We’re making more all the time.

How long before these thirsty critters drink up all the oil?

I wouldn’t care except that we need oil for other important purposes.

Technorati Tags: cycling, green revolution, peak oil

What do you expect when you put people in cars they feel good about driving (or at least less guilty), which are also cheap to buy and run? Naturally, they drive them more. So much more, in fact, that they obliterate energy gains made by increased fuel efficiency.

Seems the carbon emissions are not going down the way they were supposed to. Now, what happens if we get Americans to drive greener, more efficient cars. More sprawl? Yikes!

Just can’t win.

Or can we?

Are there forms of transportation we can use more and do more good?

Hmmmmm… I wonder.

I like the green argument for bicycling and walking. My decision to go all-in when I moved to Springfield was primarily a green decision. It’s become so much more, of course. But I think the green argument is still worth making — especially to the Millennials.

Technorati Tags: green revolution, green transportation

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, cycling, green revolution, green transportation, walking

Being a traitorous, slandering, evil, godless, bleeding-heart, tax-and-spend, baby-killing liberal, I am naturally thrilled with the work of WikiLeaks. This bullet point from today’s New York Times just makes my toes curl with delight:

¶ Mixed records against terrorism: Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, and the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar, a generous host to the American military for years, was the “worst in the region” in counterterrorism efforts, according to a State Department cable last December. Qatar’s security service was “hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals,” the cable said.

Of course, we all knew this. No one can claim ignorance. It’s been discussed before. But there it is in the newspaper of record (from diplomatic cables) — the connection between the money we spend for gasoline and the money that funds terrorism.

It should be possible to estimate what I’m going to call the “traitor tax,” i.e. the amount of money spent per gallon of gas that goes directly to Al Qaeda and other militant groups. We would then be able to rank patriotism on an objective scale rather than relying on right-wing bloviating by pundits (e.g. Coulter, Savage, Beck) to define who is and is not a patriot.

(If you have ideas about how to do this or where to collect the data, please leave a comment with relevant links.)

It should then be a simple matter to demonstrate that, contrary to recent popular opinion, this lefty college professor, who lives .75 miles from work, is actually waaaaay more patriotic than, say, a Hummer-driving teabagger who commutes from his 5-acre “ranch” on the outskirts of Nixa to Springfield.

We should also be able to demonstrate who among our elected representatives (at all levels) is most patriotic, i.e. who is actually working for energy independence and who is in the pocket of the oil lobby?

(OMG!!! This could also mean that NASCAR is an unpatriotic organization. Kinda puts a different spin on this news.)

Seriously: Thank you WikiLeaks and The New York Times.

Technorati Tags: cycling, green revolution, green transportation, sustainability, walking

“The ratepayers of Virginia must be protected from costs for renewable energy that are unreasonably high,” the regulators said. Wind power would have increased the monthly bill of a typical residential customer by 0.2 percent.

Wow. Lemme see. That’ud be a whole 20 cents per $100.

Jeopardy answer: Why are we doomed?

Not doomed because we’re not choosing any particular renewable energy source (some projects are VERY expensive). Doomed because we seem determined to do nothing at all in terms of a national policy. We seem determined to continue burning fossil fuels as if they will last forever and come with zero collateral costs.

In related news: When Scientists ATTACK!!!

Technorati Tags: green revolution