If you’ve been to the grocery store or gas station, you’ve noticed things costs a bit more than they used to. And by a bit, I mean you might need a second mortgage to fill up your tank, and that’s if you’re driving a sub-compact hybrid. Good thing there’s not a war involving a major oil producer going on riiiiii…oh wait.
As you might expect, the Left is using the current clusterfuck to promote clean energy alternatives to oil and coal. (At least they believe in recycling, even if it’s limited to talking points.) They make it sound so simple. All we need to do is switch to solar, wind, and other green energy sources and everything will be great! The skies will be cleaner! Global warming will go the way of New Coke! Nickelback will break up!
But is it really as simple as the Left wants us to believe it is? Let’s just say the self-designated “Party of Science” doesn’t quite understand science well enough to give us an accurate picture.
clean energy
What the Left thinks it means – alternate green energy sources that will protect the environment and be a viable replacement for oil and coal
What it really means – all talk, no power
Before we get into the political aspects of clean energy, we need to take a short trip into Science World. The idea of clean energy is based a bit of deception. No matter what fuel source we use, we will have to deal with the byproducts of the inefficiency our technology has built into it, and at no additional cost! With the internal combustion engine, we have exhaust. With coal-burning factories, we have smoke. With hybrid vehicles, we have smug assholes who think they’re better than everyone else. So, not a pretty picture all the way around.
Where the deception comes into play is in describing the byproducts of clean energy sources. Leftists will have us believe there are none, but that’s not strictly true. Solar, wind, and other allegedly clean energy sources have their own issues, namely the environmental impacts required to make them somewhat viable. Wind power requires building giant blades that, surprise surprise, aren’t biodegradable. Manufacturing solar panels require mining for certain minerals that damages the environment. And even before you can generate one Watt of electricity, you may need to figure out how to store it once it’s generated.
Guess what storage batteries are made of, kids.
At best, the clean energy sources are cleaner, but not clean per se. Leftists will argue this is merely semantics, but it’s really not. When you use such a definitive term without modifiers, it makes a concrete impression, complete with all the implications of said impression. When you use a different variation of the same word by adding -er or -est, it changes the impression and, thus, the implication. This works both ways, depending on the context and what is being compared.
Now, we’re getting into English grammar. A few more rabbit trails and we might just be able to recreate your elementary school course load!
With clean energy, the comparison being made is to energy from more traditional sources (i.e. oil and coal) which are considered dirty. The Left wants us to think there is no middle ground, which there is. Even “dirty” energy is getting cleaner. Whether it’s as clean as “clean” energy is a matter of opinion, but the fact the Left wants to leave out this context in favor of the clean/dirty dichotomy should give even the most ardent Greenpeace member with an understanding of grammar reason to second-guess the Left’s honesty.
It won’t, of course.
But it wouldn’t be a Leftist narrative without there being another level of dishonesty. Seems the clean energy advocates don’t like all clean energy sources. I’m referring to nuclear energy. Granted, disposing of nuclear waste is a concern as well as the source of a lot of bad 80s sci-fi/horror films, but it’s still a part of the clean energy family. Then, there are geothermal and hydroelectric which are just as clean, but surprisingly don’t get the love wind and solar do. Ditto with bio-diesel, which brings recycling and environmentalism to whole new levels. So, why are Leftists being so picky when it comes to clean energy?
Money.
Over the past few years, Leftists have put our money where their mouths are in the form of federal subsidies, which translates into…political contributions for Leftists. And that doesn’t even take into consideration any private investments into clean energy companies, which can turn into…more money for Leftists so they can continue to live high on the clean energy hog. After all, it takes a lot of money to buy private jets and stretch limos to attend climate change conferences. Just ask Al Gore. And if you do, bring a lot of energy drinks because he tends to drone on.
If you don’t, and I can’t say as I blame you for not wanting to hang out with ManBearPig, keep in mind the Left’s commitment to clean energy is so full of holes the Swiss Cheese Federation is suing for copyright infringement. And as Vladimir Putin found out recently, when you get the Swiss to eschew neutrality, you done fucked up.
Tag: nuclear energy
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
At long last, the details of one of the proposed infrastructure bills became public knowledge thanks to the New York Times. Although the details of the expenditures aren’t known yet, some of the details came out with a particular focus on fighting climate change. And a big focus on fighting climate change involves fossil fuels.
