Re: E-85

FMD asked (I think it was a question) with wording that totally baffles me and has no connection to anything I posted, as far as I can tell: "So if you will Bill, help me understand what you are saying. The oil comapnies could raise the oil prices to 20 dollars per gallon overnight and there should be no cause for oversight invesigations and the American people should not question it because we are a capitalistic nation and we just need to make a decision as to either keep on paying for the fuel at 20 dollars per gallon or dont pay for it because we either cant afford it or want to boycott the oil companies? That because of the demand of petro, due to "gas guzzling Americans, the oil companies has a right to raise the petro prices as they see fit? Is it really that easy?"

Hunh???? What does that mean? The only thing close to anything I said (by lifting a couple pieces out of whatever context there is in FMD's question) is that I strongly suspect that people will continue to buy and burn gasoline whether the price is $5, $10, or $20 a gallon, complaining all the while, but still paying it. I said that maybe people would stop buying the gas and use alternatives, perhaps supporting the research needed to develop the alternatives (like mass transport, bikeways, fuel cells). This has nothing to do with who sets the prices, whether the government, the corner gas station, the "big, evil corporations", or who. People apparently pay hundreds and thousands to feed their drug habits. People spend more on a big screen TV to hang on their walls than a year's worth of fuel for their SUV at present prices.

Is it evil for the drug dealers to charge hundreds for a small amount of some potent drug (I happen to think so)? The drugs, according to the news media, cost pennies to make and distribute for that hundred dollar dose. Is it evil for the TV set manufacturers to charge $2000 or $4000 for the big scren TV, just because people are willing to pay for it? I don't see much outcry here, and no calls for Congressional investigations (yeah, I have a big screen, 27-inch, that gets used for History, Discovery, Animal Planet, and OLN, er, VX, when the Tour de France is on). Something I have been meaning to find out - how much energy is consumed by my neighbor's 60-inch plasma when on and when in stand-by?

Ok, Steve and others want to know what we each are doing to wean ourselves from oil and coal. I have already said some of this - we use pretty much exclusively solar for our hot water, walk or bicycle most of the time to the stores for groceries and other things, drive a 25 mpg car, except use CalTrain when we go into the city (that's San Francisco, where the SF Symphony plays and the SFMOMA and Exploratorium are located). We buy mostly produce grown within 150 miles (that's the farthest reaches of the California Central Valley), so reducing the trucking costs. That does include corn, but wheat comes mostly from the MidWest and a lot of trucking miles. As much as possible, we buy locally grown poultry and locally caught fish (no beef in this household). This is not because of PC environmental considerations, it's just the way we were brought up. We used to have a garden for some of our own produce (that's the WWII generation for you - Victory Gardens).

It's actually easy to reduce the energy consumption and carbon footprint. Recall that I posted earlier that we consume under 3000 kw-hr of electricity per year, 70 times less than Mr. "Green" Al Gore, and this has held steady for the 24 years we have been in this house, not because it is fashionable, but because we don't need any more. Yes, we use more than our fair share in jet fuel and frequent long drives to the Sierra and other climbing and skiing areas. Maybe we could cut back there.