Are we there yet? Most Certainly Not...

You drive down Pacific Coast Highway the top down the wind blowing through your hair. As you proceed skillfully through the empty streets you look over to your left. Instantly the stresses of the week melt away and as your mind comes to peace as you stare blankly at the aptly named Pacific Ocean. Your mind drifts back to the task at hand: driving. You quickly let off that gas pedal noticing your speed spiking. In this day and age you have to save every penny for gas.

As the price of oil increases at an astonishing rate and gas prices rise almost daily the US Senate has renewed the debate over off shore drilling, especially on the coast of California. I am an Irvine resident and I am an undergraduate at the University of California San Diego. As a college student I make just enough to pay for the fuel cost of shuttling back and forth and that is because my aunt has generously allowed me to reside at her place. As a “poor college student,” I am as ailed by the rising gas prices as others are, but still we must think of the future and amend the present to maximize what we have for the future. I know that I might not have facts like those arguing the other side does, but I do know one thing I plan on spending the rest of my life in California and the California coast has given so much too me and I will make sure it does the same for my children.

Image the scene of serenity that now offers you escape riddled with the ugliness of oil rigs the air that we try so hard to purify tainted by the increase in fuel usage. Perhaps this rise in the price of gasoline has come at an apt time. Perhaps it is nature’s way of telling us that it is time to reform our ways, time for us to trade in the Hummer that sits idly in our garage used for a more economical Prius, time for us to forgo the car when making a two mile trip the grocery store in favor of a bike (or a wagon if we have a heavier load). Perhaps it is not that we need to search for more oil to alleviate the needs of our citizens, but a means to create for them a better future. The way to create a better future is to act now. Every moment we stand idly by at the whims of oil politics we are losing a war. This is not a war fought with weapons, or economics, or any other means. This is a war fought with our own need to drive 140 miles per hour in the newest Porche Model, to have the convenience of driving to the grocery store, to project the image of wealth that the Hummer brings. You see, it is not our dependency on oil that is the issue, it is our dependency on our status symbols, our Porche’s, Hummers and other gas guzzling cars.

Now picture the same scene, your child sits next to you as you drive down PCH. Ask yourself, what do you want them to see?