The Buie Knife

Auto Industry, Bush Trashed Al Gore's Push to Bring Extremely Fuel Efficient Vehicles to Market By 2003

As the American auto industry faces bankruptcy, it's well to remember their stubborn short-term thinking, and how they colluded with the Bush administration in 2001 to scrap Al Gore's voluntary Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, which was on target to market extremely fuel-efficient vehicles by 2003. With cheap oil and gas-guzzling SUVs dominating the market then, Bush and the auto industry thought there was little market for extremely fuel efficient vehicles. Instead of invading and occupying Iraq to secure long-term U.S. access to cheap oil, suppose the U.S. President in the early 2000s had instead declared that Americans, and the auto industry, had to wean themselves from dependence on foreign oil? Sure there would have been some grousing, but how much better off we'd be today.

Related:

• Al Gore: Prescient in 2002 About Iraq and Afghanistan

Thinking of Buying a Prius, Dreaming of 60 Miles to the Gallon

With gas prices 13 percent higher in the summer of 2008 compared to the summer of 2007, who is not thinking of trading in the gas guzzler for a hybrid? I read that in certain driving conditions, a Toyota Prius can get 60+ miles to the gallon, and it really makes you aware of fuel-efficient driving. (See "For Hybrid Drivers, Every Trip Is A Race for Fuel Efficiency," in The Washington Post.) There's also talk of renewing and expanding the federal tax credits to $10,000 for purchasing a hybrid automobile, but it probably wouldn't take effect until the 2009 tax year at the earliest. I figure my family is spending at least $20 a week or $80 month ($960 a year) more on auto fuel in 2008 than in 2007, so we aren't likely to embark on any big road trips this year like we did last year.

I see that I could get a 2005 Toyota Prius with mileage less than 30,000 for $20,000.

I also see that Honda is hoping to compete sharply with Toyota in the hybrid market:

Honda hopes to sell about 500,000 hybrids a year by 2015 -- nine times what it sold last year -- rivaling Toyota's own goal of boosting hybrid sales to a tenth of its total sales after 2010.

Iraq War Failure Causes U.S. Gas Prices to Rise. We May See $200 A Barrel

One of the reasons for the U.S. invasion of Iraq was to get greater control over Iraqi oil. President Bush and his advisors didn't like the idea of Saddam Hussein having control over a resource so vital to the U.S. economy. But one clearly abject failure of the U.S. occupation of Iraq is that oil production, even five years after the U.S. invasion, is no where near what it was when Saddam had control over it. "Before the war, Saddam Hussein's regime pumped some 3.5 million barrels of oil a day, but this had now fallen to just two million barrels," the UK Independent reports.

For a variety of reasons, a barrel of oil on the world market could go up to $200 in the foreseeable future, wrecking havoc on the world economy, the article states. It is based largely on research by David Strahan, author of The Last Oil Shock.

Some extremely short-sighted politicians would have the U.S. spoil our natural environment by allowing for the aggressive drilling for oil in the Alaska Natural Wildlife Preserve, as well as off the coast of California, Florida and North Carolina. But that would only buy us a few years of continued oil dependence. A far better choice is to move as quickly as possible toward more fuel-efficient automobiles, more hybrids, and more environmental-consciousness as a society.

Self-Interest and Economic Morality

In The New York Times, Paul Krugman identifies Gore Derangement Syndrome -- conservatives who can't stand Al Gore because he has proven to be so right on the major issues of the day -- most notably, climate change and the war in Iraq. Gore has of course been vindicated by winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Krugman quotes Franklin Roosevelt's second inaugural address, in which he spoke of the need to place "practical controls over blind economic forces and blindly selfish men."

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals," Roosevelt told the country. "We know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run, economic morality pays."

Krugman points out that if governments do not take any responsibility for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, disaster will ensue. "Leave it up to the free market, and in a few generations Florida will be underwater. The solution to such conflicts between self-interest and the common good is to provide individuals with an incentive to do the right thing. In this case, people have to be given a reason to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, either by requiring that they pay a tax on emissions or by requiring that they buy emission permits, which has pretty much the same effects as an emissions tax. We know that such policies work: the U.S. 'cap and trade' system of emission permits on sulfur dioxide has been highly successful at reducing acid rain."

