After 8 weeks of oil gushing from the BP well into the Gulf of Mexico, the talk is finally turning to long-term solutions to our country's energy and oil addiction in addition to solutions for the current crisis in the Gulf.
Notice how I said in addition to? Well, some people are conveniently missing that concept when they hear Obama and others talk of clean energy initiatives, saying that our sole focus right now needs to be on spill cleanup and Gulf rehab. We Americans have got to get past this kind of either-or thinking. We don't need to choose between short and long-term solutions, and in fact, if we do choose to only focus on short-term fixes, we're going to be paying for it 100 times over very soon in the form of climate change.
The funny thing is that many of the people who are pushing for cleanup only focus right now are saying that in talking about long-term energy solutions, Obama is politicizing this oil spill for his and his party's gain. In reality, it's those who say that we have to choose, either-or, short or long-term, who are politicizing the debate by making it an issue with two sides. It's simply not helpful to think of our situation as a choice between jobs and environment, between now or the future, between recovery and planning. We have to do it all.
It's time for the U.S. and its leaders to learn to hold more than one priority at a time. The issues that our nation faces right now are too complex to demand that everyone take sides in a fight where we're either all going to win, or we're all going to lose.
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