EDITORIAL
Freedom from oil: Let's make it a national cause

In an editorial titled "Modest hopes for 2003," The New York Times included in its short wish list a national effort to reduce American dependence on foreign oil.

We'd sharpen that just a bit, making it "reduction in dependence on oil," period.

Said the Times: "There are plenty of big, futuristic ideas around — developing a hydrogen-based economy, for instance — and plenty of bad ideas, like the notion that we can drill our way to energy independence. But one obvious response is to improve fuel economy standards, which have not been tightened since the Reagan years ... "

Hold that thought for a moment while you consider something Haynes Johnson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and a George Chaplin fellow speaking at the East-West Center in October, said about the nation since 9/11:

"I keep waiting for the president to get me engaged" in the war on terrorism. "We said we were going to become energy independent of Middle East oil. We can make that a national cause."

With a little imagination and effort, President Bush could make independence from oil a "home-front" cause, like the World War II victory gardens. Americans are prepared to sacrifice individually, provided they can see the collective pay-off.

Such an effort would pay even greater dividends here in Hawai'i, which is almost entirely dependent on imported oil. We should be in the vanguard of research on energy alternatives; we'd make the ideal guinea pig for experimental energy systems, including — perhaps especially — those based on hydrogen.

Fear of change condemns us to the bondage of oil. Hawai'i should lead the nation in breaking those chains.