Hi, my name is America, and I'm addicted to Energy

The United States uses more energy per capita than any other nation. This is no secret, and it is not information kept behind closed doors. In fact, statistics and analysis of energy use for the United States is well documented and open source for the people. This "addiction" to energy has been around since the lightbulb, and only increased with the innovations that followed. However, not much attention was paid to this as a problem until recently, when it became clear that we were using energy at a rate, which would leave us writhing for another jolt as the supply dried up.

Our energy addiction has created many problems in this country, and the negative outcomes continue to amass. The rising costs of petroleum alone have led to increased taxes, which in turn has weakened our economy, which is inherently dependent on oil. Since so much of our daily lives revolve around petroleum, the fluctuations and increases seen in the price per barrel have a direct effect on weakening the value of a dollar. In turn, many people in power feel that the availability of oil must be protected, and this leads to military defense of this precious commodity, which many blame for the current war in Iraq. In addition to these issues, energy addiction also has a profound effect on the environment. Until there is 100% clean source of energy, any use, especially a drastic overuse, of energy will have some spillover into the environment. Besides the negative by-products in the production and consumption of energy, there are also many detrimental environmental impacts from the extraction fo energy. Most noteably for this country would be coal, but the mining of coal, tears apart landscapes, destroys watersheds, and alters soil regimes. A long or short term coal operation will leave the area barren.

So, how do we end this addiction.

How To End the Addiction to Oil

Hopefully, we have not yet reached the tipping point for energy use, and a move towards more sustainable communities can turn this effect around. One of the first things that must be done is an increase in capital, and not in a traditional sense, such as economic capital, but an increase in social and community capital will be necessary to evoke change. To truly reduce energy addiction the movement must start at a person by person and community by community level. With this thinking, it will require strong community cohesiveness, because in a sense weaning ourselves off of non-sustainable energy will be a drastic change for many people. It will be integral to advance technologies dealing with renewable energy; such as light volitics/solar energy, hydroelectric energy, and wind power. In addition it will be important to increase the efficiency of energy delivery systems, which will require retrofitting old plants, and building more efficient and sustainable new plants. From a policy perspective the best way to move information through a community will be to increase awareness and offer eduction, so that those dealing with the changes will be best informed. Regulation will also be needed at the community level, which along with increasing community/social capital will best allow for communities to become civic minded and aimed at a sole goal, reducing energy consumption.