An inquiry by Maynard
A number of “conservatives” (I hate these labels) show a knee-jerk reaction against anything “green”. I understand why: The outspoken “Greens” are often kooky human-hating tree-huggers, and their organizations end up co-opted by Leftists who view the threat of eco-catastrophes as an excuse to exert greater economic control over the individual. So when some of us hear “green”, we assume the worst.
There’s a long history of high-sounding crusades that end up pursuing ugly goals. Tammy speaks in detail of the hijacking of NOW by the Left, which ultimately got to the point that the national NOW leadership was tacitly working on the side of the woman-battering woman-murdering O.J. Simpson. A similar situation exists with the civil rights movements, and others.
Of course I oppose these hijacked movements, but I won’t let my political enemies define my positions for me. I won’t reject recycling and conservation and efficiency just because the greens advocate these practices. I feel an obligation to be a practical green, for the sake of the world and the nation. If I share a portion of Al Gore’s agenda as a result, then I’ll make the best of it.
One of my particular pet peeves is when “conservatives” shrug off concerns about the global oil supply. I’ve heard my fellow travelers confidently announce that “there’s plenty of oil”. This just isn’t true. Go look up the proven and estimated global reserves, and you’ll find that, to the extent that there’s adequate recoverable oil, it’s mostly in unfriendly hands. The oil states range from unstable to overtly evil. Aside from green considerations, it’s in the national interest that we not send these creeps and kooks our dollars.
Are you still with me? All of the foregoing was preamble. I’m leading up to a confession that will leave you challenging my conservative credentials, and my Americanism, and indeed even my manhood. Are you ready? Here goes:
I like small, efficient cars. I’d rather have a little car that gets me from here to there on a teaspoon of gas than a big turbo-charged Hummer that will do for zero to 130 in 4 seconds.
Of course, some argue that light cars are deathtraps if you get into an accident. They’ve got a point. But weight is only one factor of many in the choice of a car.
Anyway, the Smart Fortwo (see also Wikipedia), which has been around for several years in other parts of the world, will be coming to America in 2008. Here’s a little video from Canada:
Mock me if you will, but I think this is neat! It’s small, but it actually has plenty of headroom and foot room. And you can park it anywhere. If people started driving these things, our freeways could hold twice as many cars. I’ll have to take a close look when they show up.
I have a friend who loved small cars. Bragged incessantly about the gas he was saving, made me feel bad. Then one day he and the wife were driving to the local ice cream palace after supper. In a flash, a car came across the median and hit there car headon at 45 mph. Big car, about 5,000 pounds, smashed their little car real bad. It’s been two years now, the wife can’t walk, in spite of total hip replacement, and he has constant back pain from the spinal injury and operations.
In an instant it was all gone and the pain was permanent.
No small cars for me, nor would I recommend anything under 4,000 pounds for someone to drive around on the street. There are reasons why Mercedes, BMW and Lexus are the leading luxury cars. It’s the engineering and engineering weighs a lot.
Maynard, the reason that “conservatives” are not concerned with “peak oil” or other such nonsense is because it is exactly that, nonsense. Look at the numbers for what are called “known reserves”(which is an estimate, of course). Then look at last years number and then the year before that. You will discover that these numbers, even though we pump billions of barrels a year out of the ground, go up. The reason is because we are constantly finding new ways to get oil. I have read that at a certain price, around $100 a barrel, I believe, there are literally TRILLIONS of barrels of oil that can be extracted from shale in Canada. No one knows how much my be extracted from ANWAR or the recent giant find in the Gulf of Mexico.
I agree with many of your sentiments about “greens”. I do have a knee jerk reaction to them, because most seem to be watermellons in the truest sense, a little green on the outside and completely pink or red on the inside.
As a believer in the Individual I understand that our wealth as a people come from Liberty and the innovation of the human mind, not physical resources. Milton Freidman shows in his Nobel winning masterpiece, “Free to Choose” how Hong Kong, with almost no natural resources produced one the highest standards of living in the world when administered by the British during the mid 20th century.
