Last week American oil billionaire T.Boone Pickens added his name to the ever growing list of US politicians and businessmen calling for the lifting of the ban on offshore drilling in the US. George Bush and Dick Cheney have both also called for the ban to be lifted, but thus far the Democrat-controlled Congress has blocked such plans from becoming a reality.

Perhaps even more worryingly; some 60% of Americans would be in support of such a move according to a recent survey by Reuters. Pickens has talked of the imminence of the $300 barrel unless domestic resources are tapped up, while Cheney has stated his belief that only increased drilling, and not better technologies, can provide a solution to the problem. It is not hard to see why so many Americans feel this way when leading public figures talk so…

Probably the most misguided and irresponsible comments however have come from Republican Congress member Michele Bachmann, who has likened Democratic opposition to the move akin to having a locked larder full of food and denying a hungry population access. She could hardly have chosen a more apt simile for simultaneously vilifying the Democratic Party and also even further misrepresenting the issue.

Clearly some people will willfully ignore facts time and time again in order to pursue shortsighted but popular policies, as we are seeing from the above Republican figures (they are far from rogue voices - potential future president John McCain has sided with Bush and the party line on the issue).

Question is: what can we do against such prominent voices that seek to mislead and trick the public?

Well, one thing would be to help spread the truth - clear, honest facts, and then let people make up their own minds with sufficient information. While these powerful figures seek the exploit the misinformation and subsequent confusion spread in US media, here is a simple rundown of some key data which should clarify the matter a little:

US oil consumption : 20 million barrels/day (according to recent Cheney quote). This equates to 7300 million barrels a year.

(N.B. This data is from the Energy Information Administration (www.eia.doe.gov) - a provider of official energy statistics for the US govt).

TOTAL US crude oil reserves : 20,972 million barrells (in 2006 - the figure is surely slightly lower now).

Current rate of domestic production: approx 1,700 million barrels/ year (i.e. around 25% of annual consumption).

Therefore a rough calculation shows that the US in total has only enough oil to support itself alone for just under 3 years, at the current rate of consumption (which is ever increasing rather than stable).

Therefore even if Congress granted the Republicans their short-sighted solution to the oil crisis, and the oil reserves were accessible immediately (which is impossible - the financial benefits of such a move would take near enough to a decade to be noticeable), - even then the figures involved mean that the problem would only be offset by another decade or so (working on the rough assumption that domestic production might be doubled - obviously it could be increased by 500% - the relief would be greater, but proportionally briefer).

More drilling therefore is clearly not the answer - Why destroy thousands of acres of protected land and countless ecosystems for only a momentary and partial relief to the problem of oil prices?

Surely it is time to look for a more long term solution, that involves the far more difficult process of lowering demand rather than increasing supply. Such talk in the current US political climate will in all likelihood not be as popular as the Republicans’ quick fix solution, but the important thing to remember is that theirs is really no solution at all, but rather a campaign tool in the upcoming presidential election and little more…

Dejan Levi