Stop Using Petroleum: (Don't buy a new car unless it has a plug)

January 21, 2008 This is both an environmental issue and a national security issue. We need to deal with climate change. If the change is not as big a problem as it now seems, we get a cleaner environment. There's no downside. We need to make petroleum producing countries irrelevant. They want to return to the middle ages. Let them.

There are two ways that this can be accomplished:

1. Top down. The federal government, maybe even the president, finally says: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Outlaw the use, sale, production and anything else we can think of doing with petroleum. Do it over one year starting with the beginning of spring; that gives people time to prepare for winter. No exemptions. No gradual process. It is supposed to be a shock that will change behavior and the economics of energy and transportation. Leave the rest to the free market. This should outrage and hurt pretty much everybody. Doing it nice is not getting it done. The Republican candidates for president want to find more domestic oil. WRONG! We need to stop using ALL petroleum. The Democratic candidates for president want to massage it to death; Hillary Clinton, the queen of gradualism, wants to reduce by two thirds foreign (no mention of domestic) oil by the year 2030. Hillary and most of the other candidates will be dead by then. This is typical pass the buck.
We need action NOW!

2. Bottom up. Number one is not politically likely given the lack of integrity of the candidates. They won't even increase the tax on a gallon of gasoline by ten dollars to force a decrease in consumption. They all know or should know that corn based ethanol is not effective. But because of the Iowa caucuses none of them will say it. In fact they support it. We need to take over this issue. No, not by the usual crowd of incredibly ineffective environmental people who drive to the save the planet meetings in their pollution mobiles. Regular every day people need to WAKE UP and change things NOW. Stop waiting for some candidate to convince you that he/she will do anything different. Force the issue.

Here is what we need to do:

1. Repeatedly tell both our elected officials and the leaders of the auto industry, both foreign and domestic, that we will not buy any new vehicles unless they have a plug. That means plug-in hybrid at the very least, preferably all electric. Forget hydrogen. Bush pushing it confirms that is is merely a delaying tactic. Take a year off. No car sales for a year should get their attention.

2. Reduce driving. Close the damn stores one day a week. It won't kill us. Let your kids ride bikes to soccer practice instead of driving them everywhere. With fewer cars on the road you won't be as irrationally panicked. OK, you get the idea.

3. Push the utility companies to dramatically increase their capacity to produce and deliver electricity. ALL power should be based on electricity. Produce it with wind, sun, hydro, whatever. Nuclear if we need to. Not coal. Clean coal is clean filth and just an excuse for the candidates to pander to another power group. Utility companies need to make it much easier for us to sell electricity to them from multiple locations and sources: electric car batteries, home solar and wind products, etc.

4. Trains! We need to develop the best train transportation in the world. We have the resources and the space. Inter-city travel should be primarily by train, not airplane. High speed, high tech trains. Many should carry our new electric cars. The federal government must provide the stimulus. The investment in infrastructure is too great to expect that private companies will initiate the projects needed.

5. Plastics. Stop buying those stupid packages that are ten times the size of the product and which mangle your fingers trying to open them. Plastic comes from petroleum and increases waste.

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