Judging from this article, Mark Muller will most likely be president of the United States within the next 20 years.
"McCain led among whites, NASCAR fans, and elderly voters."
--John Whitesides, Reuters, in reference to the latest Obama-McCain poll
Sometimes I wonder if car companies are secretly run by oil companies and mechanics. How else does one explain the following contradiction?: The goal of a car company, above all else and no matter what they might say, is to make money. Options exist (e.g. the Hypercar, gas-electric hybrids, compressed-air vehicles) that would allow car companies to make money while slowing the destruction of the biosphere. I would say 9 people out of 10 enjoy whining about gas prices, even many people who make so much money it doesn't really affect them.
If so many people want vehicles that lower their fuel expenses, why do car companies continue to manufacture conventional vehicles as the overwhelming majority of their product lines? I think there a few reasons. For one, hybrids have not been profitable until recently according to car companies, presumably because the manufacturing process needed ironing out, and as greater numbers are built the pain points are easier to recognize. Another reason is that new hybrids are not easy to afford for most people (the consumer most affected by gas prices is least likely to be able to afford a hybrid). Also, some people prefer whining to actually being proactive about changing things.
My hope is that we can convince the car companies that changing all of their vehicles whose main purpose is not towing or carrying heavy inanimate loads to Hypercars or something similar would be beneficial to their bottom line and ensure they survive the transition to a non-petroleum economy. This is where the use of the strike comes in. If what I'm saying is true and we can convince the automobile manufacturer's labor unions that they might not have jobs in five years without major changes, they could attempt to use strikes to put pressure on the executives to agree to the product shift. I would imagine the executives would stick by their line of "It's too dangerous to switch without knowing what the market will be like in a few years." Or something like that.
Even if my idea makes sense, it's hard to imagine people striking about something that seems so intangible/unpredictable and isn't explicitly about pay or working conditions.
"Jittery about a political backlash over gasoline costs as prices set yet another record Tuesday, Congress voted to halt deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in defiance of President Bush." --LA Times
When the Senate votes 97-1 on something, it's pretty much guaranteed that they're doing so because voting Nay puts them at risk of being voted out in the next election. (Note that the one Nay vote was by a senator who's retiring. Also note that on that page there is a poll, and as of 5/15/08 the highest votegetter is No, meaning a lot of people are opposed to the Senate's vote.)
I think I see Bush's point about energy security, but the key thing here is that people would only save 2 to 5 cents per gallon. Even for the lower class, 75 cents is not enough to make a difference in people's ability to pay their bills. Yes it could make a difference for somebody who drives a large truck for a living, but considering how we're already seeing positive effects from the [relatively] high gas prices, I'll have to disagree with the Senate on this one.
Two of my favorite things came together on the evening of May 1st, and not just because I ate a peanut butter cup. One of my favorite writers, James Howard Kunstler, appeared on the Colbert Report to talk about his new novel, World Made By Hand. It's getting decent reviews at Amazon so far, but I plan on picking it up regardless of any reviews since it's a book I might have attempted to write had he not. It's currently the #15 on the top-seller list in Amazon's "Literary" category, so either Atlantic Monthly Press is doing some good marketing or a lot of people are becoming interested in what a post-oil world might look like.
I don't understand why Google is slowly becoming more and more like other search engines. Half the reason I started using Google was that I was frustrated that other search engines didn't search for the exact terms that I typed. Now if I search for, for example, "watin download" (WatiN is a program for computer programmers), a lot of the results, possibly the majority, are returned because of the word "waiting," even though that has nothing to do with what I was searching for. I can force Google to search for exactly the terms I want it to, but it's annoying that I have to do that now.
Seriously. How can a supposed Democrat support McCain's gas tax holiday, even if part of it is attempting to raise taxes on oil companies (which we should be doing no matter what)? If I didn't already think the Obama was a better choice than Clinton, this would be the clincher. Since Horsey and Friedman can express my irritation much better than I, I'll let them do the work:
"It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer's travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: We borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country."
I went to the second day of the Seattle Green Festival a couple weeks ago. It was basically several rooms with 45-minute speeches/forums and a gigantic main hall with many many booths. All in all it was a good experience, though I did have some complaints. My main problem was that it was too small and too brief to cater to a wide variety of people. By that I mean people just getting into greenosity--whether for financial gain or for the betterment of the planet--on one end, and expert greeners on the other end.
The first speech I went to was given by a former local-news weatherman who now works for Puget Sound Energy, who was there to talk about ways to make your home greener. For some reason I was expecting to hear something new and exciting rather than the same old stuff (e.g. compact fluorescents) mixed with a sales pitch for PSE. The speaker meant well, and maybe the other people there learned some things, but I found it disappointing.
The second speech I went to was given by Chelsea Sexton, the former GM employee featured in Who Killed the Electric Car?, along with a couple other people. It was interesting to hear the optimism of the speakers, but again I didn't walk away feeling like I had learned a lot.
The last speech I went to was from Richard Heinberg, one of my favorite nonfiction writers. He basically did a quick summary of his latest book, Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines. I found it enjoyable, and afterwards picked up the book, which he signed for me. I think hearing his speech and having Field Roast's Italian sausage for lunch were the highlights of the day.
I love it when NPR backs me up when I'm totally not expecting it. I commented a while back about how irritating it is (and just plain immoral) that politicians are obsessed with talking about lowering gas prices rather than raising them. Thank you, Len Burman, for helping me feel like I'm not crazy.
"So why the empty rhetoric? Because we'll need much higher gas prices, not price cuts, to fend off the enormous threat of global warming. And no politician -- not even an infamous maverick -- wants to talk about that during an election campaign."
I'm not sure why John McCain is an "infamous maverick," but Len certainly is correct that nobody except for possibly the Green Party wants to talk about higher gas prices during an election year.
I don't know how effective this was in 1943, but it would be incredible if the overwhelming majority of our grease was used as an energy source rather than disposed of. Really all waste needs to be recycled in some fashion in order for civilization to survive into the next millenium, but I'll get into that another time.