The Public Wants an Energy Policy Posted by Heather Hurlburt

I'm weeks late to the party on this one, but this survey on environment/energy policy deserves even more attention than it got -- and some hard thinking by progressives.  How have we lost the environment as a political issue when more than half of Americans think our environment is getting worse and more than two-thirds think the government should do more about it?

Key finding for international affairs:  More than nine in ten Americans think that US dependence on foreign oil is a serious problem and want the government to mandate more fuel-efficient cars as a leading response.

Hmmm...

(Frivolous notes:  people who read blogs are more than twice as likely to know what fuel cells are than people who don't -- or more likely to say that they know what fuel cells are.  And people who know who Jon Stewart is are more likely to say that he is a trusted resource for environmental news than people who know who Bill O'Reilly is are to say so about him.)

Comments

[rosignol]

How have we lost the environment as a political issue when more than half of Americans think our environment is getting worse and more than two-thirds think the government should do more about it?

I'm not a big fan of government regulation, but the Clean Air Act worked. The Clean Water Act is working. A lot of things that weren't known to be dangerous, such as PCBs, have been either banned or greatly limited. And despite all this, people think things are getting worse? Maybe globally- the Clean Air Act and the like only apply in the US, but short of the US government enforcing it's environmental regs in other countries what can we do about it?

[rosignol]

How have we lost the environment as a political issue when more than half of Americans think our environment is getting worse and more than two-thirds think the government should do more about it?

I'm not a big fan of government regulation, but the Clean Air Act worked. The Clean Water Act is working. A lot of things that weren't known to be dangerous, such as PCBs, have been either banned or greatly limited. And despite all this, people think things are getting worse? Maybe globally- the Clean Air Act and the like only apply in the US, but short of the US government enforcing it's environmental regs in other countries what can we do about it?

[rosignol]

Sorry about the double-post- got a proxy error the first time, and when I reloaded the page, the comment wasn't there, so I hit submit again.

[Jeff Owen]

The Iranian election underscores the need for greater energy efficiency. Even if Middle Eastern countries all become democratic, there is little reason to believe their elections would give us any more energy security.

Oil exporting countries like high prices, and China and India are going to consume more oil. Speaking of which, how about China, Russia and their neighbors urging us to leave Afghanistan this week?

[Rob]

As for energy policy, I liked Lorelei's response in Peace or bust. I checked out www.apolloallience.com it's a good start but we need to go much further.

I live in Illinois. I have people here from a group called IL PIRG (IL Public Interest Research Group). They come up to me asking for 25 or 30 dollars to be taken from my checking or credit card. This goes into a fund they draw upon to;

1. keep people hitting the streets asking for donations and
2. Nag Gov. Blgojovich to keep his promise for 15% of IL power to come from wind by 2025.

I can't help thinking that these people need iron underwear or something.

Lorelei also mentioned biking. In Chicago we have excellent mass transit, and are suburban trains just opened up to storing 2 bikes per car.
In good weather I bike my commute, use mass transit otherwise, occaisonally a cab, and rarely the rental car.
Much of my garden and lawn is watered from a dehumidifier for the basement. I'll be getting the rest of my water hopefully from rain barrels.
In summer I head down to the basement, air conditioning goes on to sleep only. I'll be looking for solar and wind do remove my dependance from electric and gas. And a vegetable and herb garden to supplement our food supply.
We should all be making such sacrifice and have the support to do so.

Democrats have a chance to become the oil independance party. Bush has been very dilligent in showing what an ugly monster we can become when our oil supply is threatened. It's time to stop messing around and find a better way. forget an anti-corruption and forget a "bring them home now" campaign. Our success lies in an energy policy that isn't soaked in blood.

So lets get married to the NRA and hire enough protection to take on big oil. Our future depends on it.

[Rob]

Jeff Writes;

"Oil exporting countries like high prices, and China and India are going to consume more oil. Speaking of which, how about China, Russia and their neighbors urging us to leave Afghanistan this week?"

1. Maybe their just poking fun at us.
2. Considering China's cival right record, we can ignore them on moral grounds if their military threats are hollow.
3. Assuming this is the prelude to a strong arm removal of the U.S. from Afaganistan will Bush;
a. Cave in?
b. Saber Rattle then cave in?
c. Commit more troops to the region an
implement a draft?
d. Resign?

If we leave Afganistan it is an excellent first step to the U.S. being put on the oil market without coupon.

[Minh-Duc]

Our dependent on oil would have been reduced if we have more nuclear power plants. Currently less than 20 percent of our electricity is produced by nuclear. The number need to go up to 80 percent.

[Rob]

As much as I want to scream yes. We'd be trading one problem for another.

If we don't cut coners an build state of the art pebble bed reactors as Minh suggests. We'll have stable terror and mistake resistant power. The pebbles once depleted do not generate the heat and radioactivity spent rods do. The chance of a meltdown is significantly reduced.

The first problem is that it is not this administrations style to commit an infrastructure and regulate the industry sufficiently to get the South African result. He'll insist that we keep quality "voluntary": A proccess bad enough with oil and completely disasterous with nuclear.

The second problem is assuming Bush actually regulates us to South African style pebble bed reactors, we still do not have a practical solution to dispose of radioactive waste.

That leaves us with a Wind Solar And Nuclear mix, with the first two phasing out the last one.

If we want full on nuclear;
1. we need to go pebble bed.
2. we need to dispose of nuclear waste, or recycle responsibilly.

Are other tech spot are batteries. We could do our world a great deal of good by inventing a battery with a higher power output.
Recent develepments leave us with a plethora of choices; alkalines, lithium ion, nickle cadmium, the best so far is still the led acid batteries found in cars.

This would provide us with energy during wind and solar lag times.

Thoughts?

[eb]

Nukes, eh? What will you run cars on, or are they all going to be powered by "too cheap to meter" electricity?

[Minh-Duc]

"More than nine in ten Americans think that US dependence on foreign oil is a serious problem and want the government to mandate more fuel-efficient cars as a leading response"

They are in the market and they are selling. I do not where Heather live but I started to see many hybrid cars. They even make them in SUV. No government mandate. It will be a disaster. Let the market run its course. In a few years, there will be more of them on the street. Their existence (without government mandate) prove that market is the better solution. My next car will be a hybrid.

[Jeff Owen]

Rob: I doubt China, Russia and the "Shanghai Cooperation Organization" were threatening our removal by force, but it sure wasn't friendly.

Considering that we have bases at both Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan (part of the group asking us to leave), and Russia/Putin has oil and gas that China wants, this seems to be a case for pessismism. Maybe its just China's way of telling us to shut up about their growing military, but more energy conservation and investment in research seems to be in order.

As for what we should do about their request, I think it would be wonderful if Afghanistan's neighbors took a greater interest in stabilizing and rebuilding Afghanistan. They don't seem willing or able to do that, but I don't want permanent bases in Afghanistan either.

[Rob]

Minh:

Eb's point was a smack in the back of the head, and touchs a forgotten but valid point. In previous posts I spoke of food shortages. That's because oil fuels our food basket. Sailing ships or coal powered ships can not match oil fueled vessals in encumbrence and speed. For land transportation, nothing yet beats the 16 wheel truck.

We need to replace these two transportation methods with something just as fast or fast and just as high a carrying capacity or more, or we will not be able to sustain current food production.

Fuel efficient cars mean nothing if there is no fuel.

[Rob]

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