Re: E-85

Steve said in part "should somehow try to convince people that they don't need a 5000 square foot home (which they need to heat and cool)"

Lessee now, we have a great example of how we should reduce our footprint in Mr. Green himself, Al Gore (inventor of the Internet). According to the news media, his compact, energy efficient dwelling is 10,000 sq ft, and consumes more electricity per month than the average residence consumes per year. Oh, yeah, that's right, he buys carbon credits (in essence, "let someone else do the actual practice of being green, so it's ok for me to waste resources").

Out here in the West, our Governator Green, Arnie, still has most of his Hummers, but one is run on biodiesel (gee, it's ok to burn biodiesel by the barrel).

On the Vineyard, "leading Green advocate" young Robert Kennedy is one of the leaders of the opponents of the proposed windfarm that would be placed in the waters just offshore from his mansion and the family compound, because it would spoil his views of the natural ocean (many of the times I was on the Vineyard, bicycling by the way, not driving, you wouldn't have seen the windmills anyway because of the fog).

The thing is, as long as the pols and others who purport to speak on our behalf continue to set the examples they do, don't count on much cutback on environmental impacts and waste of resources. They talk a good line, but their actual practices don't set much of an example. (do I hear someone asking, "so what else is new?").

In case you are wondering, we have been using exclusively solar-heated hot water in our house for 23+ years (the thermometer on the storage tank is reading 150F right now). And for a major part of our local travel, we bicycle or walk. Not the best example of "green", I admit, since the car burns up several hundred gallons of petrol per year getting to and from the mountains.