A culture of stupidity

Have you ever wondered why someone would want to be deliberately stupid in a world that should know better? Ask a Republican. They will, of course, deny they’re stupid, but among themselves they acknowledge that they say stupid things in order to ensure the loyalty of certain voters, who will believe anything if it supports their biases.

Let’s take oil, for example — specifically, blaming the president for high gas prices, and getting away with it among these voters. Everyone knows oil prices are set on the world market — well almost everyone — and that despite reduced imports and increased domestic production, prices are going up anyway. Why? Because the US currently produces only about ten percent of the world’s oil, and there’s very little chance of changing that ratio any time soon, no matter where we mine the oil. With such a small contribution to world supply, we won’t impact world prices much.

And let’s not overlook the fact that we have to stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible. That imperative is seldom part of the conversation about gas prices. Gas-powered cars are going to be with us for a while, so instead of kvetching about where the next drop of conventional oil is coming from, we need to get behind a program to make biofuels a practical reality. This is in everyone’s interests — even the stupid.

The common-sense Navy

Even as the GOP mocks biofuels, the US Navy is taking energy independence very seriously with a plan to have 50 percent of its total energy consumption coming from renewable sources by 2020. Now is this common sense or what? Well, I’m waiting for the Republicans in Congress to hold hearings on why the navy is so gosh-darned worried about a silly thing like national security.

Inhofe is a clear and present danger

Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) won’t be around long enough to personally destroy our habitat as we know it, but he seems determined to make sure the wheels of destruction will remain in motion.

Inhofe, one of the nation’s most prominent pinheads, recently published a book entitled The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. On the Internet you can find a Tulsa World photo of Inhofe signing a copy of his book for an 11-year-old boy. In a world where justice prevailed, Inhofe would be charged with endangering the welfare of a child. You can go to jail for peddling porn to a kid, but you get off scot-free if you poison his mind with dangerous lies.

The premise for Inhofe’s book is that God controls climate, not humans. He believe that it’s arrogant of people to think they can do what only God can do. The senator has often declared global warming to be a hoax, and now he’s recorded his ignorance for the ages.

Like so many conservatives, Inhofe seems to be incapable of embarrassment or chagrin. He is obviously not smart enough to grasp the science that discredits his skewed reasoning. He fails to understand that the God he so reveres gave us minds and the option of using them. Thousands of scientists — God’s creations using their God-given brains, according to Inhofe’s faith — have deduced that global warming is the result of human activity, and to refute this is to allow that God is fallible.

So there it is, Jim. Thousands of God’s children, using the minds He gave them, have correctly assessed the evidence that humans have influenced the earth’s climate. You’re claiming that God made a mistake when he gave them the intelligence required to make this judgment, but you don’t have the reasoning skills required to grasp this either. I think if someone tried to explain that to you, your eyes would glaze over and you’d foam at the mouth.

Sorry to be so cruel, Jim, but you put yourself out there.

No brainer, confirmed

I have to credit PBS for an April 20, 2011, NOVA episode called “Power Surge” for confirming my explanation of how human activity is warming the earth to prehistoric levels — and helping me out with a few useful factoids.

For instance, I can now state specifically that it was about 35 million years ago that the earth’s atmosphere was loaded with carbon dioxide, and that the planet was a verdant tropical orb. There was no ice at the poles, there were forests in Antarctica and alligators in South Dakota, and there were palm trees in the Rocky Mountains.

As was and continues to be part of a natural process, the lush vegetation sucked CO₂ out of the atmosphere, and when trees and plants died the CO₂ was buried. Over the millions of years that followed, the CO₂ compressed into coal, oil, and natural gas — what we now call fossil fuels — and as we release it, we will eventually return the planet to those prehistoric conditions.

Among the other stunning factoids? I learned that one gallon of gasoline represents about 100 tons of ancient plants. Yikes.

