Does the U.S.A. need to produce more oil to help ease the demand?

Driving, like most luxuries in the USA, is thought by most to be an American rite of passage. You turn 16 and get your license. You then to drive to the beach, school and just about everywhere else.

Most people even drive to stores or friends’ houses that are within hundreds of feet of their residences.

This begs the question: do we need to produce more oil for the masses who waste it driving their cars unnecessarily?

The answer is no.

Most Americans drive an average of 32 miles every day including weekends, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 statistics. Most Americans also spend up to 3 hours in their cars every day. These statistics represent a huge waste of time, money and natural resources.

Yet there is a huge amount of public anger over how much gas prices have risen and why the USA is not currently drilling more oil. The answer is we don’t have the oil to spare.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration says that the worldwide supply of oil will be depleted in about 50 years. That is a long time considering the U.S. population uses around 7 billion barrels of oil and petroleum products each year.

The amount of oil we buy from overseas is also exaggerated by the media and people’s blind ignorance in not doing any research of their own.

Foreign oil brought into the USA comes mostly from the western hemisphere. The U.S.A. gets 51 percent of its oil from Canada and produces about a third of its own oil. Only a small percentage comes from the Middle East.

The USA also keeps a Strategic Petroleum Reserve of around 4.1 billion barrels of oil for emergencies or war efforts.

The real problem isn’t that we are not producing enough oil in the U.S.A., but that we are wasting the huge amounts that we already have. The only real answer is for Americans to realize that driving is not a right but a luxury.

It is not our right as Americans to waste as much as we possibly can before we die, but to live within our means.

Stop driving places you can walk to and remember that exercise is good for you.