Oil And Global Warming: The Democrats Are Wrong – Again

I don’t know about you but I’m really getting tired of the stupidity of Congress. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats leading our legislative branch of government have decided we don’t need oil any more. The Democrats want to proceed straight to the next energy technology and the way they are going to do it is to starve America of oil and force the price higher. Their logic is that even higher prices will stimulate industry and consumers to switch to alternative fuels and build massive solar, wind and bio-fuel complexes. We will then make the switch to electric cars, trucks, buses, trains, etc., etc., etc.

Don’t we all want to get off oil and get out from under the grip of middle eastern countries who would prefer to bury us?

Here are the obvious problems with the Democrats plan.

1. There are currently 250 million passenger vehicles registered in the U.S., not to mention millions of semi-tractor-trailer rigs and other vehicles. It is going to take decades to replace those vehicles with electric and/or bio-fuel vehicles.

2. We don’t have enough bio-crop, and can’t grow enough, to replace the oil we use to make the bio-fuel solution work. At least not without starving the world when we stop exporting food and start importing it. Bio-fuel technology isn’t ready for “prime time” either. There are problems with efficiently in the creation process.

3. Currently electric vehicles have a limited range of approximately 50 miles on a charge. We don’t have the battery technology to make electric cars a viable alternative. We don’t even know how far away we are to solving this big, big problem. Huge break-throughs are going to be needed before the electric car can compete.

4. Reid, talks like the electric car is already viably competitive and our only requirement is to build solar-thermal electric energy plants to meet our nation’s energy needs. Even the solar energy start-up company in the Reid video above, Ausra, says it will take nearly 50 years to replace 90% of current electric capacity. Furthermore, there is a problem with efficiently storing thermal solar energy after dark that has yet to be solved. Also, it is going to require 1% of the nation’s land mass for the solar fields. That’s equivalent to the state of Vermont! And those aren’t the only problems with solar. The plants need to be built in the desert south west to take advantage of the available sun light. We will need some new technology to efficiently transfer electric power the long distances it will require to get that power to the north east and other parts of the U.S.

Even assuming we can quickly solve all of the technological problems outlined above, where are we going to get the oil we will need while we make the decades long transition to a new energy source? The Democrats seem to think we won’t be needing any more oil. Rest assured that we will continue to need large amounts of oil for energy for decades to come. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, and most other Democrats believe that if we just start making electric cars and start building solar power plants tomorrow that we won’t need oil any longer. Just play Senator Reid’s video above to hear his comments. Sadly, he is wrong.

Reid and his counterpart, Nancy Pelosi, are blocking legislation that would allow us to drill in productive areas off the U.S. coasts and in ANWAR. 85% of the remaining U.S. oil reserves lie in those areas. Instead they have concocted a story trying to convince the American people that the oil companies have millions of acres of leases already that they are not drilling. The truth is that there are few if any of those leases that contain sufficient reserves to explore. Congress needs to allow U.S. oil companies to explore and drill for oil in ANWAR and coastal waters where we know the oil lies. Unless Congress acts and acts soon, we will be at the mercy of spiraling oil and fuel prices, inflation and probably stag-flation. While we wallow in our own undoing, we will continue to send hundreds of billions of dollars every year to oil rich countries that are drilling on their proven reserves. Many of those countries are our enemies or would just as soon see the U.S. much weaker if not toppled.

Reid and most Democrats are basing their policies on the false belief that carbon dioxide, CO2, is causing catastrophic changes to our climate and is making us “sick”. Nothing could be further from the truth. We expel carbon dioxide every time we take a breath. It is a naturally produced gas of our bodies. It is the gas that plants use to enable their photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide is not harmful to animals and is beneficial to the growth of plants including crops.

Al Gore and his dubious clan of scientists have convinced the Democrat contingent that man made CO2 is causing global warming and we need to stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible. In actually, there are other causes of the warming of our planet and the minor greenhouse gas (CO2) is not to blame. Gore and others are using inflated claims and unproven research to frighten the public and politicians into giving a hand full of world leaders and influential power mongers control over our destinies and freedoms through the requirement of trading carbon credits and other flawed legislation.

The truth about the dangers of CO2 buildup is that there is no danger in the small amounts man can put into the atmosphere. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 is only 300 parts per million. Carbon dioxide is considered a MINOR greenhouse gas. And, peer reviewed scientific research shows that the warming our planet is experiencing is primarily a result of changes in solar activity.

Those same global warming alarmists are pointing to the melting of a part of the Antarctic ice cap and melting around the North Pole as proof there is man-made global warming. The truth is that there has been massive volcanic ativity under the part of the Antarctic ice that is retreating which started in 1999. Since the activity started only that part of the ice cap has started to retreat. Remember the hole in the ozone layer of the atmosphere. It turns out that the ozone hole (which is closing by the way) is creating abnormal wind currents that are driving warmer air up to the North Pole. That’s not to say there is some global warming. There has been warming of the planet ever since the solar created little ice age of the middle ages.

The bottom line, is that we’re not the cause of global warming and there probably isn’t anything we can do to change it either. That being the case, we need to explore for oil in the U.S. while we find self-reliant forms of energy. We need to get off foreign oil but we can’t do it over night. Let’s not only change our technology but let’s not throw ourselves to the oil wolves in the mean time.

When you vote in November, toss out the global warming alarmists and narrow minded Democrats. We need leaders willing to solve our problems and not cave in to lying alarmists and ecological extremists.