I’ve been writing about global warming for over 20 years, and it’s nice to be able to have more to go by than what I know in my gut. It’s even nicer to know that my gut has been right all along. Some of what my gut knows it learned in high school science, and I hope that helps vindicate the American public school system. The rest I’ve picked up along the way.

If I thought it would help, I’d tie our most prominent global warming deniers to chairs — James Inhofe and Rick Perry, for example — and force them to watch “Power Surge.” But I think both of them would squeeze their eyes shut and yell “no-no-no-no-no-no-no —” because the earth is only 6,000 years old and on the sixth day God created gas pumps.

(The conversation about) global warming goes away

Global warming seems to be a dead issue in the United States, which isolates us from the rest of the world. You have to wonder what’s going on in people’s minds when the number of people who believe global warming is real drops from 79 percent in 2006 to 59 percent currently. That’s comparable to 20 percent of the people changing their minds about the sum of two plus two.

Global warming isn’t something to believe in, like God. It’s logical, and it was a logical hypothesis even before the evidence began to mount. It’s supported by more facts than you can shake a stick at. But this seems to be a problem with Americans: when the rest of the world is looking ahead dozens and hundreds of years, we have trouble seeing beyond next week. Shockingly, when renewable, non-carbon energy sources should be our priority, we’re making a big push for a 2,000-mile oil pipeline from Canada and fracking natural gas from deep underground. Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry would kill off the EPA and dig up all the coal in the US.

It’s insane and dangerous to think global warming isn’t a settled issue, as Perry and other Republicans claim. While most of us won’t live to see the ultimate penalties for ignoring the climate change crisis, many are already suffering from its consequences. Scientists, always unwilling to make sweeping claims without an abundance of supporting evidence, now seem ready to blame the dramatic increase in violent weather events on global warming.

A colder than usual American winter in 2010 helped to dampen people’s interest in global warming as an issue. It was hardly warmer, right? What people miss is that global warming is bringing about changes in climate patterns. Even as the US experienced more cold and snow last winter, the planet still warmed, and the snowstorms themselves are right in line with what scientists predict — more violent weather, more precipitation. Look at the tornado season that followed. Look at the flooding. Look at the relentless heat in the summer, and the drought that set Texas on fire.

Other countries are looking at global warming as an opportunity to develop and invest in the technologies and industries of tomorrow. Not us. When we finally decide to update our energy infrastructure, we’ll be looking abroad for the parts we need.

After making bold promises about how he would combat global warming during the last presidential campaign, President Obama has gone quiet.  In 2008, discussing the rash of January tornadoes, The Weather Channel’s Severe Weather Expert, Dr. Greg Forbes, wrote that they were once rare — and over the last few years they’re becoming increasingly common. Let’s see what kind of weather January, 2012, brings, then let’s see what Obama has to say about it in his State of the Union speech next January. If he doesn’t bring up global warming in that address, then he’s taken his eye off the future.

Investing in the future

In past essays about global warming and alternate forms of energy, I’ve recalled the Manhattan Project that gave us the world’s first real weapon of mass destruction. It was a time of war, and the bomb was seen as a way to bring it to an end more quickly than we would without it. We would save American lives and materiel, shave months, perhaps years off the war, with this one awesome weapon. That we would obliterate two cities and countless lives in the process was an aside. It was a matter of national security.

Combating global warming is also a matter of national security, in that if we think of it as a war it would result in our independence from foreign oil and thus secure our energy needs forever. Never again would we face the threats of oil embargoes. Never again would we feel compelled to wage war to secure dwindling reserves of oil. But it goes beyond our own national security. It’s the security of humanity that’s at stake.

The original Manhattan Project cost $2 billion, and that’s 1940s’ dollars — about $20 billion in today’s dollars. Some 175,000 people were employed by the Project. It was an acceptable expenditure of American tax dollars. We were, after all, at war. The Manhattan Project could hardly be left up to the Free Market.

