Imported oil: Ethical perspectives and strategies toward American energy sustainability

Abstract

Oil is a vital global commodity, but it is frequently viewed as America's critical economic Achilles' heel. The importation of petroleum has crucial economic and security implications for America. As such, it is generally held that the United States must curb substantially its heavy dependence on foreign petroleum sources. This study examines short and long term strategies to lessen imported oil, as part of the continuing national debate about increasing American energy requirements. A bright vision of a future ethical energy landscape can be realized. This moral imperative requires us to work together in the spirit of cooperation between the public, businesses, governments, and academia toward the common interests of environmental, energy, and economic security.

Some believe that science and technology alone can not solve all the world's problems, and as a result, they argue for a holistic approach to energy and ecological challenges, like climate change, that includes a spiritual and ethical dimension. Energy production and usage raise important questions for ethics and religion. Ethical assessment of energy issues must transcend mere economic motives. This multidisciplinary study also examines diverse religious and ethical perspectives that could assist in increasing public awareness about essential environmental and energy matters. Fundamental ethical ideals like clean air and water ought to play an essential role in determining public energy policy. Ethics offers moral vision to decision makers to formulate public energy policy that enhances the human condition and the natural environment.

Market forces (corporate profits) do not always account for critical ecological and human costs. Perspectives in ethics and spirituality, as a response, help balance the cost-benefit energy equation.

Sustaining public health and conserving energy coincides with indispensable environmental integrity. Bridging the partisan divide in the U.S. could help further deploy domestic renewable energy technologies. These cornerstone technologies can aid to wean the country from adverse oil imports, thus bolstering the American economy. Moreover, clean energy fosters stewardship of the earth. As a nation, we need to come together to seek sustainable energy solutions to proactively resolve the longstanding critical quest of realizing oil independence.