Drilling is Fear of the Future

Thomas Friedman:

Of course, we’re going to need oil for many years, but instead of exalting that – with “drill, baby, drill” – why not throw all our energy into innovating a whole new industry of clean power with the mantra “invent, baby, invent”?

Why would Republicans, the party of business, want to focus our country on breathing life into a 19th-century technology – fossil fuels – rather than giving birth to a 21st-century technology – renewable energy? As I have argued before, it reminds me of someone who, on the eve of the IT revolution – on the eve of PCs and the Internet – is pounding the table for America to make more IBM typewriters and carbon paper. “Typewriters, baby, typewriters.”