Health Risks in Oil Spills

Once more oil is a front-page headline. Not just in the burning Kuwaiti fields, but here in Santa Monica Bay. Despite everything the oil companies tell us, the point is hard to miss these days: Oil spells trouble.

There are alternatives. Alternative energies, alternative policies, alternative choices. What is missing is the leadership and public response to the problem. The status quo has been maintained for too long. It is time to look ahead.

If President Bush and Congress had invested the billions of dollars spent in the liberation of the Kuwaiti monarchy on research and development of existing alternative energy sources, it is fair to say that not only our economic woes but those of many other countries would have largely been diverted for many years to come.

George Bush had the opportunity to really forge a “new world order,” based on cleaner, more abundant and renewable resources. Instead, he chose to support what is really becoming a sad historical phenomenon, the global dependence on a limited and dangerous resource.

DANA ERICKSON

Pacific Palisades