If living like Ted Kaczynski (minus the killing) makes you feel better, go for it. I support your right to do as you please. It is when someone suggests that I must purchase a tiny deathtrap, because Al Gore can predict the weather a hundred years from now, to which I object.
Deathtrap concerns aside–any guy riding around in one of these babies would be a virtual “chick magnet”. No doubt this will be a primary focus in Fortwo’s coming ad campaign.
🙂
I just love cars. Always have, always will. Particularly any befinned behemoth dripping with chrome.
It’s always been aggravating that I missed that era completely and now that I’m grown the best I can count on from the local dealership is the same egg shaped rental car that all the other dealers sell.
I have no problem with little cars, I drive a 1975 Fiat Spider which any Ford Explorer worth it’s grillwork could squash like a bug.
(on the other end of the spectrum I also have a 1955 Packard that tips the scale at about 5500 lbs and gets a whopping 10mpg)
I don’t think it’s in any way political to believe we are not running out of oil. That’s a scare story we heard 30 years ago and so far the supply has been just fine.
Without the meddling from Washington and from the EPA we would be tapping not only into our own reserves but would have the capacity to refine lower grades of crude oil, something that is sorely lacking today.
Before you brand me a tool of the oil complex consider this; I have been a proponent for years of getting off the oil bandwagon altogether and moving on to hydrogen. The technical difficulties with that have caused me to shift gears away from H2 and start looking at H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) as a means of delivering transportation energy.
Plus using what amounts to an inexhaustable supply of auto fuel means we don’t have to all settle for pint sized go karts and the day may come when I could visit a showroom and have to squint to see from one end of a car to the other!
Not that I had anything to say on the subject.
I too am conservative and I recycle. With the current drought in Southern California, I am trying to reduce my water use. I think I part from the radical conservationists when what they promote is unreasonable or impractical. We must have SUV’s or something like them for trips to the grocery story with 4 children and 6 bags of groceries or trips to Costco to pick up bags of fertilizer and flagstones for home improvement. Most Americans don’t live in studio apartments in west LA. We must use cars for personal transportation and that requires the emission of “green house gases”. Factories must be allowed to operate unrestricted as the engine of our economy. Technology heals itself.
As we develop energy, transportation, and other technologies we may soon see the solution to the environmentalists’ concerns without any draconian measures. One small example of the solutions possible is the increased use of home and satellite offices to limit commuting. Without the invention and development of personal computers, that would not be possible. The technology of yokes, harnesses, bits, carriages, and saddles was replaced by the technology of automobiles in the early 20th century, solving the environmental problems of excess horse manure and dead horse carcasses.
Technology will also solve our current problems. We must have a little patience and recycle and conserve rationally.
I think many conservatives are closet conservationists. Saving energy makes economic sense, and no sensible animal fouls its own nest.
The problem has always been with using gummit power to force change. Ethanol is the most recent bad example. Many long fallowed fields in my neighborhood have suddenly sprouted corn. I shake my head when I see that. Small farmers are always one season behind the market. Mark my words. By the time this crop is in, there will be an oversupply of corn and the price will tank. Meanwhile, Uncle Sam will finally “realize” that ethanol production is bad economics and stop promoting it. The winners are the agri- businesses who had last year’s surplus to unload.
But hell- show me a car that gets me here to there without using gas or polluting, and costs the same to drive, and I’ll trade up tomorrow.
Sure, in a big car you are sitting up high and are safer in an accident, but what about the little car that you hit? Or the cars behind who can’t see around you? What about the injuries large cars cause when they are responsible for an accident? Just like the guy who stands during a concert – sure he can see, but no one behind him can. Driving a large car soley for personal safety is selfish – everyone then has to get a larger car in order to be safer. Like the one guy who refused to sit down at a concert, annoying everyone around him, resulted in everyone eventually standing, larger cars now dominate the roads. If the jerk would have sat down when asked, seeing that it was in the best interest of everybody as a whole, we could all enjoy the concert comfortably. All we have to do is ask everyone around us to kindly sit down so that we don’t have to stand for the next 2 hours. I’ve seen it done.
