Bush's plan for bringing freedom to the Middle East relies heavily on conversions at gun-point. He and his people are stuck in the sixteenth century, when Spanish conquistadores used death and torture to convert Native Americans to Catholicism. Thomas Friedman writes about a fresh, energy-sensible approach:
For a long time, the fossil fuel companies and their political puppets have denied global warming. Some spokesmen even declare that people loved warm weather--that's why they took vacations in the tropics. So if it turned out that the temperature was rising, what was your problem?
An excellent PBS documentary, "What's Up With The Weather," interviewed a spokesman for Western Fuels Association. He said: "I understand that people get uneasy over the concept of more CO2 going into the air, but you can't live your life based on speculation. And we know today that using fossil fuels is a good thing. It leads to economic growth. It allows more people to live longer on Earth. These are- there are positive goods that come from using fossil fuels. There's a speculative `bad' that people are holding out there, saying, `Therefore, let's stop using fossil fuels.' And I think that's an imprudent approach." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/warming/etc/script.html
If Blue States & Blue Counties, who keep the economic engine of the country running through their spending, refuse to shop on coronation day, we can create a very effective protest against the Iraq war. We don't even have to lose our armchairs to rally on Jan. 20.
Catastrophic fuel shortages and catastrophic global climate change, helped along by Bush/Cheney. We are in for a major energy crisis very soon. Say goodbye to plastics, clothing, pharmaceuticals, suburbs, and your car. Meanwhile, the hydrogen economy is a long way off. Michael Klare, a prof at Hampshire College writes:
Excerpt
"The new method involves running electricity through water that has a very high temperature. As the water molecule breaks up, a ceramic sieve separates the oxygen from the hydrogen. The resulting hydrogen has about half the energy value of the energy put into the process, the developers say. Such losses may be acceptable, or even desirable, because hydrogen for a nuclear reactor can be substituted for oil, which is imported and expensive, and because the basic fuel, uranium, is plentiful.
