I took a Public Speaking class a few months ago and we had to write these persuasive speeches. I delivered my 5-minute anti-Bush rant to a hostile and largely republican classroom. Other people's speeches included: why we should read the bible more, why we should should all go out and join the military reserves, and an anti-abortion tirade. Oh did I mention our professor used to be a preacher? Yeah, I think only one person in that class liked me.

With gas prices starting to rise slightly again, the topic of drilling for Alaskan oil has been heating up. The Bush Administration hopes to open up ANWR, the Alaskan Nation Wildlife Refuge, for oil exploration. Although it might look good on paper, the measure is ineffectual and duplicitous, much the same as the Bush tax cut that frittered away the surplus and increased the national debt. And like the tax cut, only Bush and his friends stand to benefit from Alaskan oil drilling.

First off, there isn't even very much oil under ANWR. Estimates range between 5.7 and 16 billion barrels of oil, that's about 11 to 30 years worth of imported Saudi Arabian oil, I know that sounds like a lot but it really isn't. The estimates fail to mention that we import oil from many other Middle Eastern countries besides Saudi Arabia. That realization puts ANWR's 11 to 30 years worth of Saudi oil into perspective, the bulk of oil used in this country would still be imported. And what do we do after our 11 years of oil are used up? It's a temporary solution and not even a quick one. According to the Environmental News Network, it would take up to 10 years before we even started seeing any ANWR oil. A delayed reaction to a minor energy crisis could wind up spoiling millions of acres of protected land. The plan does nothing to address the short-term energy problems that were it's primary goal.

So why is Bush so adamant about drilling in Alaska? Well, for one it looks like he's being proactive, like he's trying his hardest to solve the problem. But in reality the goal of ANWR drilling is to line the pockets of Bush and the energy corporations that pull his strings. The same energy corporations, like Enron, that bankrolled his political career by donated millions to his campaign. Not just the Bush family either, Dick Cheney also has huge investments and connections with oil companies. The entire administration was bought and sold years ago.

There is also vast deception with all the numbers involved in the ANWR drilling plan. An amendment to the bill would limit drilling to 2000 of the 1.5 million coastal acres while creating over 700,000 jobs. Sounds good right? That's barely a fraction of the Refuge and a whole lot of jobs. But how is an oil field that small supposed to produce more working men and women than in Rhode Island and Wyoming? Simple, creative math. According to Time magazine, the 2000 acres do not have be contiguous, they can be scattered all across the coastal plain. And not only that but the 2000-acre limit only counts equipment touching the ground. All the pipes are aboveground, only the stanchions holding them up are counted. In this way, each drilling platform takes up as little as 10 acres. This opens up the whole area to oil development, using creative math to spread their 2000 acres across the entire 1.5 million acre coastal region.

Instead of raping the Alaskan wilderness and lining Bushes pockets, there are many alternatives present. The easiest way to ease our dependence on foreign oil is to just use less of it. SUVs have very low fuel consumption standards, only 20.7 miles per gallon as opposed to the 27.5 required for passenger cars, allowing them to turn into the enormous gas-guzzling, ozone killing behemoths we see today. How many times have seen a huge Yukon SUV with only one passenger inside, dwarfing all the other cars on the road? It's just extremely wasteful. SUVs, Minivans and pickups are all classified as 'light trucks,' thus have the same fuel economy standards, and make up nearly half of all vehicles now sold in America. Imagine if half the vehicles in America could go 7 extra miles for every gallon of petrol they use, imagine how much less gas we would need to import each year. In addition the federal government could invest in new fuel technologies instead of wasting their money on corrupt corporate bailouts like they did with Enron. My mom just bought a Volkswagon Jetta that runs on diesel, it gets 50 to 60 miles per gallon. Diesel engines are not only more efficient but new technologies allow them to run quietly and cleanly. Europeans are turning in droves to these new clean diesels as an alternative to the extraordinarily high gas prices there. Also, the government could fund research into fuel cell technology, which produces extremely cheap and clean fuel by using combustible hydrogen. According to Popular Science Magazine, engineers are looking into a way of using the chemical Borax (used in laundry detergent) to contain the hydrogen needed for fuel cell cars. No pollution and no carbon dioxide are produced by fuel cells, the only byproducts are water and sodium borate, which is basically soap. Just think of a world where you can fill your car for the price of a gallon of laundry detergent and then you can travel almost 300 miles on that single gallon while producing nothing but water and soap.

In conclusion, drilling in ANWR is a foolish and temporary solution that serves only to profit corrupt politicians and evil corporations while destroying our natural resources. The math is duplicitous and the solution is short-term. Instead we should invest in new technologies to make our planet a cleaner healthier place while saving consumers some cash in the meantime.