Asleep at the Switch

Originally posted : Friday, December 19, 2008

Do we assume that less power is a substitute for more power? Manufacturing lighter, smaller fuel-efficient vehicles seems to be the remedy of choice for saving energy. Sounds good, but how much thought has really gone to this pie in the sky solution?

My situation may illustrate what I mean. When my son, their two children, and his wife come over for a visit, going anywhere together usually takes just the one SUV for a family outing. But a world without vans and SUVs would look a lot different. Instead of one vehicle, we now would have to take two. Plus, we would miss the family closeness of the outing. Using two vehicles would mean not only greater pollution, but also would degrade the way we interact with our family. Just a few of the nuisances of using two vehicles, and one of them is parking. More cars mean bigger parking lots (more concrete), and finding parking places close together would be a problem.

Safety is also a concern. Not long ago I bought a Chevy S-10 pick-up. The small four-cylinder engine did not have the power to accelerate fast enough for me to enter a busy street. But I saved a lot on gasoline. Mixed emotions; one part of me wanted to save on fuel, but after several close calls, I gave up on the small engine for one that allowed for a greater margin of safety. Putt putts have their place, but not on today’s busy streets.

Then there is the effect on car-pooling. It will take several more vehicles to get the same number of people to work and back.

Electric cars anybody? Try heating and cooling a vehicle that will just barely get you to and from work without needing a recharge. Again, Liberal Elites force us to surrender some of our way of life for their empowerment. In a few short years, we will be wishing for some greenhouse gases as the Earth continues its cooling trend.

I am not opposed to saving energy, but carefully crafting our national energy policies will save us all a lot of grief. And in a lot of instances, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

Our failure to drill for and develop domestic energy resources will come back to bite us should our economy ever recover. There will never be enough wind to fuel our economy, and other so-called "green" sources are woefully short of the energy needed to maintain our way of life. But there is hope! Nuclear, clean coal and developing our oil and gas reserves can lift us out of the looming calamity.

Should we ever throw petroleum under the bus; the resulting economical disaster will be of such proportions that we could not recover. Can't you picture our industries trying to compete with the third world and their cheap petroleum based economies while we bask in the desert of our expensive "clean" energy? Just look at the industrial base that we have already lost to China. Now imagine things getting a lot worse because our remaining industries cannot compete. Can't you just picture our poor having to chase cows and other animals for their dung? Dung may become the only affordable fuel around!

I ask, why the headlong rush to kill our way of life? The global warming hysterics are just that, hysterics. But the rush to trade in carbon credits is real. Some people will profit heavily from the trading of carbon credits, but the average American will just continue to have to pay through the nose so that these profiteers can line their pockets.

What is really funny is that while the Earth is cooling, the global alarmists are now saying that the Earth is cooling because of global warming! Go figure.

Cheers,

-Robert-