By Paul Claybrook
I am a capitalist that believes that the free market can solve any issue better than all the governments combined. Not because I think or hope that is the case, but because it clearly is. The more politicians get involved, the worse the outcome for us economically and socially. I also don’t buy into the whole global warming crap that Al Gore and other politicians love pushing as “fact” when in reality the facts reveal their gross misinterpretation of the whole thing and almost no evidence that humans are responsible for any global increase in temperature. I think the push for cleaner energy often has good intentions (even sometimes by politicians), but their reasons are all wrong.
Nonetheless, I can’t help but think that they are on to something with the reduction of oil and gasoline. Their reason to decrease emissions is usually based on ‘saving’ a planet that doesn’t need saving, but using less gasoline and oil makes sense in ways that actually make sense too. First of all, gas isn’t cheap. If we actually started drilling in the U.S. prices would drop significantly almost overnight, but we can’t consider that an option as there is no evidence that it is going to happen anytime soon. If we could somehow run our cars on something cheaper, wouldn’t that be better?
Secondly, much of our fuel comes from countries that want to kill us almost as much as they like being filthy rich by selling us gasoline. That’s not good because those same countries are often involved in funding terrorist groups that actually do try to kill us. Of course they can’t kill enough of us to decrease the demand for gasoline much, and besides, the threat of terrorist attacks only drives prices higher as concerns over supplies begin to surface.
Now I can see a potential solution on the horizon, but honestly I’m not sure if it will catch on; electric cars. Of course vehicle manufacturers are pumping out a few electric cars to portray the image of environmental consciousness, but at this point EV’s as they are called, just aren’t super practical. Part of the problem is that much of the electricity that is produced in the U.S. is a “dirty” form to start with. So you may think that you are saving the world by driving a plugin car, but the electricity that you use was probably produced at some oil-burning power plant. On the bright side, the amount of ‘gas’ burned to make that electricity is less than the amount you would have to put in a traditional car, and it costs a whole lot less.
Now imagine a world where all the environmental wackos were banished to an island with no contact with the rest of humanity. If we were smart about it, we would start building lots of nuclear power plants that produce vast quantities of electricity, create tons of jobs, and are very safe (despite the propaganda of the anti-technology crowd). The cost of electricity would go down which is good for everybody, but now driving electric cars makes sense. We would accomplish the idiots’ idea of reducing carbon emissions and save the planet, but we would also accomplish something useful by giving the Middle East the middle finger!