A walk in the community park yesterday offered a feast for the eyes and food for thought. A relic from the past offers a reminder that the beauty we treasure now in the park was once funded by a thriving fossil-fuel industry in this area. Coal and oil at one time provided high-paying jobs and a healthy tax base that now must be collected as exorbitant property and fuel taxes from already financially strapped citizens. Rising global consumption and an alarming lack of any energy policy in this country have presented all of us with a dilemma that can no longer be ignored. We cannot expect to continue enjoying our activities of daily life--gardening, traveling, playing baseball, whatever--without interruption unless something is done soon to create a reasonable policy, one that does not penalize the oil, gas, and coal industries. Rather, they should be encouraged to explore for and refine fossil fuels in the short term as well as research and develop renewable energy sources for the long term. Wishing for things to get better does not make it happen. We can all garden and live more conservatively, but we can also demand that our leaders (local, state, national) pay more than just lip service to mapping out and implementing an energy plan.
