A Call to Arms!
Today is blog action day - so I read this morning. Its a call to arms for all bloggers to write about a single subject - the environment, quelle surprise!
Im certainly not an 'environmental sceptic' - I majored in Environmental Science back in the UK - this was not a 'town planning' degree - this was hard core, nuclear physics, environmental chemistry - 3 branches, microbiology and an awful lot of math (not quite sure why.) So, I think Im reasonably well versed in all things environment - we do our bit here in our piece of Colorado with recyling and the like. We even signed up for solar panels which I hope are going to come some time next year - I can not wait to see that electricity meter go into reverse!
Here comes the flameworthy retoric. I do take everything that a certain peace prize winning politician says and does with a pinch of salt - yes, the world is warming, I dont think you can ignore that. But some of the 'scare tactics' used are worthy of MCCarthy and his 'reds under the bed'. Yes, America needs to wake up - the $1 gallon has gone and running vehicles that get 12 mpg is madness if not for the environment then for your pocket at least.
But car manufacturers need to wake up too - a Volkswagen in Europe that maybe has a 1.1 liter engine and gets 40 mpg miraculously turns up over here sporting a 2.0L turbo - why? To cater for the American thirst for power? The roads here are almost as bad as the UK for congestion, why have all that power? We'll be measuring performance using the 0-30mph yardstick soon because 60 is a distant memeory on our roads. The weather dude this morning was pointing out that the fog was lifting over Denver, hmm the brown hydrocarbon laden smog appeared to be doggedly hanging on and was doing a great job of obscuring the Rockies - the mountains that is.
What am I getting at - the great American obsession with cars? Maybe ... You can have the best light rail systems in the country but if folks still want to sit in their own metal boxes, sipping coffee, spewing fumes, it aint worth it. Re-education is the key, not scare mongering.
Thats it - I have made comment on the environment, I could go on, but I wont - you're relieved I can tell. The only tenuous link back to BIP that I can come up with is that Mike, our PM owns a Prius!
