In my patriotic support of our President’s call to stop using Russian oil, I did not drive my car yesterday. Russian oil made up 8% of our petro-imports in 2021, but those 73 million barrels equal about eight days worth of the oil we Americans burn each year in our cars.
So instead of bleating with mindless partisanship that we must couple a ban on Russian oil with DRILLING HERE, DRILLING NOW!, we could all just pick eight days over the next year when we’ll skip driving or share a ride. Eight days in one year: if every other weekend, you choose to walk to the coffee shop on Saturday or to church on Sunday instead of driving there, you’ll have done your patriotic duty and left Vladimir Putin writhing in economic pain by July 4.
Alternatively, our Governor could fly commercial to all of her out-of-state campaign events, or maybe cut out one or two out-of-state events a month.
Drive less, walk and bike and share more: President Zelenskyy will thank you for your great sacrifice in the cause of freedom.
Hey, Cory, my man! You got it. When guys like you ask, most with a brain and heart will oblige. Before it comes down to some major expensive water projects, like the one you mentioned building a pipeline to the Black Hills from the Missouri, insist we try conserving first. A great comment was posted about a similar community in CA, who when asked, ended up saving their water source and never needed to redirect one drop so Mt. Shasta can maintain it’s headwaters without a higher damn. Thank you dearly for helping keep tax funds from pouring into this shooting complex.
My Jeep has been parked for at least 6 days this month alone. I was out for cereal and milk and a few other things yesterday. I plan on staying inside at least until Sunday or Monday. I need to go to town and borrow a trailer from my brother to haul lawnmower into town for some maintenance work.
I spent over 20 days parked last month, too.
Hydraulic fracturing can waste up to 16 million gallons of water per well so here in New Mexico that’s often too high a price to pay not to keep fossil fuels in the ground. In the Second Congressional District alone the oil and gas industry left hundreds of orphan wells but because New Mexico is flush with cash operators just walk away from them leaving the state and feds to do the work to cap them. New Mexico is second only to Texas for crude oil production in the United Snakes and environmental stewards are buying leases on public lands and making sure they remain inactive.
https://www.ruidosonews.com/story/news/local/2022/03/07/gas-prices-oil-production-permian-basin-texas-new-mexico/9347898002/
The US exports more oil than it imports.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=727&t=6
Any one think to ask CEO’s of Big Oil why they can’t hold the line on gas prices for now? Oh, yeah, shareholders got to be paid. Profit, t’is the American way…
All one ever hears from these fake patriots is the “price of freedom”. Ok, now the cost is here, does anyone think they will accept higher gas prices to help provide freedom for the Ukrainians, when they would not even wear a mask to help keep their neighbors alive. I think I have to agree with other nations opinions of us, that we are are a lot of selfish a**holes. All talk and no walk.
There are 10’s of thousands of wells that are already drilled, capped, and not now or ever have produced any oil. No need to drill – more need to pump.
My car has been parked since January 15. I doubt I will drive my own vehicles more to a total of 80 days this year. Any other time i spend behind the wheel will be as part of my engagement in productive economic activity – I.E., building infrastructure.
Well, heck, I can do this standin’ on my head. I just got back from the “liberry” and courthouse, so I probably needn’t go anywhere until next Tuesday. If I got serious about this, I could probably do eight consecutive days as I did when COVID-19 broke out.
I agree entirely with cibvet.
Well Cory, sounds like a good idea but my battery?
Mr. Nemec is correct. The US is “energy self sufficient” but the oil market is a casino without borders. Oil is a commodity traded by a number of private firms, sovereign nations, and speculators. Oil ebbs and flows from country to country, company to country, speculator to speculator and private firms. Throw in the “spot market” and you have a really dynamic mess that makes billionaires of some and bankrupts many others but which has very little to do with consumers or the welfare and survival of national governments. Many of the actors in that market do best, financially, when the world is in chaos. The US ending up with oil from Russia is a product of this market trading and a willingness by the US to bring in Russian oil as a gesture of “Open trade” and “equal market participation.” President Biden has ended that tolerance as well he should.
Or, ride the bus on those 8 days, if there’s one near you and you need to go somewhere.
That’s a great idea, Ms. Cathy. For grudznick, that’s not an option, so I intend to have the fellow who drives me to breakfast each Sunday drive around and pick up 3 additional Conservatives with Common Sense for our weekly meeting. This will reduce our carbon footprint by between 20% and 50% depending on which fellows are breakfasting that week. We will far exceed the savings Mr. H proposes, and do it within 3 weeks. Nobody should accuse grudznick of being ecologically unsound on this issue.
In all the Russia / GOP headscratching, Came across this gem written in…. 2014!!
Reads like a prophecy, the early years of the GOP bromance w Putin. He played them like a violin!
https://sentinelcolorado.com/opinion/dupuy-new-gop-frontrunner-2016-vladimir-putin/
Hi Corey, I am not sure if you remember where you are from. In South Dakota, a substantial portion of the population lives miles from their place of work and school. That is simply how it works out here. American car culture has existed for nearly 4 generations after world war 2. It may change, but not soon. Not to mention we are still smack dab in the middle of South Dakota winter. I am sorry to tell you but not everyone lives in New York, San Francisco, or Minneapolis, where quick and easy travel/public transport is available. I enjoy your website but I am afraid your never ceasing “Holier than thou” worldview is clouding your judgment.
Do you expect single mothers with small children to simply walk an hour to daycare and work while it is 10 degrees with a 40 mile per hour wind? Is that single mom any less patriotic for prioritizing the needs of her small children above all else? “Let them eat cake” is what it sounds like to me. I encourage you to think more critically about your worldview from here on out.
Nick, I totally know where I’m from. I remember growing up at the lake that driving to town was essential for my parents with us three little kids. I remember very distinctly that when I was growing up, my parents were very keen about not wasting a trip to town. They instilled in me the idea that if I was going to drive anywhere, I needed to plan ahead, get all my errands done in one shot, and come home and be done driving for the day. If you forgot something, well, you’d done your driving for the day, and you’d just have to go without until tomorrow. We were darn cheap, and we still are.
Now please read again: I’m not telling rural folks to park their cars and walk everywhere. I’m not even being “holier than thou.” I’m pointing out that we could completely negate home economic impact of not buying Russian oil reducing our oil consumption by burning 357 days worth of gas in our cars instead of 365 days worth. That’s a 2.2% reduction in driving. I’m not telling anyone to eat cake or, more accurately, not eat cake. I’m saying that if you eat a whole cake every week, maybe pick two or three weeks where you don’t eat a cake, or maybe a few more weeks where you share a cake with someone else.
I’m not abandoning rural America. I’ll even grant there are probably great cheapskates (perhaps the proper term is conservationists) like my dad who are already pinching their gas-pennies to the max and don’t have a single unnecessary trip they can cut out of their driving budget. And for those great patriots who have already reduced their driving to the bare minimum, for whom giving up even one trip in the care means a child goes hungry or the family goes broke or whatever disaster scenario you wish to posit, I will contend that there are others among us who can pick up a little more slack, who can sacrifice a little more luxury to cover those good folks’ burden, reduce our oil usage further, and fight the Russian menace.
Surely we can find it in our patriotic hearts to do more for those in need and present a united front against the enemy rather than sniping at each other about things we didn’t actually say.
But how about I really betray rural America and demand that South Dakota farmers and ranchers give up vodka and diamonds in support fo President Biden’s latest import bans? Biden is also banning Russian seafood, but I won’t ask that South Dakotans give that up; after all, we can get all seafood we need from Big Mo walleye and from all those shrimp in Lake Madison, right?