"Time to Reign in the Environmentalists" (Ross) is the title of the article by Midwest Voice columnist Ross Balano this past Saturday.
It brought to mind the recent National Geographic-sponsored survey that compares personal environmental consumption habits in four areas (energy, transportation, travel, consumer goods) in 14 countries. The U.S. ranked last among the countries surveyed. To see the survey go to Greendex.
We Americans remain in a foggy state of denial and misinformation but it's not surprising. After all, America has no national sustainability policy, and corporations like EXXON have financed various front groups for years, whose sole purpose has been to discredit climate change and the need for a comprehensive energy policy.
It's "those" environmentalists we've heard all too often. While some people know better, others sincerely believe environmentalism is the real roadblock to progress.
If we only drilled in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ... coal will be "clean" soon ... we need to start building nuclear power plants right away ... don't let environmentalists stop refineries from being built and so forth and so forth. These particular issues have been addressed repeatedly so I'm not going to do it here.
Biofuels will likely be part of our energy mix, but as one reader pointed out to Mr. Balano, the corn ethanol nonsense with its tax subsidy is not the fault of environmentalists but has much more to do with pandering midwestern politicians, in a country with no energy policy. It's sort of like the egregious McCain/Clinton gas tax holiday that was wheeled out a couple of weeks ago, a toxic piece of irresponsible gobblygook.
A new direction is coming I believe, partly out of necessity and partly because we're going to give enlightenment a chance, after dwelling so long in the "twilight zone." But it will most certainly not be painless.
First, your buddy, Balano, misused "reign" where the correct word would be "rein." (seeing no "sic" you apparently missed it too).
Second, you forget to note that the popular biofuel solution championed by "environmental scientists" requires 1.3 gallons of gas to make 1 gallon of ethanol (http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4237539.html).
Third, you fail mention that almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/26/AR2008022602827.html; http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html; http://www.startribune.com/local/15403981.html).
Finally, you fail to acknowledge the growing body of scientific evidence that oil is not really a finite "fossil" fuel, but is abiotic, and replenished by the Earth's mantle(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin; http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/peakoil1.html; http://freeenergynews.com/Directory/Theory/SustainableOil/; http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59991;
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47675; http://morielbealertblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/discovery-backs-theory-oil-not-fossil.html).