Solar Power, War and Oil

How are solar power, war and oil related? Read on....

Over the weekend an editorial was written by Eric Margolis which has the title of "These wars are about oil, not democracy". He makes this statement since new oil and gas pipeline and development agreements have been signed in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm sure many people are shocked by this statement because we all believed that weapons of mass destruction existed and that Osama would be caught and brought to trial. It is a good editorial and ties some things together if you didn't already know.

So the wars are about oil. Despite our best efforts to secure new supplies through these wars the cost of crude continues to rise. Gasoline is rising dramatically and the damage to the economy is around the corner. How expensive is the war? Follow this link to the National Priorities Project and it has a running counter. Right now it is over 530 billion dollars. There are more costs that are probably not captured here and we still need to account for the economic and environmental damage.

What could we have done that would have cost less, achieved energy independence and probably not killed thousands of people. Implement a solar grand plan as outlined in Scientific American. Sure it is on a 40 year timeline but aren't we planning to wage the war on terror for as long as it takes anyway?

The bottom line is that until we change our political and economic systems we will continue on the same path.