Another One (Less) Catches the Bus

According to Lewis Black's show, blogging is the Root of All Evil, but I'm putting in my two cents anyway. I am a member of the Environmental Defense Fund, and today's email from them contained some stats that will surprise many people. For instance, in May of 2007, a barrel of oil was $75 and in May of 2008 it was at $131. Now that's not news to anyone, but this might be. In 2007, a record number of trips were taken by Americans on our public transportation system – 10.3 billion, and Americans drove 9.6 billion miles less in 2008 than 2007. Now here's what hurts – 46% of the American population has NO access to public transportation, and municipalities all over America have cut back their public transportation by 20% this year because the price of gas is putting too high of a strain on their budgets.

Being a citizen of Snohomish County in Washington, I guess I was oblivious to these stats. We live 25 miles outside the nearest "city" of 20,000 people, and there is bus service all day up and down our highway. The county began switching to green thinking way back when I worked for the Parks Department. Back then they were shifting all county vehicles to recycled motor oil, and looking into a new technology called BioDiesel. Almost fifteen years later, the county runs all of its busses and most other diesel vehicles on BioDiesel that it makes itself. This past spring, I had a representative from the county Works Department come up to our school for our community science night. She made BioDiesel on site!! Now I understand that I am lucky to live in a county with such great insight, but this is really the way municipalities need to go. States need to form their own Energy Plans and stop waiting for the Federal Government to tell us what to do.

After all, we are a Republic of states which means that states are supposed to be governing themselves and relying on the Federal Government for international issues, banking issues and interstate commerce. I know I sound like a Republican, but we have forgotten our local roots. There are many citizens in local communities that get together and garden or clean the highways, but there are no town hall meetings anymore, and city council, county council and school district meetings are vacant until some morality issue pops up like a sex shop zoning or a controversial book in the library. It was only forty years ago when a Democrat stood up and inspired Americans to get involved in their part of our Republic. Remember? "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." Have we forgotten what this means?

It means you get involved. The next time your utility commissioner goes up for re-election, vote for the person who has a new energy plan. The same old same old will cause us bankruptcy. Call your utility department and ask them about their Alternative Energy plans, or start a citizens drive to encourage them to come up with one. Call your county executive and ask about the future of public transportation in your district. Write to your local paper and encourage others to help your community come up with viable energy plans.

On another note, people have asked me about why Obama is not sweeping the polls. While McCain's new attack ads are comparing Obama to Paris Hilton, McCain is also using his press corps to his advantage. Obama, I'm afraid is making a mistake by only using his press corps to look like a rock star and to defend himself against McCain's attacks. Now I know that the Obama campaign wants to portray him as "above" that kind of campaigning, but get real guys. This is America where many Americans have an attention span of about 8 seconds, and do not go on to research what they have heard.

Obama needs to stand up, use his press corps and start pointing out the very apparent problems in our very broke country. He needs to attack McCain and loosen up a little, or he is going to come off as too arrogant for the regular American to vote for. He came up the Democrat ladder, "fired up and ready to go," but I think someone doused the fire.

The Power of Natural Gas

I haven't really looked into natural gas technology, simply because natural gas is not a renewable resource. In order to get along with Mamma Nature in the future, we need to invest in renewable energy resources such as Geothermal, wind, solar and tidal power. However, at the unveiling of T. Boone Pickens Energy Plan, many friends have asked me about CNG vehicles.

CNG stands for Compressed Natural Gas, and currently, Honda, Volkswagen and Mercedes are investing more into this technology than others, but most car companies, including Ford and GM make cars that run on CNG. In fact, Mercedes and Volkswagen have vehicles that can switch between CNG and gasoline. The Mercedes E-class CNG can get 186 miles on its CNG tank and an additional 435 miles from its gasoline tank. The Honda Civic GX comes with a home pump named "Phill" that you can hook up to your natural gas tank at home and refuel your Civic overnight.

