This Means War

I had a revelation this morning. I was reading a story in The New Yorker about a convention of stove makers in Cottage Grove, Oregon. Cottage Grove is just outside of Eugene. Eugene is commonly known as Berkeley North, a bastion of liberals, pinkos and the dreaded hippy (Ha ha! The dreaded hippy! Get it? Hippy with dreadlocks? I made a funny!) Seems that cooking fires might be the biggest cause of global warming, bigger than SUV's, cows, or even people breathing. That's when it struck me. It doesn't matter if pollution is causing global warming or not. The whole point is to have an issue that you can use to rally your troops, and it seems that the powers that be (on the left anyway) are making good use of this one. The right has their War On Terror, and they have made effective use of it for their side. Both issues ("Global Warming" and the "War On Terror") are sure to cause disagreements, arguments, and get people's blood up, and that's the whole point. Nobody really cares about something until someone else attacks it. There are problems in the world, and some people sincerely believe they should try and help solve them. Some of these problems are really big, and solving them is going to take a coordinated effort by a large number of people. How do you get people to commit to a cause? By getting them emotionally involved, that's how. You get their blood up, and they'll do anything for "the cause". I don't think the War On Terror or the Global Warming campaigns would be as effective if they didn't have opponents screaming their heads off about how idiotic they all are. People commit to a cause, make donations to politicians, politicians get elected and pass bills that divert funds to their constituents. Their constituents line their pockets, the opponents scream their heads off and everybody is happy. The important part is everybody has something to believe in. If one party stays in power too long, their advantages start to pile up, the little people who were supporting whatever program it was realize they are not getting any financial benefit this program, and defect to the other party. Eventually the opposition gets enough adherents, the party in power changes, and the cycle starts over. The real issue is money, and for an economy that runs on oil, that means oil or its' equivalent. The Republicans are going for the simple, straight, conservative approach: the Mid-East has the oil, we want it, let's go get it, and to hell with the rag heads. The Democrats look at the mess that is the Mid-East and say "there has got to be a better way". Maybe we can figure out some way that we don't need to get any oil from the Mid-East. When the Republicans were in power, they directed the hose of public money to their friends in the military-industrial complex. Now the Democrats are in power and they are trying to redirect some of that money to their friends in the Universities. Note that the little people never get any of this largess from either party. Any benefit they receive is just a side effect of these big power plays. It is all about getting more money and power to those who already have money and power. Meanwhile, there is a fight brewing in Oregon over Natural Gas. One outfit wants to build a terminal in Coos Bay, another wants to build one in Astoria, and a third wants to build a 700 mile pipeline from somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. I'm cool with Natural Gas. I use it to heat my house. I've thought about using it in my truck, but the tanks are a tad expensive. They are also a little scary. I suppose it's whatever you are used to. I mean if you think about it, driving around with 20 gallons of gasoline in a thin steel tank is kind of scary, but we are so used to it we all do it without even thinking about it. Propane is a little nicer is some ways. It's familiar, people use it for their RV's and barbeque grills. It doesn't take much pressure to turn it into a liquid, which means you can store more energy in a smaller space. The downside is that it is heavier than air. So if you have a leak and you have any kind of basin, it will collect there and one little spark can set it off. Of course gasoline acts kind of the same way. Natural gas, on the other hand, is lighter than air and will just blow away. So if you have a leak, you may discover you suddenly have an empty tank for no apparent reason. Natural gas has another advantage over propane and that is there is much greater supply of it. Propane is siphoned off the production of other petroleum products, so it is a limited resource. The amount available is a small fraction of other fuels.