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Energy Plan Reaction: Plan Favours Fossil Fuel and Sacrifices Environment WASHINGTON, DC, US, 2001-05-18 <SolarAccess.com> The "lopsided emphasis" in the policy on production ignores the fact that the energy crisis is not one of supply, but one of "runaway demand, magnified by mismanagement," says Kathryn Fuller, president of World Wildlife Fund-US. "The relatively modest amount by which we could increase domestic oil production would not begin to satisfy that demand and would have no effect on prices that are set in a global marketplace." "Far from making energy cheaper, a plan that relies chiefly on the extraction of fossil fuels will exact a terrible cost," and she says drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge cannot be conducted without causing major harm to wildlife and the wilderness environment. "We still have time to make a better and wiser choice through conservation and investment in technologies that increase efficiency and utilize non-polluting renewable resources," she adds. "A more balanced plan would provide major economic benefits by focusing on the transition to a sustainable energy future and by reducing the carbon pollution responsible for global warming." "President Bush is right when he says that America faces an energy crisis, but the real crisis, the crisis of global warming, has far more serious implications for the future, and for the kind of world we wish to leave our children, than his administration appears willing to recognize," she adds. "Greater reliance on oil and coal to power our economy, as proposed by President Bush, will sharply increase the carbon pollution that causes global warming." Heavy reliance on increased production of fossil fuels, while ignoring opportunities for conservation and efficiency, means the government is "trying to balance our nation's energy future on a one-legged stool." "America
needs an energy policy that will do more than just
give us directions to the next filling
station," she concludes. "We need a
roadmap that takes us forward, into the 21st
Century, not backward to the 1950s." |