Oliver Sacks: Subsidize hybrids, not ANWR drilling

Oliver Sacks, one of America's most original contemporary thinkers, writes in a
column for today's N.Y. Times about his "love" for his new Honda Accord hybrid, which he acquired by trading in his Lexus. (Link may require subscription.)

If half of U.S. vehicles were converted to such hybrids, he notes, the nation could save 50 billion gallons of gasoline annually -- equal to one-fifth of the "reasonable estimates" for ANWR's oil reserves.

He calls for the federal tax deduction for hybrid vehicle purchases to be continued and increased. At present, it drops from $2,000 to $500 next year, then goes away in 2007.

"There are many ways to save energy, but few are as easy as this," he writes. "We need to do a great deal more to encourage all kinds of conservation, but especially alternative-energy vehicles, which can contribute enormous oil savings and reduce pollution with no change in lifestyle."

Sacks is the author of numerous books, including "An Anthropologist on Mars," "Awakenings" and "The Island of the Colorblind." He is a clinical professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.