[Grovenet] America's Trillion-Dollar Baby

Tue Jan 23 12:37:37 PST 2007

Since our government officials have to win elections, they tend to do what
the voters tell 'em to do. Long-range energy assessment and planning is on
the list, but it's so far down you have to study the footnotes. 

Since we have the political parties and all sorts of political action groups
spending money to manipulate public opinion over what they want, the
ignorant or inattentive voter is simply a "middle-man" voting his/her fears
and trying to be on the "winning side" with their friends and neighbors. 

Such voting to be a part of the "winning side" doesn't work. I've observed
before that the USA was *not* founded on "one-man, one-vote". Our founding
fathers didn't think that would work, so they limited the franchise to vote
to those who they felt had a vested interest and personal stake in our
government; only people who owned property could vote. Not only did owning
property signify a real personal investment in our country, it also
indicated those who had the intelligence and wit to succeed over those who
were simply "along for the ride". Over the years we decided our founding
fathers had it wrong and we've changed that. Sometimes I suspect we're
proving the founding fathers right; it really did put the inmates in charge
of the institution(1). 

When I said we, as a nation, were addicted to oil I meant it. That means we
can't just stop using oil. We can't survive without it or, if we can, making
the change will be horribly painful and expensive. That's what all addicts
face. Sure, we can ask if we really need to take that drive this Sunday or
if we might car-pool to work, but that's only a tiny part of the issue. Even
a person who doesn't own a car and who never steps aboard a bus, train or
airplane uses a lot of oil every day. Every bag of potato chips, every can
of beans, every short on one's back got there using oil. Oil to run ships.
Oil to run transport trucks. Oil to run trains. Without oil we'd have no
food, no water, no heat, no electricity, no light, no jobs, not much of
anything.

I've always admired Ed Begley(2) and the position of groups like the EMA(3).
Until individual people develop the attitude that conscientious use of
energy is important, the nation as a whole will never get behind the idea.
People like Mr. Begley and organizations like the EMA represent a crucial
first step, but it's only the first step. 

The earth itself is short of energy reserves that we can safely adapt to
human needs. "Safely adapt" is the key. We can run the world on nuclear, but
people are not comfortable with the dangers. We can tap a lot of new oil
sources that, while not a solution would buy us lots of time, but people
refuse to consider that regardless of the safety track record. Just look at
the hoopla over putting trucks and equipment in a handful of acres of land
in Alaska to tap the huge reserves there! People were convinced our largest
national park was at risk. And, in spite of the fantastic track record of
off-shore drilling in the Gulf, no one is anywhere near accepting drilling
off the Oregon and California coasts, no matter how much money we have to
give foreign countries for their oil.

With those fears, people tend to ignore the real threat of famine in the USA
based on our monoculture society. Everything we eat, from beef to brie and
veggies to vitamins, depends upon a good corn crop in the USA. We use corn
in everything, from additives to our foods to feed for the animals we grow
to eat. If the corn crop ever fails, we starve. And we're constantly
reducing the genetic diversity of the corn in order to produce greater
"super-corn" crops with higher yields. And now we are beginning to use that
corn to make large quantities fuel - ethanol - as well. If the idea of a
nuclear power plant in every town is scary, the idea that our existence
depends upon a single biologically-controlled crop ought to be downright
terrifying. Yet that's our situation and no one, except a few experts, seems
to care. 

I agree that we must have government willing to address the issue, and that
government has, at best, paid lip-service to it so far. But I submit that's
because we voters are too easily stampeded by our fears and frustrations. 

I could get behind a lot of ideas if I could see how they were a part of a
sustainable energy program for the USA that provided for our needs, future
growth, and which didn't depend upon literally stealing resources from other
nations. 

I've yet to see a vestige of such a program. We have some great efforts,
such as the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Program at the Oak Ridge
National Laboratories (5), but those are essential studies into how to tap
greater energy, not an assessment of how we need to budget our energy
reserves for our future success. 

Ron D'Eau Claire   

(1) Personally, I'd like to see the vote limited to those who have completed
High School, passed the same citizenship test anyone immigrating passes, and
who own property or who paid income taxes the previous year.  

(2) http://www.edbegley.com/environment/

(3) http://www.ema-online.org/

(4) http://www.michaelpollan.com/press.php?id=51

(5) http://www.ornl.gov/sci/eere/renewables/index.htm

-----Original Message-----
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On
Behalf Of muriel Gordon
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 2:15 PM
To: Forest Grove local interests list
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] America's Trillion-Dollar Baby

You are so right on target......... and our wonderful government have been
settign on our cures for years. Check will Ed Bagely or Jay Leno, or just
goggle your favorite conservation, skip the first pages and really find out
how the cures to our ailments are buried! 

Muriel

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ron D'Eau Claire<mailto:rondec at easystreet.com> 
  To: 'Forest Grove local interests list'<mailto:grovenet at rdrop.com> 
  Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 12:12 PM
  Subject: [Grovenet] America's Trillion-Dollar Baby

  Are you helping support the man who tells Secretary of State Rice to "Go
to
  Hell?" (1)

  We all do, every time you pump some gas. 

  Of course, I'm speaking of President Chavez of Venezuela from whom the USA
  purchases about 560 million barrels of oil each year to supply our
needs(2).
  Figure $50/bbl. You do the math.

  It's a crazy world when a supplier can abuse and ridicule his customers.
But
  then, we're not customers. We're addicts, as hooked on oil as any bum in
the
  gutter is hooked on drugs. 

  I don't like to think of my country as a "bum in the gutter" of the world,
  so dependent upon the resources of other nations that we have to bow down
  and prostrate ourselves before people like him. 

  Iraq isn't our only problem. I wonder if it's even our biggest problem.
  Perhaps the biggest problem is right here at home, sitting at the gas
pumps
  in service stations all over the country. 

  Ron D'Eau Claire 

  (1)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070122/ts_nm/chavez_venezuela_us_dc_4<http://ne
ws.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070122/ts_nm/chavez_venezuela_us_dc_4>

  (2)

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level
<http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_leve
l>
  _imports/current/import.html

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