Earth day and the Oil Cartels

Earth Day is here again. Yes, I said Earth Day. Now before I get into this wonderfully bogus holiday, let me say this. Earth day is nothing more than a sham at making a few people feel good and the rest of us feel terrible.

This is pretty much a USA thing. Sure, Earth Day is celebrated in some form in most western societies. But none of them have the fervor that we seem to have here in the United States.

We have taken Earth Day and turned it into a shrine holiday. Worship the earth and all that it gives life too except humans. We are evil scum that should get down on our knees and kiss the dirt from which we are born.

We here a lot about how we, those of us in the United States and to a lesser extent, Canada, are using more than our fair share of natural resources. Forget the fact that much of these natural resources come from our own lands. We still use more than our fair share.

I am not sure who decided what OUR fair share should be but there you have it.

There is a lot of talk about gas prices going through the roof. There is a lot of Liberal blame on President Bush and HIS war in Iraq.

To be sure, the Bush administration does have to take some of the blame for oil prices stretching for $125 per barrel. Our dollar has been weakened to such a point where the Canadian dollar is now worth more than the American dollar. That is a shame.

But you have to ask yourself, how can we get out of this mess in short order and do it in a way that would help the economies of the world? How can we shore up our dollar, bring down oil prices and force the oil baron cartel of OPEC to play more nice?

Easy. In fact we could have things in place within 3 to 7 years. But we would have to get rid of or at least expose and silence the radical left and environmentalist.

We have not built a new refinery since the early 70's in our country. How do we expect to keep up with technology and energy demands if we don't have the capacity to produce our own fuels? Why is it we have enough oil within our own borders but we cannot drill for it?

Here is the simple and easy plan. We do have to have alternative sources of energy. I agree. That is why every single wind farm that is on the books in the planning stages should be built. Wind is clean and renewable. We need those farms off the coast of our nation and inland on high hills and mountains.

We need to build more solar power generating plants in the south and southwest. Why not tap into the clean energy of the sun. It is silent and clean energy.

We need to start drilling for our own oil off the Gulf Coast, off the California and Oregon Coast and in Alaska. We need to begin extracting oil from shale in the upper Mid West of our nation. If we begin to flood the market with our own oil, that would force the price per barrel down through the basement.

Our dollar would rise in value because we would not need to buy oil from afar. We have enough right here. A strong dollar means that we can buy more with it. Gas prices in our country would head south and probably level off somewhere around $1.75 to $2.00 per gallon.

Lastly we need to build more geo-thermal energy plants in area where it is viable. Again a clean source of renewable energy.

We could also build (and should) more nuclear power plants. It is a proven and safe source of energy that would reduce the need for fossil fuel energy plants.

Speaking of fossil fuel energy, we should build more plants that burn the discarded tires we have all over the country. This would also serve to clean up huge piles of these ugly, dangerous and growing piles of used tires.

I read somewhere that the United States has enough tires currently to light up or 5 largest cities for 50 years. And of course more tires are produced and discarded every day so this is an endless supply of rubber. Well at least until we get flying cars that don't need wheels.

If we did all of these things (which we should have been doing anyway) we would become energy independent. We would lead the world in energy production. We would force OPEC to play more nice and cut prices. We would not be paying $3.00 and $4.00 a gallon for gas. Not when we have the ability to pay less.

Besides if we don't do the above things, it will only get worse. I mean China is now looking at big cars, trucks and SUV's to buy and put on their roads. Looks like a billion plus people are looking to join the industrialized west.

We need to act now or we will become the new third world. Conservation and restriction is not the answer. Innovation and access is the key to staying on top.

Stop. Think. Vote.

Will a Prius Free Us, or Doom Us

Here we are. The 5^th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of Iraq. And we still have lots of liberals saying that the battle, indeed the entire war on terror is nothing more than a war to control oil. It's all about the oil they tell us over and over.

They keep telling us we need to cut our dependency on oil that comes form the Middle East and elsewhere. They won't let us explore our own country for our own oil reserves even in areas in which countries like Mexico and Brazil are exploring. Yes I am talking about the Gulf of Mexico among other places.

They have convinced many people to downsize their cars and SUV's and they have even convinced many people to buy and drive the Toyota Prius. In fact they have screamed the praises of the Prius so much that they are now calling for the government to mandate that the rest of us begin to drive these “earth saving” cars.

They, the environmentalist, tell us that the Prius is a revolution in the storied history of the automobile. They praised this car. Told us how little fuel it used and that a person could get up to 60 mpg. People began buying these cars. So many bought them that there was a back order on them for the first 2 years of their production.

This changed the course of the mighty Toyota Corporation. They changed their goals for the Prius. Toyota has said they planned to have 1 million of these hybrid cars on the worlds road within the next few years.

Now I say hold a minute. What do we really know about this car? We know it doesn't get 60 mpg. In fact what is really happening on the road to the dismay of many is the Prius is getting about 40 mpg. Not a huge difference from some larger and better gas cars. In the Toyota line up, one can spend about half the price of a Prius and get a Corolla and get a consumer reported 35 mpg.

I know that one of my cars, the Scion tC gets me an average of 32 mpg and it has a 160 horse power engine. And it cost less than 18 thousand dollars. Not bad at all. But what is the total cost of this Prius that these loud wackos want the government to force us to drive. Well according to a number of reports (and growing) this thing is far from being environmentally friendly.

Environment NC is reporting that a Prius produces 44% MORE global warming green house gases over its life than a Toyota Avalon. And if you don't know what a Toyota Avalon is, it's the biggest car from Toyota without going SUV.

The Belmont Club reported just how bad the Prius is for the environment. And they have plenty of reports and listed documents to back up their article. In fact here is an excerpt from this article:

As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.

Now what do you Prius owners think? You have help create an area on our own planet that NASA uses to train for roving on the Moon and Mars. That sounds like its a huge environmental friend, doesn't it.