Wouldn't it be better to have windmills, solar power, and public mass transit rather than an endless war for oil in the Middle East and Central Asia? Why can't the public begin to demand the conversion of the military industrial complex? After all, it is our money.
To the extent that Iraq is a "war for oil" (it most assuredly is, just not in the simplistic way you seem to see it), perhaps you should look at your own philosophy and the actions it motivates as part of the underlying cause.
ReplyDeleteWhere will you put these windmills and solar power collectors, Bruce? More to the point, where will your fellows in the environmental movement *allow* you to put them -- if they don't block their construction entirely, regardless of place, on environmental grounds (e.g.: opposing wind farm construction in large swaths of the country in the name of protecting migratory birds)?
Any change proposed as true step forward in energy production -- that is, changes that will support economic growth and not thwart rising standards of living, which windmills and solar power alone cannot do -- is invariably opposed by those in your own camp, Bruce. We are dependent on foreign sources of oil because we are dependent on oil in the first place, because you leave us with no *viable* alternatives.
If you were really serious about converting the "military industrial complex" you so often fret about, and about eliminating the stimulus for war you complain about here, you'd support a massive expansion of nuclear power. This is why I cannot take you or most other environmentalists seriously -- the solution is in front of you, but you reject it in favor of "alternatives" which are little more than handwaving and magical thinking.
Y'all might be waiting a good bit for Sheila to come back. Private correspondance with the lady has demonstrated that she is interested in preaching to the choir but not interested in debate, or in a valid exchange of ideas.
ReplyDeleteWhich is sad. Closing yourself off from debate with someone merely because they have a different viewpoint is not the way to get things done. It's doubly odd because the lady is supposed to be an activist. How can you actually hope to get anything done if you don't try and understand the other guy's point of view?
But that might apply to Bruce as well. He blogs, but doesn't respond to posts. I've sent him email about his group and his goals and that there might be a way to work together and I'm rejected out of hand with a pithy reply the summation of which is "drop dead".