David Roberts says what the Dem candidates ought to say about the supposed “sacrifices” we'll have to make to combat global warming and achieve “energy independence”:
Well, weird robotic moderator woman, I object to the way you've framed the question. The real question is, what does it cost to stay dependent on fossil fuels? What is it costing us to keep thousands of our troops in the Middle East to secure oil supplies? What's it costing us to send a substantial chunk of our GDP into the coffers of nations that mean us harm? What's it costing us to treat millions of kids with asthma? What's it costing us to poison children in the womb with mercury? What's it costing us to blow up our Appalachian mountains? What's it costing us to heat up the atmosphere and deal with the ensuing storms, droughts, floods, and migrations?
The costs of dependence on fossil fuel — the full costs, in health, in national security, in environmental destruction — have never been fully accounted for, but they are likely greater than anyone imagines. It is an ongoing drain on our national vitality and a stain on our national character. Freeing ourselves from fossil fuels is just that — freedom. I don't want Americans to sacrifice and live in cold, dark caves. I don't want to cripple the economy, I want to free it, to revitalize it. I want Americans to come together to fight for a happier, healthier, more prosperous national future, just as they always have. This is our next great challenge, and unlike so many people in the Beltway, Americans are eager to take it on.
But … but … how could we possibly have it better than this, the best of all possible worlds?
That's what we need to hear: Not just that things are messed up now, and that we've been doing the wrong thing — we either know that already, or don't want to deal with it. We need to hear about the genuine benefits of doing it better.
What the hell is so great about buying gasoline?
Plus, phrasing the question in such a way that focus on the “sacrifices” of fighting global warming presupposes that we’re doing much of anything right now to fight it, when we are not.
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p>Sure, I’d agree that mandating that all industries in America shut down tomorrow would be too great a sacrifice. But when we’re having a difficult time even moving the ball forward on slight improvements in the MPG requirements of motor vehicles, why would that question have any relevance?
great about driving, let alone buying gasoline. At least I can now report that, in addition to giving me 45-50 mpg in city driving, the Prius I bought this summer is reasonably good in snow. Not as good, understandably, as my previous 4-wheel drive truck, but much better than the Saturn and Volvo station wagons and the small VW the wife and I have owned.
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p>Don’t see why CAFE standards can’t be much more aggressive, given that the technology exists now for much higher mileage vehicles with no sacrifice of amenities or features.
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p>GOP + GM + MI
$$$?
in the room is the naivety of the average American. You are being told to live like a American Indian because fat cat globalists need more oil to fuel China’s and India’s slave labor camps. Note the focus is always on the ability to drive your own personal car. Well soon that won’t be an option. We do however never, ever bring up the energy wasted in silly convienience items like cell phones or shopping malls open 24/7 seven days a week.
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p>Our modern lifestyle uses energy and the solution is either less people or less lifestyle.
There is more than enough energy available to power things off the grid. We just have to decide we want to use it. We could provide the entire electrical use of the United States with just a tiny fraction of the energy we get from the sun. We could power the US for several decades with the nuclear material we already have. We wouldn’t even have to raise energy prices all that much.
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p>Cell phones and malls have nothing to do with gasoline. There is no shortage of available energy. We just have to decide that we want to capture more of the available energy. People have been predicting that we will exceed our available resources for 200 years now. Technology has always stepped up to take care of resource problems. We will not be energy limited any time soon. The only problem we have right now with energy is the pollution produced by most of our current energy extraction methods.
but that is not the point behind the push for global warming. They want control, taxes and the elimination of liberties that used to be customary for the American middle class. Period, they have zero interest in the collective benefit of mankind, zero.
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p>This There is more than enough energy available to power things off the grid. is probably correct (I haven’t run the numbers),
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p>This We just have to decide we want to use it. is probably incorrect. We have to decide how to generate it, that is, how best to convert it to electricity. I’ll admit to being something of a fan of photovoltaics (as I’ve made clear here many times in the past), but I’ll also admit that photovoltaics is not environmentally benign. Their manufacture produces rather substantial amounts of rather toxic environmental waste.