There's so much to be gained from developing clean, renewable energy sources that we'd really have to be insane not to make this a top priority. (Of course, in a world where roughly half of all Americans don't believe in evolution, we're still waiting to see on which side the Sanity Coin will land.) We need to convince our "leaders" that it's time to get serious about developing solar energy, wind power, geothermal, and hydrogen fuel cell technology.
Some very smart people believe that this should be our generation's Manhatten Project. A race for survival. Only this time, our enemies aren't fascist thugs, but our own addictions to oil and coal. We're chugging our way straight into an environmental nightmare. To make matters worse, Peak Oil will be reached in the near future, and will have disastrous economic effects if we're not ready to transition to alternative fuels. Meanwhile, much of Western Europe is losing the War of Ideas against the Islamists, who get much of their funding from those oily Saudis.
Making the switch to clean, safe, renewable energy sources in the next two decades is entirely do-able. The only thing holding us back is a lack of robust leadership, and the right-wingers who keep hitting the brakes by telling us that mainstream adoption of those technologies is still "a long way off". (And it will remain "a long way off", as long as we listen to those earth-disdaining Luddites.)
As luck would have it, one of the most effective ways to save Western civilization from the encroachment of Islamic insanity is also one of the best ways to save the planet. If we stop buying their oil, the Saudis (and others like them) will have less money for funding madrassas in Muslim countries, radical mosques in the West, and assorted terrorist bad boys around the world. This is one strategy that should get the support of even the most passive, politically correct, multicultural types in the progressive community. No need to hurt anyone's feelings. No need to blow the crap out of anyone. Just stop giving the assholes our money -- while at the same time giving Mother Nature a much-needed break, and moving mankind into a smarter, greener 21st Century.
Sounds great, right? It gets better!
Eliminating our dependence on foreign oil would also mean that the U.S. could stop wasting trillions of dollars on bone-headed military invasions of oil-rich Muslim nations. We could pull out of Ahmed's world entirely, thereby reducing popular support for terrorism (somewhat) -- while simultaneously regaining the goodwill of the Western world. We could use some of the money we save on bombs and bullets to develop the infrastructure for a hydrogen economy, and more efficient solar technology. No more oil spills. No more global warming. No more oil-covered seagulls or drowning polar bears. Save the planet, and keep uppity Islamists out of violent mischief at the same time! Everybody wins! Everybody's happy! Everyone except the Islamist douchebags, that is.
Jamie Lee Curtis doing her bit, with Honda's revolutionary hydrogen fuel cell car, the FCX Clarity.
Putting one of these babies in every driveway would go a long way towards reducing terrorist funds, and slowing the spread of the most virulent, violent, bat-shit-crazy strains of the Religion of Peace.
Solar energy and wind power: the clean, safe, smart ways to produce electricity.
The reason the world was relatively jihad-free for nearly three hundred years -- from the late 1600s to the late 1900s -- is that, for the most part, Muslims were powerless and poor as dirt. They were unable to engage in jihad, because their outdated weaponry would not get the job done against Europeans armed with more modern muskets and artillery, and (later on) rifles, machineguns, and warplanes. Suddenly, waging war for Allah would get your ass shot out of the saddle, period -- no matter how fanatical you were. Regardless of how passionately you yearned to see a Global Caliphate, going up against the infidels was a sure way to get an inglorious ass-stomping. The underlying cause of this shift in military might was that, during this period, Western civilization had begun to shake off its abject slavery to religious superstition, and to embrace reason, science, and technology. Whereas in the Muslim world...well...not so much!
Toyota's 3rd generation Prius. At 50 mpg (city and highway combined), it's a great option, 'til we develop a hydrogen infrastructure.
Another intelligent option.
