes sense to pressure car companies to develop cars that get great gas mileage, with engines that burn gasoline, but do not exhaust carbons into the air. If environmentalists truly believe our energy usage is fatal, then why are they still heating their homes, using their lights, refrigerators, vacuums, dishwashers, and air conditioners? Why are they driving their cars? Take away the amenities that energy usage gives us for just one month and watch how quickly their doomsday whining tunes would change. Imagine living as humans did just two thousand years ago and it will immediately give you pause. Their irritating whines would turn into pleas for industry to find oil, build refineries, erect nuclear plants and on and on. This earth which we have inhabited for such a short time has existed for millions of years. It may have had global warming and freezing thousands of times. We just don’t know. We’ve only been writing for a few thousand years. What records do we have? If you really want to scare people, make them aware that at any moment, earth could be hit by an asteroid or comet that would immediately thrust us into an Ice Age. Forget global warming! When was the last time man stopped a hurricane, a tornado, a tsunami, an earthquake, even a simple rain shower? Face it folks—we are powerless to control nature or change it.

So why not find and make use of one of nature’s most beneficial gifts to mankind? If we could technologically reap all of the oil beneath the earth’s surface, there would be enough for every person on earth to drive a car for the next one thousand years. There are vast amounts of oil beneath our oceans, beneath Canada, Mexico, Russia, Alaska, the Middle East; just to mention that which we’re aware of.

If man doesn’t use the earth’s oil for his own benefit, who’s going to use it? Are we supposed to save it for some aliens to use ten thousand years from now? If we use it all up, it may take another million years, but nature will replace it. Isn’t it conceivable that in the next thousand years man will find other ways to generate the power we need to live in the style we’ve become accustomed to? And remember, two-thirds of the world’s humans are not doing so well. They’re accustomed to starving; living in filth and disease. They don’t have filtered water, electricity, heated homes, cooled homes, cars, engines, pumps or John Deeres to cultivate their land. They are destitute and living from moment to moment in a world two thousand years behind our industrialized existence. Millions of human lives could be saved and thrust into the 21st and 22nd centuries if the industrialized nations continued to develop oil wells and used just 10% of their revenues to improve the living conditions of the world’s poor. Those two-thirds of the earth’s human population are not “living”, they are barely existing as they struggle to live.

So what about America’s dependency on foreign oil? Yes, we can sit back, continue to pay other nations for their oil and probably be able to pay two or three times what we’re paying for gasoline right now. It’s really, in the long run, not the cost that’s the problem; it’s the dependency. Let me give a simple example. Let’s say you were crazy enough to build a home on a piece of land that had no water. You need water, so you go next door to your neighbor and cut a deal whereby he’ll supply you with water from his well and you’ll pay him for his water. You might even have an iron-clad contract. But what happens if he gets pissed off at you and decides to cut off your water? You get my point? You’d be dead in a very short time. That’s really the position the United States is in right now. Our supplier nations know that our whole lifestyle and economy is contingent upon their oil. Oil is the life-blood of our nation. They know that they could bring our nation to a standstill, literally to our knees, should they cut off our lifeline: oil. Haven’t we put ourselves into the most idiotic position possible? What if hatred and jealousy of our nation becomes so great that Mexico, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia decide to crush us? They could do it, and the whining environmentalists will suffer along with the rest of us who have always thought we should be producing our own oil supplies.

So what’s been stopping us from oil exploration, drilling, new refineries and nuclear power use? Why aren’t we using the oil that’s in our own country and just off the shores of our nation? Because our Congress will not allow any of the above things to take place. Our elected politicians have kowtowed for years now, to the left political faction who fear that exploring, drilling and our usage of oil does more harm than good. They would rather have the guns of oil suppliers held to our heads than have the sense to even consider that scientists are guessing and could be wrong whether they are pro-oil or anti-oil. I repeat: using our own oil until we’ve depleted it two hundred years from now is safer and smarter than letting it sit in the ground or ocean doing no one any good. Global warming and pollution are questionable results of our continuing use of oil. What is unquestionable is that the danger to our country is real if we continue to rely on other countries for our oil. Right now, Iran is rattling its sabers in regards to their desire to develop a nuclear bomb. They advocate the obliteration of Israel and they’d love to do the same to the U.S. They soon will begin to accept only Euros in payment for their oil. This will most certainly cause the dollar to plummet in value, possibly pushing the United States into a deep depression. Our “friends,” England, Germany, France—all of Europe in fact, are eager for the Euro to replace our dollar as the worldwide monetary standard. They will do nothing to deter Iran and other oil-producing nations from this action. Russia is really Pro-Iran; China is buying vast amounts of oil from Iran to fuel its own thrust into world power, so we can’t expect any allegiance from those two former enemies.

It really all boils down to these questions: Is it prudent for the U.S. to continue its dependency on others for its energy needs? Is our concern about global warming and air pollution as vitally important right now as our survival? The answers are obvious: Dependence is weakness. Our survival as a nation is paramount. We must immediately move to alleviate our dependence by demanding that Congress allow drilling in Alaska, along our shorelines, and anywhere in our own country that contains oil. We must build new refineries so that control is in our own country. We must go back to nuclear plants for electricity. We must suspend any concerns about global warming and pollution, but aggressively fund and pursue alternative fuels and development of pollution-free automobiles. Our standard of living is in jeopardy. If we want to retain that standard, we must aggressively protect it by taking action—now. Environmentalists are not evil people; they have simply been misguided into believing that man can keep the earth pristine through his own actions. As I earlier said, one volcanic eruption belies that belief. Even if and when we do switch to other energy sources, global warming may occur naturally, pollution by nature’s own hand may occur or global cooling may begin to take place. We need to understand that our nation’s viability is at stake. If we move quickly to build new refineries and nuclear plants and begin drilling as soon as possible, we can wean ourselves from foreign energy dependence in a relatively short period of time—hopefully soon enough.

Isn’t independence an important part of The Declaration of Independence ?

Isn’t it time we again became a nation independent and invulnerable to blackmail from foreign powers who would like nothing better than our demise? We can do it. But first we must have the common-sense to realize that it must be done now, quickly and unequivocally. Then, and only then, will we have the luxury to debate whether man’s depletion of the world’s oil supply is consequential or inconsequential. SLV

Issue 59 featuring: Jessie Andrews, Cassia Riley & Lauren WK