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Those who press for
energy "conservation" forget TRACKSIDE (c) Energy is the life blood of our society - cut off the supply and watch how fast we would devolve to the standard of living experienced in the late 18th, early 19th century. These were not the "good old days" though if it brought back statesmen on the order of our Founders and a return to the morality and political thought on which our Constitution was based, it might not be all that bad. Oh, well. More to the point, consider what would happen if gasoline was not available at the pump whenever you wanted it, if lights didn’t come on every time you flipped the switch, if insufficient fuel was available for the transport of the myriad goods we produce and use, if farmers had to do without agri-chemicals, and if pilot lights on heaters went out several times a day as pipeline pressure dropped. Without energy, technology and the industry that supports our economy would be but museum artifacts - if there was anyone left around who had the time and resources to even maintain a museum. We are firmly and inexorably attached to and dependent on energy to maintain our way of life. A complete cutoff of energy is an end-of-the-world scenario. What is much more likely given the international situation and domestic political demagoguery is a reduction in the energy that is available, that is, energy rationing. I leave it to your imagination what impacts progressively larger reductions in available energy would have on you, your family, and on society. What is especially maddening is that there are a significant number of anti-energy eco-fascists, people in government, in the media, and in very vocal special interest groups who are doing all they can to prevent the development and use of existing energy sources and the development and use of new energy sources. Their motives are varied - political power, economic power, greed, a distrust of science and technology, and the exaltation of false gods being the principal ones - but if allowed to have their way, we will all end up at the same point, a dismal society in which access to technology is limited to the elite, depopulation is state policy, tyrants rule, and the mass of humanity are but serfs grubbing out an existence.. And even more maddening is that these efforts are being made at a time when our nation faces an external threat never before faced. That the anti-energy crowd is willing to degrade national security by preventing the development of home-grown energy sources makes one wonder where their loyalties lie. They appear willing to put our national sovereignty at risk to achieve their personal goals and to retain their power. These same people can also be found in the efforts to use environmental laws and rationales to kick people off the land, primarily farmers and ranchers. We as a nation can now feed ourselves - we do not need food imports from other lands. Consider the ultimate end result if the eco-fascists are successful in their calls to out-source agriculture to foreign lands so that huge areas of the country can be returned to the condition that existed before "evil" human beings appeared on the scene. They advocate the forcible acquisition of private lands by government to the point that there would be insufficient land left in private hands to support an agricultural system that feeds the country with bounty left over to export worldwide. How long would we retain our national sovereignty and our ability to maintain our freedom if we are dependent upon other nations to feed us? It does takes more than a grocery store to keep food on the table in spite of the belief in some quarters that goes to the effect "Who needs farmers, we have grocery stores," a statement actually made to a Kansas state senator. Whether such a belief comes from being an eco-fascist or from being just plain dumb, the end result would be the same. It is bad enough that the Made-in-China label is ubiquitous in the market place. I sure do not want to see it on every food item on a grocer’s shelves. The on-going push to jam the Kyoto Treaty down our throats, the hysteria that erupts when anyone even whispers that perhaps we should drill in Alaska, the lockup of massive low-sulfur coal deposits in Utah as a national monument, the cry that conservation measures are all it takes, the demonizing of nuclear power, and the effort to make pariahs out of some users of energy - shame on you for owning that SUV - are all elements of the effort by the anti-energy eco-fascists to achieve their goals. Those who want to limit your energy blood supply incessantly harp the "conservation" mantra, trying to convince you that all our energy problems would be solved if only every one would drive a Yugo and shiver in the dark. Conservation of energy does makes sense as a matter of personal choice, not as a government edict. We all have a duty to be good stewards of God’s creation, to use all aspects of it wisely as needed to sustain ourselves as we carry out God’s plan for us. As we do, we have a right to use His creation but we have no right to squander what He created. There is also a very mundane, down-to-earth self-interest rationale for conservation, our pocket books. It really makes little sense, does it not, to use energy as if we were using $100 bills to light a cigar. All this said, the savings in energy that can be achieved by conservation comes no-where close to providing the energy required by society to exist and to flourish. The conservation mantra is but a smoke screen for the eco-fascists and the anti-energy Luddites as they carry out their anti-people, anti-technology agenda. President Carter’s log on the fire and heavy sweater will take us only so far. You may have noted that the 9-11 attacks are being used by narrow-interest groups of all flavors in attempts to brand opponents as people who are as evil as the Jihadistanis. They are trying to silence their opponents by burying them under the patriotic anti-terrorism fervor that has swept the country. Eco-fascist zealots, who care more about their pantheistic gods than they do about our society, our economy, or our national self-sufficiency, are claiming that drilling for oil in Alaska is a terrorist act against nature, and are demanding that the war against terrorism must include absolute prohibitions against any such drilling. Ye gads, what a stretch. Current drilling technology is environmentally friendly; from one site, drill stems can be advanced miles in all directions. The proposed drilling area is but 2,000 acres on the bleak, desolate Arctic coast. To put it in perspective, the 2,000 acres as a part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is analogous to a brief case on a football field. Remember the adage "follow the money." The Audubon Society, an opponent to ANWR drilling, allows oil production in its Rainey Wildlife Refuge. Just what are Audubon’s goals and principles? Is it a case of greed trumping principles? In Great Britain, the Friends of the Earth and other green groups marched on the U.S. Embassy in London, protesting the failure of the US to ratify the Kyoto Treaty. They claimed that President Bush’s energy policies makes the US a "climate terrorist." If the Senate, in a moment of utter stupidity, ever ratifies Clinton’s Kyoto Treaty, the law of the land will force energy rationing and thus an economic contraction. Why? The treaty places on us the mandate that carbon dioxide emissions be reduced to 1990 levels. Current emission rates are 15 percent higher than 1990 levels; 2007 emissions are anticipated to be 20 percent higher. Envision what will happen to the economy and society if you turn off everyone’s power for 20 percent of the day (4.8 hours,) every day of the year. Remember the radical greenies’ belief that human beings are a cancer on the earth and that their numbers should be drastically reduced? The Kyoto Treaty is a step towards that goal - a forced reduction in the amount of energy available has an ultimate result, a reduction in the population-carrying capacity of the earth. With the formal ratification of the Kyoto Treaty not likely, the eco-fascists that inhabit Congress are trying another gambit. They are attempting to incorporate Kyoto-implementing measures into congressional bills. That great statesman, Senator Jeffords, introduced a bill that requires a Kyoto-like reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. To accomplish the reduction, all coal-fired turbines would have to be switched to natural gas - and the bill requires that policies be adopted that reduce the rate of growth of the nation’s natural gas consumption. Huh? To make absolutely sure that the nation cannot use its coal resources, Jeffords included a provision that 90 percent of mercury emissions from coal plants be removed by 2007. Patrick Michaels, writing in the October 25 "The Washington Times," stated that the only way that this magnitude of mercury emissions could be achieved was to "Stop burning coal." Proposals such as this reinforce beliefs about where reside the loyalties and agendas of elected representatives who advocate such measures.
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