4.27.2006

on gasoline

gasoline. petrol. what is happening to our republic? ok. too cliche a queston. but with congress putting all seriousness aside, and NOBODY offering up real solutions-whats a guy to do? how about not blaming the oil companies, for once. they are corporations, and therefore by design profit when their commodity price goes ever higher. If one reads big media, listens to right wing talk radio(20 million rush listeners alone-know your enemy's power, reach and message-all the better to defeat them!), the House, the Senate- they all play the blame game with Big Oil- or they call to drill more oil! ridiculous!!! Our governing bodies are devoid of ideas.
I think a few obvious and pragmatic items might help depressurize the spectre of peak oil until (hopefully) ingenuity and invention offer a real solution. here goes.
first, make a national gasoline standard which is as tough (or almost as) as the strongest state requirements. this will be both environmentally friendly(sic)-and provide for efficient movement of product. second, build a new refinery with the most stringent environmental standards that current technologies provide. it should also follow that all existing refineries should be upgraded to this standard as well. Third, encourage cities to build mass transit, and develop new rail tech to transport freight. our mode of transportation is fundamentally flawed, is the underlying source of our current difficulty and must be changed. Fourth, and most important-all tax breaks, incentives, and subsidies should be taken immediately away from the oil companies, pushed into research to develop new forms of energy-particulary hydrogen power. The country which develops a safe, clean, and cheap form of energy will lead the world into a new age. this, coupled with our invention of the greatest tool currently available-the internet (open, cheap, easy worldwide information sharing), could be THE answer-to just about anything. Why a massive, transparent effort to accomplish this feat of feats is not underway on a scale never before seen is incomprehensible. the fact that no leaders exist to say such things as i have mentioned is unimaginable. The tasks of environmental protection and the energetic pursuit of energy technologies in the context of capitalism do not clash. they, in fact must be married if the world is to be saved.

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