Maynard, my 2 cents: You make valid points, as do the others (painful points) from Bill-TB, onward. All good. I have driven big & small, and some “befinned” era cars, too. Now we drive older Volvos. They’re stout, and pleasent, fun and very well built. Long lived, too. I’ve driven very small, semi-fun cars but under powered so much that you had to do a wide open flat out run for a small hill only to do half the posted speed limit by its middle. Been there, done that. T’aint fun. Don’t like it. Here in Colorado we have HILLS. Long windey ones. Need power to do that. We must have our choices of vehicles to buy as was pointed out. Not all can USE ittybittys. Too much people, too much stuff, no option to downsize. As was said, technology may just save our keisters w/o a lot of hoopla. Patience and faith. Yes, a small car that is FUN and gutsey and able to get high mileage is great if you need one/can use one. Basic transportation, of course. But if you just simply WANT something bigger, you should have that freedom of choice. But mandating smaller, high mileage vehicles isn’t the way to go. As was pointed out, mass/inertia can be deadly. Humans screw up hugely. Will continue to. A quality vehicle is much safer, more peace of mind for families. I’ll stick to my mid-size non-turbo (unfortunately for mountain driving) Volvos. The energy of a crash has to be dissapated in the crushing of the structure. If there’s not enough structure to adequately do that, that excess energy gets transferred to the occupants, often traumatically and tragically. There’s reasons for bulk. Nothing’s simple anymore. And doubtfully will ever be, again, Maynard. Sad, but true.
“I like small, efficient cars. I’d rather have a little car that gets me from here to there on a teaspoon of gas than a big turbo-charged Hummer that will do for zero to 130 in 4 seconds.”
As a Conservative, I support your right to make that choice for yourself. You just don’t have the right to make that choice for me.
Hi Maynard.
My wife and I are conservatives and we just built a new home that is 3500 sq. ft and our electric bill is $68 per month and our gas bill is $74 per month. We put in a four stage heating and air conditioning system to curb our usage. We respect the environment and do our part to conserve. But it’s not our religion.
We have two grandchildren and I’ll gladly pay the extra money to have them ride in our SUV. Could they be killed while riding in our SUV. Of course.
But comparing a SUV to a Prius is like comparing pocket aces to 3-7 off suit in Texas Hold-em.
Mr. Gore spent $30,000 dollars last year on his utilities and yet he’s out telling me how to live my life.
Streisand spends $22,000 a year on water to take care of her estate and has an air conditioned barn that is over 10,000 sq. ft.
Oprah owns 4 homes and one in California that is over 40,000 sq. ft….flies in a private jet. Then she lectures to millions about conserving energy.
The list goes on and on regarding Global Warming hypocrisy.
Here’s what I think should happen regarding this whole Global Warming issue and it could start in California.
Institute a Global Warming “Belief” Tax!! The tax would be 10% percent of your taxable income and the money would be used to stop Global Warming.
Institute a Global Warming Square Footage Tax. The tax would be imposed on any home over 10,000 sq. ft. And start with Hollywood!!
The two taxes are tongue and cheek but I wonder how many Global Warming advocates would step to the plate.
In your post you said,”One of my particular pet peeves is when “conservatives” shrug off concerns about the global oil supply. I’ve heard my fellow travelers confidently announce that “there’s plenty of oil”. This just isn’t true.”
I would like to share an article with you that was written by Leonardo Maugeri. He wrote,“No question, we have entered an era of inflated energy prices that is already producing a boom in new innovations, and a slowdown in consumption. How radical will these changes be? The answer depends largely on how much oil the earth really holds. But make no mistake: there’s plenty of it. This is a new oil age, not the end of oil as we know it,” wrote Leonardo Maugeri in his article titled, “What Lies Below.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16288769/site/newsweek/
Regards,
DWT