I would argue the same logic applies to the project of the new millenium, whatever name we give it. The Gaia project? What a great name that would be. The point is, we are in the midst of a war right now, and I’m not talking about Iraq. I’m talking about the war for energy independence, the war against global warming. Today, $20 billion is chump change, but it would go a long way toward getting our solar and wind industries way up off the ground. It would go a long way toward assuring that the United States were a leader among nations in the development and manufacture of alternative energy equipment. It would go a long way toward making is secure at last. And it would put a lot of people to work in decent jobs.

Where the buck stops

When you strive to become president of the United States, you should do so only with the understanding that when something goes wrong in the world, you will take the heat. Therefore, you’d better be equipped for the job.

Today, Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by an apparent terrorist who shot her twice before detonating the bomb he was wearing. One more tragic event in a long series of tragic events that have marred what should have been a relatively peaceful, productive eight years for the world, considering that they arrived on the heels of a period when the US was flush with wealth and good standing around the globe.

One might ask, why now? Why pick on poor George? Why not still during the Clinton administration, which saw years of relative calm following the first attempt to bring down the twin towers in Manhattan? Was it because the terrorist leadership (correctly) assessed that Bush would be a bungler who would play into their hands? That the terrorist leadership understood better than his own fellow citizens that George Bush was not equipped to lead the most powerful nation on earth?

Perhaps the core of the terrorist leadership does indeed hate America and all that it stands for, the democracy we hold so dear, as Bush has claimed. But not all terrorists do, or did. Most of the army of terrorists, like any army, enrolls in a cause for reasons that emerge as situations evolve. Most of the men and women who have blown themselves up over the last years might otherwise have been selling goods in shops somewhere, or attending school, or farming, or doing something with no remote connection to terrorism. And what began as a small core of fanatics, isolated in the mountains of Afghanistan years ago, has now grown to become a real threat to world peace. And all on George Bush’s watch.

Of course we will never know if 9/11 would have even happened were Al Gore president instead of Bush. We have no way of knowing that. My feeling is that it wouldn’t have happened. My feeling is that a Gore administration would have taken more seriously that August 2001 daily intelligence rief that warned of terrorist activity involving hijacked airliners. If indeed such activity would have been evolving to even inspire such a brief. Would the terrorist leadership have tested Gore, who was clearly more competent than Bush? Would they have even been motivated to attack the US at that time, considering that the Clinton administration, of which Gore was a part, was actively pushing the Israelis and Palestinians toward peace and a Palestinian state? Or that Gore’s agenda included energy independence for the US, which would mean reduced interest in Middle Eastern oil? After all, the Bush family fortune was built on oil, and while oil has meant prosperity for much of the Middle East, to the radicals it was not only the reason for exploitation but the incursion of Western ideas and habits into the Muslim lands.

President Bush is confident that history will record his presidency as a successful one, that what he began will eventually end well. He’s delusional. If things end well, it will be only because someone else fixed it. What we will have is eight years that shouldn’t have happened the way it did. But with Bush, what else could we have expected?

Common cents

Despite almost overwhelming evidence, there are still many who doubt that human activity is causing global warming. For this reason, many of them don’t see this as a reason to change the way we supply our energy — and many don’t even think we need to at all.

Global warming aside, there are other reasons to move away from fossil fuels. National security, for example. The technology exists to make us independent from foreign oil, to permit us to be the sole supplier of our own energy. What more reason would we need?

Well, we’re also addicted to coal, with about half of our electricity coming from coal-fired plants. Coal mining ravages the landscape, adversely affects local and regional ecosystems, and the jobs it creates are filled with risks. What coal miner wouldn’t prefer a job in a plant that made wind turbines or solar panels to one that required a descent into the bowels of the earth, where tunnel collapses and explosions are very real threats.

And there are still other reasons. Were the fledgling companies now manufacturing and marketing alternative energy systems in the US encouraged to grow because of incentives and increased demand, it would be comparable to the oil boom of the early 20th century. Those wise enough to invest would profit. New jobs would be created, good-paying jobs. Tax revenues would rise. And the trade deficit would shrink.

