If It Had Been Al
In his State of the Union address, President Bush called for us to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy" so as to, in part, "dramatically improve our environment." That effort would, of necessity, mean the end of the era of the internal combustion engine.
Let us imagine the reaction to that statement if it had been made by President, candidate, or citizen Al Gore. That is really not hard to do. In his 1992 book, Earth in the Balance, Gore wrote:
It ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a 25-year period.
Is there really much difference between moving beyond "a petroleum-based economy" and "eliminating the internal combustion engine." The former is a little broader but with regard to internal combustion engines, it is hard to discern any difference.
If President Gore had made the statement of President Bush, we know of a few things that would have happened.
The current President's father would begin referring to his son as ozone man.
Robert Novak would go on television to call the President "crazy" and would demand that the President's allies either explain the "whacko statements" or repudiate them.
George Will would call the reasoning behind the President's proposal "a jumble of dubious 1990s science and worse 1960s philosophy."
Michael Barone would say that the President's proposal had the tone of a fanatic.
Insight Magazine of the Washington Times would describe the "draconian" proposal as one that would "so transform the world that the way Americans live now would be unrecognizable." And not in a good way, either.
To Fox News, the proposal would be a "fantasy" that would cause us to "think of all the jobs that would need to be created to clean the horse dung off the streets."
Jeff Jacoby would advise Americans to just "say good-bye to your car."
David Limbaugh would find the proposal "frightening" and would wondered whether the President was "an environmental whacko or a sophisticated Harvard graduate."
Business Week would note that the President "believes that Americans' love affairs with their cars stem not from the efficiency and convenience of the mode of transport but rather from some sort of mass craziness."
Reason Online would opine that "if this is the sort of thing smart people come up with, I prefer a president who's not too bright."
Right wing bloggers such as Cold Fury would wonder:
Why do you so hate the poor, Mr. AlGore? I can only assume that you and your fellow collectivists want them to starve.
Pat Buchanan would describe the proposal as "kookery."
The Weekly Standard would publish a long critique of the President's "ant-car agiprop" and would accuse the President of "ignorance of what cars mean to real people."
Has anyone heard any of that lately?
Comments
Well, the Saudi FM is asking for clarification, which in diplo-speak isn't value neutral.
Posted by: Eric | February 6, 2006 01:03 PM
One could move from a petroleum-based economy and still use internal combustion engines that produce greenhouse gasses. Actually, one could move from internal combustion entirely and still get greenhouse gasses.
Examples:
cars running on ethanol: If you've been to Brazil, you know that these still put out pollution. The engines turn N2 in the atmosphere into NOx compounds. The basic combustion reaction, Ethanol + O2 => CO2 and water, even assuming the NOx problem could be avoided, and CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
cars running on electric motors powered by fuel cells: The fuel cell might be powered by some energetic carbon compound and thus the breakdown yields water and CO2 under optimum conditions. Same problem, although fuel cells may be more efficient and give us more miles/gallon.
cars running on hydrogen: where did the hydrogen come from? If it's made by breaking down water into H2 and oxygen, what powers that? It's either some carbon compound that gets oxidized, yielding CO2 and water, or it's some form of nuclear power, solar, wind, etc. I'm not convinced anything but nuclear would meet the energy needs. I accept the need for nuclear, but that's a faustian bargain.
Posted by: Rob | February 6, 2006 02:44 PM
The various strands of the conservative movement long ago gave up on principle (whatever there was of principle to begin with) and set about focusing on electoral success and the consequential spoils of victory (i.e., tax cuts for the wealthy, market deregulation, etc.). So does it surprise us at all that they've kept quiet after Bush's atrociously bad SOTU? Sure, there's been some grumbling, but that's about it. It may take a resounding defeat this fall and/or losing the White House in '08 for the seams of the Republican machine -- pundits, politicians, and activists alike -- to come apart.
More and more, though, Democrats are being vindicated. Gore in this case, but what of Bush's appropriation of Kerry's views on Iran? When their own ideas/policies fall apart, they inevitably steal from us and off Democratic ideas/policies as their own.
Posted by: Michael Stickings | February 6, 2006 02:46 PM
That should be: ...pass off Democratic ideas/policies as their own.
Posted by: Michael Stickings | February 6, 2006 02:50 PM
If it had been Jimmy Carter:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_energy.html
They would have him removed from office for being such a downer and backwards thinker.
Posted by: fish | February 6, 2006 04:59 PM
Of course the would be critics of Al Gore know that he would have been serious about it. Everyone knows that Bush is just kidding!
Posted by: John Sully | February 6, 2006 10:35 PM
Rob, I'll have to disagree with one of your statements:
The basic combustion reaction, Ethanol + O2 => CO2 and water, even assuming the NOx problem could be avoided, and CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
This misses the larger issue; Where does the carbon in the fuel come from?
If one is using a fuel from biological sources (Grease, biodiesel, ethanol), that carbon came from today's atmosphere: the C02 being put into the atmosphere comes from plants that took the CO2 out of the atmosphere during their lifespan. If we grew 100% of our carbon-based fuels, we would be removing carbon from the atmosphere at the same rate we're putting it in. Balance is maintained, no global warming.
The carbon in fossil fuels was taken out of the atmosphere millions of years ago, and sequestered over a massive timeframe. That's adding massive amounts of carbon to the carbon cycle of tday's environment, one that didn't necessarily evolve to match those atmospheric conditions. Balance disrupted, global climate change.
The other quibble, the NO2 problem has been greatly reduced in modern internal combusion engines, and eliminated in upcoming fuel cell vehicles. There are fuel cell models that use Methanol and other fuels rather than hydrogen, and the controlled reaction of these technologies don't produce NO2 or other smog-related compounds.
Oddly enough, advances in fuel cell technology may well make such vehicles practical and competitive by 2017, the 25-year timeline given by Gore. Had we thrown the weight of the US government and economy behind this goal, as we did with the moon missions and the development of the atomic bomb, I'm sure we could have made Al's goal a reality in that timeframe.
Posted by: Left_Wing_Fox | February 7, 2006 04:25 PM