Just had a chance to catch some of Rush Limbaugh on the car radio -- El Rushbo was kind of all over the map but among the things that he was attacking President Obama for, the one that really stood out was that the president had the nerve to endorse low-energy lightbulbs today. He played a soundbite from this:
President Obama on Monday announced new federal efforts to promote energy efficiency in the United States, through stricter standards on fluorescent and incandescent light and other measures.
"I know light bulbs might not seem sexy," Mr. Obama said, "but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and our businesses."
Paraphrasing, Rush was like: "Folk, this is Jimmy Carter all over again -- with the cardigan sweaters and lowering the thermostat to 68 degrees in the White House....There is no shortage of energy."
This is what talk radio has to fall back on -- the glory days of Reagan beating Carter and thus proving to the world that any kind of sacrifice is for wimps and the only energy problem is that we're not drilling hard enough. The only thing Limbaugh's stirring rhetoric lacked was any facts.
For one thing, the world's long-term oil picture has not improved:
"The biggest oil fields are past peak production. Truth is these fields are declining in reserves by some 6% to 7% a year. We have to find 3 million to 4 million more barrels a year just to offset this decline in the oil that exists," he says. Exxon Mobil, for example, has proven reserves 21% less than what was reported in 2007.
That's not even addressing the greenhouse gas benefits of reduced energy consumption. Truth be told, Jimmy Carter was dead right:
To contrast the two speeches is like comparing the screeching of a cat to the miracles of Mozart. Yet today, Carter's speech reads as prescient. Most of his dire predictions -- "It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century" -- have generally come true, although not quite as soon or as calamitously as he had warned. The pity of it all is that in American politics, being right is beside the point.
Yup. Paul Krugman has an outstanding column today on the global warming deniers:
Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an “existential threat” to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole — but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.
Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it’s in their political interest to pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is.
Rush Limbaugh is the ideal spokesman for this movement. His rants are making him a lot of money today, and he has no offspring, which makes it a lot easier to not give a damn about tomorrow.
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Americans spends about 500 billion dollars on imported oil annually. Just think where America would be if we used a fraction of that money to develop green energy in America.— chasing history- Comment removed.
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- chasing history, How about this: Just think of where we would be energy-wise if Reagan had not repudiated all of the energy saving requirements that Carter implemented?— Some Boca Dude
- How about this: Just think of where we would be energy-wise if Reagan had not repudiated all of the energy saving requirements that Carter implemented?....we'd be energy independent. But we do have momentum to undo a past wrong. Not only are environmental issues a concern, but also our national security.— chasing history
- Forget these fringe technologies. Just think of where we'd be if we had the foresight to go nuke with Reagan and bury the waste deep in the earth. If the French can do it we most certainly can.— Joe Funk
- LJL you have figured out the front end....putting them into the receptacles at Home Depoit: then what? do they dissappear into a black hole never to be seen again? the fact is they have no way of disposing of them yet that is satisfactory. The future of lightiung is LED. Has similar cost savings but contaiins no mercury. But GE doesn't have a branch in that biz so they can't dump $ into Barrys campaign coffeers— taxmemore
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- Actually, I dont agree with Krugman at all. I for one, think Global Warming is a hoax not because its politcally conveniently, but because I see no proof of it. And common sense tells me that a group of humans does not have enough impact to effect an entire planet's climate. Thinking otherwise is grossly arrogant. As an independent thinker and outsider, I would think that its the left that uses climate change as a politcal tool more than the right— TR
- "Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it’s in their political interest to pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is." Two things, Will. First, with the debt that Obama is throwing onto his two girls with his reckless spending, one could have an interesting argument about who truly "gives a da*n" about tomorrow. Second, in reference to Krugman's high horse, it's not just Americans who question this: "Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation. If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate. The Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming. -- In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program. -- Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." - www.online.wsj.com— Vandy
- I saw the difference in my electric bill with the lightbulbs. Haven't had to change any of them in two years either since I moved in to my new house. How can Rush knock that? There are bigger issues to be concerned with.— phillyylliph
- Will, you wont be happy until you and the Obama marxist regulate everything in America. What hot dogs can we eat, Will? Is it ok to buy shoe laces? You are an unbashed marxist...why don't youy defect to Cuba or North Korea and live in the "utopia"— Dr. Michael
- coordinating dropoffs with neighbors? dumbest thing I've ever heard. People will drive, by themselves, to the dropoff. Sure you might have a few wingnuts who carpool to drop off light bulbs but most people aren't that insane.— dreinterests
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
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