More reasons? Eventually energy costs would come down and stabilize, consumers would have more money to spend, save or invest, and the economy would begin a steady, sustainable climb.

Still more reasons? Well, if these aren’t enough already, I’ll think of some more.

The new patriotism?

Ethanol is the “in” thing — so much so that the United Nations is worried that worldwide food production might suffer in the rush to produce fuel crops. But in the US at least, it’s become unwise to debunk the ethanol myth, and those who do risk being branded as anti-enviroment — or, worse, unpatriotic.

While biofuels may indeed have a role in the current crisis that can be characterized as both environmental and geopolitical, they are not the answer to the looming oil shortage. They will not provide us with the independence from foreign oil we seek. They will not guarantee our national security, something that’s already being trotted out in defense of agricultural fuels.

Yes, they are renewable, but there’s not enough arable land in the US to plant enough corn — or any other crop, for that matter — to replace all the petroleum we use. In addition, the process of converting corn to energy requires… energy, from fertilizers to transportation to the conversion process itself. In short, it winds up to be not very efficient.

What’s happening, though, with the encouragement of this administration — and, yes, this Congress — is that farmers are all excited about corn. They see it as the new oil. Without restriction, many farmers are switching to corn in hopes of the riches they will reap.

Okay, not all farmers are excited. Corn is being diverted from feed to ethanol production and ranchers, for example, are complaining that as the supply of feed crops diminishes, costs rise. And their costs, of course, are passed along to consumers.

In fact, in the end, all rising costs and other hardships created by this rush to ethanol will be passed along to consumers, who might even begin to see shortages of many foods in the not too distant future.

Yes we need energy, but we can’t eat it. Nor can those starving in third-world nations, many of whom find their only hope for survival in the surplus food produced by the United States. As we divert grains to fuel, there simply won’t be any surplus.

Once again, the solutions to the parallel problems of energy shortages, global warming and national security involve a comprehensive energy plan, one that leans heavily on solar, wind and other natural phenomena that can be tapped. Add public transit and sustainable communities to that mix, and come up with a way to sequester carbon emissions and perhaps even remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and we’re talking about a plan — with biofuels only a footnote.

Meanwhile, let’s not call someone unpatriotic just because they see the flaws in ethanol.

A new energy wrinkle

Today’s New York Times resports that within several years countries that are now net exporters of oil may become oil importers, thereby adding to the world’s oil supplies. This is due in large part to their increasing wealth from oil revenues, resulting in higher standards of living for citizens who are becoming energy consumers in ever increasing numbers. In Iran, gasoline is subsidized and available to its drivers for as little as seven cents per gallon, a practice that encourages wasteful habits, observes the Times. (An irony here — the folks who are wondering why in blazes Iran might want to build nuclear power plants when it is supposedly oil-rich? Well, maybe Iran sees the writing on the wall too. I’d feel more comfortable if they were building solar plants, though, since I’m sure they have an abundance of sunshine.)

There should be no surprises in this story, since wise voices have for a long time warned of the imperative to get off oil. It’s just that dumb ears have refused to listen. I expect the owners of those dumb ears to add this news to their justification to open more Alaskan wilderness to oil production, or expand offshore oil exploration, or increase production of ethanol from corn, and so forth — all the wrong solutions that might merely just postpone the inevitable, and probably not for long.

We’ve wasted so much time addressing this inevitable, we’re almost certain to experience an extended crunch time. One has to laugh. It’s possible to fantasize about a gradual, painless segue from oil to alternative sources of energy, but you know what they say about fantasies. They seldom become reality. And in this case, the time has passed for that one to happen.

I used to think that I probably wouldn’t live long enough to see the shit really hit the fan. Now, I’m not so sure. Barring a miracle, my income is likely to remain relatively fixed for the rest of my life, which means with each passing year my standard of living will drop. And I won’t be alone. But those of us who will suffer most really have little to say about our future — even if we have good ideas. Too many of us have voted for the wrong people for the wrong reasons for too long, and now we’re paying the price. Too bad we don’t realize it.