Stop pumping billions overseas for oil

The Feb. 9 Gazette had a dramatic photo of the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building. It's in the news because the elevators aren't functioning to take tourists to the observation tower. Technical problems aren't what grabbed my attention. What surprised me in the story is this: The $1.5 billion skyscraper in Dubai, surrounded by desert, is still “largely empty.” No renters? Aha! It occurred to me that they don't need them; they have billions of U.S. oil dollars.

I'm pretty sure that Americans innocently financed much of this boondoggle by simply wasting our gasoline in big, gas-guzzling cars. Our hard-earned money now sits in the Persian Gulf, and a lot of sheikhs have so much money, they don't know how to spend it.

We can't always agree with each other about how to conserve our resources, but we do need to come together on energy conservation. Sending our money overseas really is foolish. We may eventually have to tap our Alaskan reserves, but we also need to take a hard look at “cap and trade” to encourage energy efficiency. Such a system may cost more for a while, but eventually we'll save energy. And we'll spend our money at home, and not in Dubai.

Jim Conger

Iowa City