It looks like New Hampshire is going to take free oil from Hugo Chavez.

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has a program through his country's government-controlled oil company to provide free oil to Americans in need. This is the same Hugo Chavez who said, "Go to hell, gringos, go home!" on his weekly TV show last year in response to U.S. concerns about his drive to consolidate power.

New Hampshire previously resisted accepting oil from Chavez. But now the rationale is that every little bit helps. Yet why is Venezuela, a country with a median gross domestic product per person of $6,632 -- the U.S. median is $41,890 -- helping us with our heating oil problem? And why are we accepting it?

Click for Editorials & Op-Eds

Living free means keeping your independence and taking responsibility for your problems. It doesn't just mean living cheap.

Yes, oil prices are way up. Many people will have a tough time this coming winter here in New Hampshire. And those who are living from paycheck to paycheck will be hardest hit. But our dependency on oil is a long-term problem. We can't just try to deal with the problem for this winter while we wait for things to go back to the way they were. Even if we could go back, it's not in our interest to do so.

Our dependence on oil is ruining our economy, distorting our foreign policy and threatening our environment. We are sending enormous sums overseas to pay for oil. That money is going to help out the regimes in Venezuela and Russia and support the building of indoor ski hills in Dubai. Clearly, we could put that national wealth to better use here.

Keeping that wealth here involves some tough choices. We could try to subsidize oil for those who are hardest hit and do things (like take free oil) to help with that effort. But that would be like taking a drink to ease a hangover. It works, but it's a lousy long-term strategy.

If we don't address our dependency on oil, we'll be looking for help from foreign countries every time there is a price spike or a global shortage. I think this is the outcome Hugo Chavez is looking for.

But we could take another approach: We could choose to face the problem head-on. Before we help low-income residents buy more oil, why don't we first help them weatherize their houses so they use less fuel? Low income heating assistance already includes some help with weatherization. So instead of sending government dollars overseas to help pay for oil, why don't we keep those dollars here and spend aggressively on weatherization and energy efficiency?

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, "energy bills account for about 14 percent of a low-income family's gross income, and for many it may account for 20 percent or more. Economists estimate that more than 80 percent of energy expenses leave low-income communities, and thus do not circulate and generate additional economic activity inside those communities." Weatherization keeps money circulating in local economies and on average reduces heating bills by 32 percent.

Unfortunately, according to the New Hampshire Office of Energy and Planning (OEP), the state's program only weatherized 757 homes statewide in 2007 (down from 1,295 in 2006). For comparison, 32,581 applications were certified for fuel oil assistance in the 2006-2007 fiscal year.

As the OEP Web site notes: "Weatherization can greatly improve the health and safety of a household while reducing overall energy use, thereby lowering heating costs and reliance on financial assistance. Due to funding limitations, there is a higher need for weatherization assistance than can currently be met." In other words, efficiency is too expensive, but sending dollars overseas for oil is cheap.

There is no question that a weatherization program (particularly an aggressive one that includes measures to promote solar hot water, etc.) is much more expensive in the short run than just paying for some oil. But as General Motors and Ford are finding out right now, short-term thinking comes with a high price. If those companies could go back and do the past 10 years over again, most likely they would take losses on fuel-efficient vehicles in the short term to protect themselves from the long-term trend. Unfortunately, they can't go back.

But we can learn from their experience and rediscover what our Yankee ancestors meant by thrift. Thrift doesn't mean not spending; it's about spending money wisely. An investment in weatherization or renewable energy pays dividends every year. The heating oil subsidy pays no dividends; it just increases dependency.

So why put off the day of reckoning by taking some charity from Hugo Chavez? Rather than take his oil, we should make increasing energy efficiency our first priority in low-income heating assistance. The better job we do at this, the more we decrease our dependence and improve our future outlook. Then we can truly live free.

Dr. Jay Buckey is a professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School and an adjunct professor of engineering at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering. These opinions are his own and not necessarily those of Dartmouth College.