Muslims couldn't afford to buy these shiny new instruments of death and destruction, because the two commodities they possessed in abundance -- sand and misery -- weren't fetching much in the global marketplace. And they sure as hell couldn't produce those high-tech weapons themselves, because they'd spent the last thousand years wallowing in superstition and ignorance, and thinking about how fucking great it was to be a Muslim. Their empire-building had been achieved via pure military aggression and a kamikaze mentality, rather than through advances in technology. In reality, they were never the scientific geniuses the politically-correct types would have you believe. Much of the braininess the Muslim world supposedly produced during the Golden Age of Islam (in the eighth through the tenth centuries), was actually the work of heretical freethinkers, such as the Persian al-Razi -- or of Zoroastrians, Jews, and Hindus living in the Calliphate alongside Allah's faithful. Which probably explains why this
mini-Enlightenment fizzled out, once the Muslims succeeded in converting most of the infidel eggheads living among them.
Of course, for the devout Muslim, when you've got Allah on your side, you don't need no stinkin' technology! (Until you do, that is.)
After a few disastrous clashes with well-armed Europeans (such as the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683, where Polish and Austrian forces prevailed), Muslims began to realize that the whole jihad business just wasn't working out the way it was supposed to anymore. Maybe Allah was displeased with them for some reason. Or maybe He was just testing their faith, or their patience. Well, long story short -- they learned to be pretty fucking patient. And the world got to be a pretty safe place for infidels; especially those in Western Europe, who could now get back to the time-honored business of killing each other, secure in the knowledge that whoever won the war de jour, it sure as hell wasn't going to be any Muslims. Christianity was safe once more. Hooray! And, more importantly, so were the deists, pantheists, atheists, and other fledgling freethinkers living among them -- the protoype secular progressives, to whom we owe so much. God bless them, every one!
It's time to make the Islamists feel helpless again. Time to pull the plug on the money machine that funds them, by putting an end to our oil addiction. Anyone concerned about the threat of Islam should jump on this bandwagon, and start preachin' the New Gospel of clean, safe, locally-produced energy.
Western civilization, and Mother Nature, will be forever in our debt.
Turkish jihadis getting their asses kicked by Polish
calvary / feather-dancers, outside the gates of
Vienna -- September 11th, 1683.
Jihadist-defeating
17th Century high tech.
Copyright 2010 The Candid Progressive
Of course, while we're developing a hydrogen infrastructure, we can stop driving Yukons and start driving hybrids that get triple or quadruple the gas mileage. And we can tax the living hell out of gasoline, so that narcissistic Republicans are forced to give up said Yukons. (The temporary dampening effect on the economy would be offset by the economic boost arising from the development of, and transition to, green technologies.) We can ride bicycles. Mopeds. Or fuel-sipping crotch rockets, which still have a ridiculously high CDI (Chicks Dig It) factor. We could even take the rather drastic measure of using mass transit, I suppose. All of these things can make a big difference in the interim period, while we're getting our super-high-tech, 21st Century act together.
Saudi oil field = $$$ for....
Islamist douchebags.
We should turn the American Southwest into a giant solar energy generating plant. And pipe some of that clean, renewable solar juice to more watery regions, where it can be used to create hydrogen fuel from water via the simple, efficient method of water electrolysis. And use the hydrogen to power fuel-cell vehicles of all kinds. This is proven technology; we just need to develop the infrastructure.
We should build vast windfarms in the breezy American Midwest. And dedicate some of them to producing hydrogen -- using the wind to power that water-into-rocket-fuel alchemy. With the transition to hydrogen, the U.S. might even become a fuel-exporting nation. We've got the water! We've got the sunshine! We've got the tech-savvy eggheads!
The soulless, oil-grubbing bastards who thought pissing off Muslims was a better idea.
New hope for Planet Earth and Western civilization.
Weaning ourselves off of oil (and coal) would be a huge blessing for the environment. We could stop contributing to global warming, before it's too late. We could lose that nasty brown haze that hovers over L.A. in the summer. We could put an end to those hellish oil spills from tankers, pipelines, and oil rigs.
And it would put a major financial kink in the Islamists' program -- making them less capable of carrying out terrorist plots, or building thousands of mosques in Western Europe (as they currently are doing).
Saudi oil tanker / Islamist fund-raising vessel.
Unhappy victim of an oil spill.
Handbook for Infidels
The Candid Progressive's Guide
to Islam & its War on the West
Alternative Fuels & Energy Independence