No matter where you go, the same people who keep telling us the planet is doomed tell us the way to prevent the inevitable is to do away with fossil fuels and convert to renewable energy. Although I haven’t seen any of the main proponents of renewable energy travel via solar vehicle, it’s worth exploring what the Left thinks of fossil fuels and why they’re so keen on making them as obsolete as the career of Yahoo Serious.
fossil fuels
What the Left thinks it means – sources of energy that are killing the planet with diminishing returns
What it really means – the only energy came in town for now, and possibly ever
The self-professed “Party of Science” has been after fossil fuels for a while now, but it wasn’t always the case. Back in the heady days of the 70s, some climate scientists suggested adding more pollution to the atmosphere to ward of global cooling. As we’ve since figured out, they were wrong, and as a result, the Left doesn’t take those dire predictions seriously or as valid. Instead, they have their own dire predictions to push, namely global warming/climate change/climate catastrophes/whatever they’re calling it this millisecond to generate fear.
And the scientists the Left are relying on for their proof? Turns out they’re wrong, too. Funny how that works out, isn’t it?
Undeterred by the lack of global catastrophes directly linked to fossil fuels, the Left has made it their aim to get us to move away from fossil fuels in the name of protecting the environment. And they’ll fly all over the world and drive in long lines of cars to go to events in large venues using more electricity than Las Vegas during Christmas telling us about the dangers that await us if we don’t stop using fossil fuels.
As you might have guessed, I have more faith in convenience store sushi than the Left’s commitment to fighting climate change.
Aside from the blatant hypocrisy even Ray Charles can see (and he’s dead), the “Party of Science” hasn’t figured out why fossil fuels are still in use today. Not surprisingly, it’s dirt simple: fossil fuels work. No matter how many solar panels you put up, no matter how many Priuses there are on the road, no matter how many windmills you erect, fossil fuels tend to work better than alternative fuels, at least for now. And I say that as someone who has driven through typical Iowa winter conditions with a gas-guzzling SUV passing hybrids stuck in the snow. To be fair, though, the hybrids were traveling up a 0.000000000001 degree incline, so they were really at a disadvantage.
Seriously, though, nobody has been able to figure out a viable alternative to oil, coal, and gas yet. What people have done is build upon the existing framework fossil fuels have built, in some cases literally. Even with these alternatives, fossil fuels are more effective and in some cases better for the environment. (See ethanol for an example of this.)
Put simply, we can’t do away with fossil fuels yet because so much of our economy still runs on it. I’m not just talking about fuel here, kids. Fossil fuels are used to generate electricity, because we kinda like to power our devices and, oh, not freeze ourselves to death in the winter or boil ourselves to death in the summer. Then, there are some of the byproducts of fossil fuels, namely plastics, that would be the metaphorical rochabeau to our economy if the Left gets their wish.
But no one ever accused the Left of knowing anything about economics.
There is one alternate fuel source out there that has shown to work well independent of fossil fuels, but the Left doesn’t like it, so it doesn’t get mentioned. And that alternate fuel is…nuclear power. Granted, the Left’s opinions on nuclear power haven’t changed since Three Mile Island, but it’s important to note two things. One, nuclear power is currently being used in some parts of the world without there being meltdowns on a regular basis. And, two, the main reason the Left doesn’t like nuclear power isn’t because of their commitment to safety, but rather their commitment to sowing fear and providing seemingly the only answers to “solve” the climate problem.
I call this the Oprah Effect. Back in her heyday, Oprah Winfrey seemed to thrive on the idea she could see all the problems we (i.e. suburban white women) face and come up with a ready-made solution that not-so-coincidentally helped her pocketbook and ego. The Left uses the Oprah Effect to great success on climate issues for the same reason Oprah was so successful in peddling her brand of problem-solving.
Most people are uninformed, gullible, and lazy. (But not you, faithful readers.)
Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, people have sought ways to work smarter, not harder, and have utilized whatever means available to do so. The only problem with that approach is eventually we think we run out of ways to make things better, so we rest on our laurels, which America has done for, oh, seven decades or so. As a result, our interest in thinking has waned like the interest in people watching Hannah Gadsby do “comedy.” After all, thinking is hard, dammit! So why not leave it to the experts?
Five decades of wrong predictions on climate change should be a clue.
And to be honest, none of the people pushing for the elimination of fossil fuels are experts, either. I still think alternatives to fossil fuels are possible, but until they can become viable alternatives, they are just possibilities. We need to work with what we have, and the eeeeeevilllll fossil fuel companies are finding new ways to extend the life of the industry and minimize damage to the environment. You know what the anti-fossil fuel side has done?
Talked a lot.
Oh, and stoked a lot of fear of an ecological disaster coming in the near future without anything like they predict ever happening.
With this kind of uninformed resistance, I think fossil fuels will be around for a while longer.