[...] And in the joke of the day, “Previewing the final quarter of Bush’s presidency, officials disclosed to TIME that the Administration is formulating a huge energy initiative designed to “change the whole nature of the discussion”Â? and challenge the G.O.P., Democrats, the oil and electricity industries, and environmentalists. An adviser said Bush’s views about global warming have evolved. “Only Nixon could go to China, and only Bush and Cheney””?two oilmen””?can bring all these parties kicking and screaming to the table,”Â? the adviser said.” Sorry guys, Bush’s views about global warming aren’t ‘evolved’, they’re created. And that’s a lifetime of creation and decision, so don’t think about bringing up ‘facts’. [...]

Cole’s Oil Cartography

“Bush Turns to Fear-Mongering: Creation of ‘Islamic’ Bogeyman,” by Juan Cole, Informed Comment, 6 September 2006, http://www.juancole.com/2006/09/bush-turns-to-fear-mongering-creation.html.

The latest column by Juan Cole (a Professor at the Univ…

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Hydrocodone withdrawl. Hydrocodone. I had a healthy baby while i took hydrocodone. Buy hydrocodone online without a prescription. How long does hydrocodone stay in your system. Buy hydrocodone.

I hope he really does something, not some band aid that makes people feel better.

Dan,

I read your posts about the $5 gas tax and evenly distributed rebates for heads of households. I think it is a very interesting idea. Two things though, I think it is the sort of thing that should be phased in over 2 or 3 years, to give people a chance to adjust to the new realities. I know many families that bought gas guzzlers three or four years ago, because they made a rational decision that the large refunds and low interest rates on those vehicles offset the increased gasoline usage.
Second, the people that have to drive the furthest tend to be poorer and have less income to spend on transit. This could affect them unfairly. Quite often they had no choice but to move to the outer reaches of suburbia, if they wanted to offer their children any sort of comfortable home life. More often it is single wealthier people that close to the economic cores of the country.

Consider that the only significant energy reform proposal out of this Administration so far has been to further flog the dead horse of ethanol as a motor vehicle fuel.

Hmmmm, let’s see. Agricultural specialists and climatologists are warning that we could see North American crop yields plummet in the next decade due to increasingly adverse growing conditions. What to do, what to do. Ah! I’ve got it! Let’s bet the nation’s energy security on Midwestern corn!

And this at a time when America last year, for the first time in living memory, imported more food than it exported. Brilliant plan. Just brilliant.

I am more fond of eating than I am of driving. That’s just a personal preference, you understand.

Alas we all seem to expect someone else to do something – its really up to us. We each need to halve our energy consumption for a start- but will we try???

We all know what we’re going to be doing: shelling out 2 to 3 dollars per gallon to Exxon for corn-syrup, biodiesel, ethenol, or whatever renewable energy source is convinient for the vested interests in the energy game.

I guess I’ll be the one to point out that our high levels of energy use are not frivolous, but rather are one large contributing factor in significant productivity increases. Look around you… The standard of living in this nation has been enhanced dramatically on the whole over the last few decades. Yes, that is coupled with explosive increases in demand for energy. The key to advancing that trend even further is not to curb our consumption, but rather to diversify our energy sources and advance the technology in ways that lead to plentiful cheap energy.

Yes, one small part of that is consuming energy more efficiently by doing simple things like replacing old products with newer, better models. Say for example replacing your ancient, constantly needing replacement light bulbs with new, inexpensive, high quality CFL swirls…. Or to continue increasing the incentives for transitioning to hybrid and flex fuel vehicles. But these are ways of getting more bang out of our energy buck. A sound policy for profit at any time. To suggest we should cut back on our use of air conditioning and cars and our travelling collection of the Best Buy display rack is nothing but a bunch of utopian sounding inefficient nonsense. Regression will get us nowhere good.

There is a pretty standard list of energy choices that will get us somewhere good, fast:

• Hybrid/Flex Fuel Vehicles
• Replacing old lightbulbs with CFL swirls ($3 a piece at Walmart, and they last 7-10 years—same luminescent quality or better as traditional bulbs)
• Oil source diversification (Oil shale + tar sands + private exploration in friendly waters)
• Clean coal advances
• Grid modernization
• Pebble bed nuclear + hydrogen production
• Ethanol/biofuels
• Continued invesment in advances in wind, solar, and other currently marginal alternatives.

