Well, I'm sure if we destroy our economy and allow the Chinese (who have the worst record of environmental pollution in the history of the world) to take over and run everything, then that'll solve all those oil spill problems, won't it?
I personally think that the solution resides in renewables. Research and development and renewable job growth (get people do go build windmills and new hydro dams, new reactors, geothermal lines, hydrogen fuel cells etc.).
I know some people don't like to hear that, but if we invested even a small fraction of the time and money that we've invested into fossil fuels over the past 200 years, into developing green energies, I think it would put America on top. We've had lots of time to develop and fine tune fossil fuels, but renewables are still in their infancy in comparison to what they can and will eventually become.
In fact, renewables, in some cases, are now cheaper energies than oil, though oil is subsidized to a greater degree by our government, so that may not be as apparent.
What source of energy could ever truly compete with fusion or fission? Be it reactions in the sun or in our own reactors, or through wind put in motion by energy of these same reactions? Nothing. No fossil fuel could ever compete if we ever bothered to invest in harnessing it.
In my opinion, much like there was a stone age, and a bronze age, there is an oil age. And a day will come, perhaps in just a few generations where people will look back and will see fossil fuels as relatively primitive.
I also think we should get back into research and development of nuclear energy as well. Namely reactors that harness energy from nuclear waste. People are worried about what we will do with nuclear waste produced from reactors, but what if we could use that waste and spent rods as an energy itself?
The world, to be fair, is destined to end it's reliance on fossil fuels, given that they are a limited resources that (in the case of oil) may last perhaps another 100-150 years. And as we slowly march toward that finish line, those prices will keep going up, the middle east will become more and more engulfed in territorial wars. And I don't think America needs to be a part of this future (or arguably current) mess of middle eastern oil wars. And tension doesn't have to arise when oil finally runs out. It will just slowly grow more and more as supplies run down.
If we become independent of it, we can still influence where it goes, but we could act with independent rationality, rather than dependent desperation.