CNG burns much cleaner than gasoline, simply because it is a much smaller hydrocarbon. Octane has 8 carbons, while Methane only has 2. CNG refining is more expensive than gasoline, but like BioDiesel, it can come down in price if demand increases, and technology improves. CNG pumps are just as safe as gasoline pumps, which aren't as safe as we think. The gas tanks in the cars are much safer than current gasoline tanks, consisting of fiberglass and shock material, that I could not find any cases where they have ruptured in a crash. To make room for the larger tank, the carmakers have modified the rear suspension to a lighter weight material and flatter chassis. They also have eliminated the need for a spare and jack by making run-flat tires the standard on all CNG models.

Fun fact: Currently UPS currently has 987 CNG trucks in their Texas, Georgia, California and New York fleets. If most fleet vehicles switched to CNG while private family vehicles remained on gasoline, we could stretch our non-renewable fuel resources out for a few more decades, but it is not a permanent fix. We need to take that gained time to come up with an innovative way to get from here to there with renewable energy sources.

Why Can't We Be Friends?

I was a Carter baby, and was raised in the faux-happy America of Ronald Reagan. I know now that times were rough, hence why a pharmacist's kid wore hand-me-downs from her cousin, but I didn't realize it at the time. Why? One great thing Ronnie did was give us all a good sense of community. Of course, it was aided by the remnants of the WWII era organizations such as the Lions, Jaycees, bowling leagues (flashback Poly Sci).

We don't have that anymore in America. In fact, I've noticed we have very much regressed. In our local po-dunk paper, people are explaining how they go slower when you don't travel the legal distance behind them. In Minnesota, cops are giving citizens radar guns and training them how to use them, and in Tallahasse, FL a 23 year old girl is dead because the police set her up on a cocaine/gun sting when all she was guilty of was having a couple of baggies of pot.

But these people are breaking the law you say. Yes, but it is not up to the citizens to maintain local law enforcement. In fact, the city councils and police departments should be encouraging citizens to get along with one another. How about community days to clean up a park, or feed the homeless, or give kids something to do after school? They should not be encouraging citizen vs. citizen. What kind of America does that bring us?

When I finish school, no matter what government office I end up working for, I want to devote my volunteer time to encouraging community events, hopefully involving alternative energy choices. This is craziness people. And to conclude, a quote from Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?"

History Forgotten within Thirty Years

So for my first post, I have decided to focus on stupidity in the American market. Once upon a time in the 1970's, the OPEC nations decided to create a fuel embargo against America. This and other radical changes in the world created high gas prices and a recession that lasted into the 1980’s. In the early 1980’s, maybe even late 70’s, the Big 3 Auto makers began losing sales to Japanese car companies. The reason was that the smaller Japanese cars got much better gas mileage than the GM and Ford gas guzzling metal monstrosities. They even spoofed the situation in the movie “Gung Ho.”

Flash forward thirty years and here we are again. This time American de-regulation of energy companies is to blame instead of OPEC. Ford and GM are once again announcing HUGE losses while Toyota and Honda sales are up. My question is where in thirty years did GM and Ford forget what had happened to them before (and who owns Chrysler now:)? Why did they switch so many lines to large trucks and SUV’s in the 90’s when just 20 years prior they were re-aligning to smaller cars? Did they really forget those reasons, or were they working together with oil companies to make large profits - fast?

So many say the answer is off shore drilling. Sure, that will add a good 1-2% to our supply. Wow – is that really worth environmental disaster? Once the shore is polluted, it is never the same, and the oil companies will never pay for the spill. Just ask the victims of the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. It happened twenty years ago, and Exxon has yet to pay.

The oil companies will swoon you with promises that they are safe and spills won’t happen. Today, John McCain has cancelled a news conference from an offshore oil rig due to "high winds" and an oil spill in the Mississippi gulf yesterday. Apparently McCain advisers did not think it would be smart to put the spotlight on a company that had just spilled some oil. I’m sure MoveOn.org, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club were all ready to jump on that one.

And to conclude with my own personal bitch about gas prices - $50.50 to fill up a 13 gallon Escape Hybrid! Highest oil profits in history. Let’s talk regulation.