Readers and writers blog

I’ve been watching the price of crude oil bob up and down like a bungee jumper, and I’m wondering how long it’s going to take us to cut the cord. Because continuing the way we are makes no sense.

What’s astonishing to me is how many people don’t see that it makes no sense.

I was talking the other day to a guy from our local electric utility, and he was trying to tell me why America isn’t trying to switch away from fossil fuels:

“It makes no sense,” he said.

What? Well, here’s how he saw it: Solar and wind technology are too expensive, and there’s really no shortage of oil, just a lack of initiative in finding it. As for global warming, he doesn’t believe it.

Granted, this guy isn’t a policy maker at the utility, just a field technician trying to determine whether we’re close enough to one of its natural gas lines to hook in for a tankless water heater.

It’s some of his beliefs that bother me — beliefs that a lot of Americans seem to hold.

For one thing, most of the science I read says we’re past the peak of the world’s oil supply. Most of the science I read also says our atmosphere is warming because our use of fossil fuels is pumping too much carbon dioxide into it.

And solar and wind are too expensive? Compared to what? Summers of 110 degrees and New York City under water?

Frankly, I’m glad we’re running out of oil. Because if the utility guy were right and we were gushing in oil again, a lot of people would be right back in those Hummers and SUVs, driving the kids everywhere to and from their McMansions instead of making the little fatties walk somewhere.

Does that make sense?

You know, I still haven’t forgiven Al Gore for losing to George Bush in 2000. Gore as a candidate was so stiff that he reminded me of a big popsicle stick. But he said something Thursday that sums up our current energy situation:

We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.

It was his speech challenging the United States to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.*

A couple of other things Gore said:

(E)nough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world’s energy needs for a full year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide all of the electricity America uses.

And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of U.S. electricity demand.

Is it a daunting challenge? Yes, and so was John F. Kennedy’s program to put us on the moon in 10 years.

Gore’s challenge still would leave us using oil, but in far smaller quantities — for example, for aircraft and hybrid cars. But we would get rid of those nasty coal-fired plants that now generate more than half our electricity.

You know, there’s almost a religious fervor not to believe in global warming and the need for alternative energy sources. Well, apologies to my religious friends, but it’s actually safer not to believe in God than not to believe in global warming.

If you die and there’s no God, you haven’t wasted a lot of your life trying to believe. If there is a God, then he has to be the kind of deity who would find it perfectly reasonable not to believe in him. If he isn’t that kind of deity, then I’d just as soon go to hell.

But if you don’t believe in global warming and it turns out not to happen, you’ve still got the energy mess we’re in today. And if it does turn out to be true, then you’ve got hell right here on earth.

Today’s new offerings in Works

• Chapter 17 of R.J. Keller’s novel Waiting for Spring. Tess spends a day talking with Brian’s troubled younger sister and is somewhat reassured that Rachel will survive her relationship with Tim, a drug dealer.

• Chapter 29: Burlingame of Gerard Jones’ nonfiction novel Ginny Good. Gerard and Melanie spend an evening with Ginny and Elliot, and it turns out as badly as Gerard had feared. Melanie punches Ginny, and all four get arrested. (Update: Whoa, to my chagrin, I am corrected by Gerard [see comments]. Only he and Melanie get arrested. Apologies, G.)

– Sid Leavitt

NOTE:

*Thanks to fellow blogger Ted Knerr at Art-spirit for sending us the speech, which you can see or read here. If you watch the video, push the ‘play’ slider over to 2:20 to get past the introductions.