So, as sort of an ongoing example of the level we’ve sunk to in American politics, the Obama campaign joked that if we allowed off shore drilling, we’d only generate the energy we could save if we properly inflated our tires. Instantly, of course, the McCain camp ridiculed Obama – his plan to energy independence is to give everyone a tire gauge.

The more rational of us rolled our eyes and sighed at the blatant absurdity of mainstream politics.

The US uses about 20 million barrels of oil a day. We import just under 10 million barrels of oil a day, which means to break our dependence on oil we either need to double our domestic production of oil, or cut our consumption in half.

Estimates say we can pull about 200,000 barrels of oil per day if we allowed more off shore drilling. That’s about 1% of our total consumption.

If we properly inflated our tires, we could increase our vehicle’s fuel efficiency by 3-4 percent, and if we properly maintained them, we could increase that by another 3-4 percent on top of that. Since vehicles consume about 45% of every barrel of oil we use, we could reduce our national dependence on oil by about 3% for properly maintaining our vehicles.

Estimates say we could pull 780,000 barrels of oil from ANWR daily. That’s another 4% of our energy needs.

If we increased minimum fuel efficiency standards in new vehicles (currently 27 M.P.G. and mandated for 35 M.P.G. in 2020 – but with no realistic plan for how to get us there), we could further decrease our reliance on foreign oil. Assuming that the NADA figures are correct and there are 225 million cars on the road and around 17 million of them are bought new every year, we could decrease gas consumption between 1% and 2% per year over the next 10 years, which would reduce our overall oil consumption by maybe 5%. More, I suppose, if you’re an optimist.

Bush’s alternative energy plan, despite being ridiculed as being decidedly Republican and not nearly aggressive enough, would increase our alternative fuel production to cover nearly 2 million barrels of oil a day – almost 10% of our current consumption.

The problem with ridiculing people that suggest that a solution won’t work because it only reduces consumption by a point or two, is that if you combine the drilling, alternative energy, and properly tuned vehicles above, we reduce our dependence on foreign oil by 40% in just 10 years. And, if you look closely, you’ll notice that none of the solutions fix the problem all by themselves.

There is no quick fix. There is no magic bullet. We can do this, but we have to have a broad approach to get the results we desire. If you ridicule one part or the other because it “just” reduces our dependence by a percent or two, you’re missing the big picture. When you combine all the different approaches – when we have more efficient cars, more gas to pump into them, and alternatives to that gas – that is when we will truly be independent.

“The man who moves mountains, begins by carrying away small stones.” I wrote that quote in the very first post I made to this blog. We’ll get energy independent one day.

And we’ll get there one measly little percent at a time.