Falling in Love with 'the Crown of the Continent' But Fearing For It's Future

Alex Buie taking a dip in Lake McDonald in -- pure and glacier-fed. Will Glacier National Park be there in all its glory for him and his children to enjoy?

Of all the places we visited in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, I think I fell most in love with Glacier National Park. I wasn't the first. George Bird Grinnell, an early conservationist who was instrumental in establishing the national park, wrote in 1901: "Far away in Western Montana, hidden from view by clustering mountain peaks, lies an unmapped corner -- the crown of the continent."

John Muir, the early preservationist who founded the Sierra Club, put it another way: "Give a month at least to this precious reserve. The time will not be taken from the sum of your life. Instead of shortening, it will indefinitely lengthen it and make you truly immortal."

He also wrote: "Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, overcivilized people are beginning to find that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is necessity; that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life."

And yet, there are grave threats to this and other sacred places, according to the National Parks Conservation Association. There has been a dramatic reduction in the number of glaciers in the park in the last 100 years. A ranger told my son that if he visits in 30 years with his son, all the glaciers in Glacier National Park will be gone, and only barren rock will be left. With reduced glacial melting, the probability of more wild fires increase, destroying more forest land and contributing to air pollution in the region.

Other threats include:

• haphazard development of nearby landscapes
• inadequate funding for basic park operations
• hardrock mining
• resource extraction
• highway expansion

Drill Deeper:

• National Parks Conservation Association
• Glacier National Park (Wikipedia)
• George Bird Grinnell
• John Muir

Inaccurate Claim That Al Gore is an Environmental Hypocrite

Received an email claiming that Al Gore is an environmental hypocrite because his home is not  environmentally efficient, and certainly not as environment-friendly as George Bush's Texas ranch. Even Snopes.com, the web site that seeks to distinguish truth from Internet urban legends, wrote in March 2007 that the email is true. But later information makes clear the charge of hypocrisy isn't true. The Associated Press reported in June that Gore is seeking certification of environmental efficiency for renovations to his home, and has been working for a long time to change building codes in his neighborhood to allow installation of solar paneling -- long before he was charged with being an environmental hypocrite.  There's a picture of the solar roof here. And in a video interview with Popular Mechanics, Gore points out that environmentally-friendly design is also cost-efficient.

Incidentally, Popular Mechanics has an interesting piece on how we can all reduce our environmental footprint.

Independence from Foreign Oil for the U.S.

Former NJ Senator Bill Bradley: "We fought two wars on oil in the last 15 years, and yet we are not willing to fight against oil dependence. If we simply had the same gas-mileage average as Europe does, about 43 miles per gallon, we would import no oil from OPEC. Zero."

Some Evangelicals Take Progressive Stands on Global Warming, Immigration, Health Care, Poverty, Torture

Wedge issues for evangelicals: global warming and the environment. NBC News reports. Poverty and health care. LA Times reports. Torturing suspected terrorists. Associated Press reports. "Christians who won't toe the line. Evangelicals in the U.S. are starting to put faith before the Republican Party." EJ Dionne in The Washington Post. "Evangelical Protestantism in the United States is going through a New Reformation that is disentangling a great religious movement from a partisan political machine. This historic change will require liberals and conservatives alike to abandon their sometimes narrow views of who evangelicals are."

Is NRA Shooting Itself in the Foot?

Alix Shutello, after talking to some folks on this blog, following a discussion we had about the National Rifle Association and environmentalists, has written an interesting piece for Plenty Magazine about the conflict within the NRA.

NRA Members Question Loyalty to Bush and GOP, Given Administration's Restrictions on Use of Public Lands for Hunting

The Bush Administration has opened more public land for oil and gas drilling and limited access to hunters and anglers, angering some National Rifle Association members who say the organization should no longer support the president or ally so closely with the Republican Party, The Washington Post reports.