With just five percent of the world's population, the U.S. consumes a quarter of the world's oil. This dependence on oil contributes to job loss, environmental destruction, human rights violations, and international conflicts. The best way to address these problems is to increase the fuel efficiency of our vehicles, which consume 40 percent of all the oil we use. Gas-guzzling puts us all at risk. If we want a secure nation, a safe environment and a strong economy, we need to kick the petroleum habit.

The U.S. lost 10 percent of its manufacturing jobs in the last four years while surrendering clean-energy market share to companies in Japan and Europe. Ford's failure to implement new technology threatens the vitality of America's auto industry, putting jobs at risk. Higher fuel economy will not only safeguard existing jobs, but create approximately 47,000 new jobs in the auto industry. Improving our cars' fuel efficiency would also be a victory for families' budgets. A fleet of automobiles that takes advantage of hybrid technologies could reach 60 mpg, saving $5,500 in fuel during a vehicle's lifetime.

Oil addition is a major contributor to the daily destruction of 214,000 acres of rainforest. In Ecuador, for example, Texaco's practices between 1971-1991 resulted in the deforestation of two million acres of rainforest, the spilling of 16.8 million gallons of crude oil, and the dumping of 4.3 million gallons of toxic waste. Oil addiction is also a major cause of global warming, which over the next few decades will lead to an increase in floods and wildfires, the spread of infectious diseases, and species extinction. Ford's cars are the worst global warming polluters in the industry. Ford should take responsibility for its disproportionate share of global warming pollution and clean up its vehicles

Oil addiction fuels human rights violations. In the last 10 years military factions acting on behalf of oil companies have killed more than 2,000 people in the Niger Delta. In the Indonesian province of Aceh, ExxonMobil has provided logistical support to the Indonesian army, which has kidnapped and killed community activists on or near its drilling site. In Colombia, the U.S. government is paying $98 million to the Colombian military to guard an oil pipeline owned by Occidental Petroleum; the units charged with guarding the pipeline have participated in the killing of 18 innocent civilians. Ford will be complicit in these abuses until it helps us get the petroleum monkey off our backs.

Right now the only option for a patriotic American seeking to break our oil addiction and improve U.S. national security is a Japanese car. The U.S. imports 55 percent of its oil, much of it from unstable nations such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia. By 2025, we will depend on other countries for 68 percent of our oil. Ford's outdated gas-guzzlers help push the U.S. into conflicts around the world, most recently in Iraq. U.S. demand for oil has helped prop up repressive regimes such as the Saudi royal family.

Ask Ford: Does our addiction to oil makes us more safe, or less?