We can go ahead and worry that the sky is falling, that crop yields will plummet despite continuing breathroughs in bio-sciences all around, and that the only way to solve our problems is to commit economic and lifestyle suicide through programs like Kyoto or browbeating of individuals on how the moral choice is to drastically limit the work we use our energy for… Or we can recognize this as mostly a technological problem that is best solved through increased generation and more efficient distribution of energy from a diverse array of sources.

I put my money where my mouth is and have already replaced all of the old bulbs I can with CFL’s. How about the doomsayers here?

PS. Chirol, you know what this will leave the Democratic party—new and creative ways to lose elections.

snow, why is halving the consumption “not realistic”? In a market economy, if prices double, it would seem logical that consumption would decrease. If you had two cars, and decide to get rid of one, and then replace the first one in a couple of years with a much more efficient one, you would soon be down by 50%. What people would have to do is start educating themselves about milage and efficiency.

Why wait until Bush and Cheney say “go”?

MF, sure it’s logical that when prices skyrocket that consumption would decrease, but halve? Just not realistic or possible. Maybe the odd person who has an extra car can get by with one, but industry can’t easily halve their consumption. If they could, they would have done so already to save on costs. The reality is that in a competitive free market, companies have done plenty of cost cutting. They could probably cut more, but certainly no where near 50% and still produce the same amount.

For example, the airline industry is fighting furiously to cut fuel costs, as they’ve been hurting big time. How much more can they cut? Very very little. Airlines are looking to technological improvements and other measures to decrease fuel consumption and increase efficiency. They have cut to the bone and can’t cut more. Airlines are an extreme example, as they are especially reliant on fuel, but this is the problem that most industry faces. For example, Korean Air I live in Korea is very pleased with a 2.5% decrease in consumption last year and IATA, an international air standards organization, is pushing major airlines to reduce by 10% between 2000 and 2010. 50% is just not realistic for industry.

Little efforts are certainly worthwhile by individuals, but 50%? Can you cut your consumption of energy by 50%, and I don’t mean just gas consumption, all consumption of energy. The only way is if you want to start taking sponge baths, washing your dishes and flushing the toilet once a week and turn the heater way down and the air con off. How long would that last for most people? And industry can’t cut like that and still produce at the same levels.

The only way to cut US fuel consumption by 50% is to shutter half of industry and force a 50% reduction on individuals. Just as with Kyoto, the ‘solution’ would be worse than the problem.

I guess I’ll be the one to point out that our high levels of energy use are not frivolous, but rather are one large contributing factor in significant productivity increases.

For the life of me, I can’t see how such American peculiarities as having people use enormous 2500kg trucks as single-occupancy commuter vehicles have any conceivable relevance to “productivity” as I understand the word.

(To say nothing of equipping those trucks with heavy and complex four-wheel-drive systems which are in the majority of cases never engaged, save perhaps to engage the vanity of the owner that he could, if he chose, drive off of the road.)

Dr. Wallace suggests that 50% reductions in usage are a reasonable target. Our own household has come close to this in the last four years. Some of that was attained by upgrading equipment. Some was simple maintenance and repair of existing equipment which was operating inefficiently.

And yes, I am sure to J. Kende’s shock, some of it was due to voluntarily enduring modestly increased physical discomfort. We wear heavier clothes during winter evenings rather than constantly running the central heating. The torture of doing so is almost too much to bear!

What a weak culture America has become. In truth, I would bicycle in the rain and I would endure ice-cold showers if it meant that we could decouple permanently from the treacherous Saudis.

I do approve of many of the technological improvements which J. Kende lists. But in a world where fossil fuel supplies are shrinking rapidly, and where the US population is on course to double in the next few decades, technology alone is not going to suffice. There are going to have to be lifestyle changes, ineluctibly.

Jon,

Your concern about the poor is right, but in general such problems should be dealt with out of the income tax. If we really want to help them, give them a larger earned-income tax credit or healthcare.

Alec,

or whatever renewable energy source is convinient for the vested interests in the energy game.

Do you want a pragmatic solution? If so, deal with vested interests? You don’t want won? Fine, but such concerns are better left for abstract philosophy than politics.

Snow,

The only way to cut US fuel consumption by 50% is to shutter half of industry and force a 50% reduction on individuals.

Every part of the economy is equally energy dependent and energy-price inelastic? Amazing!