Revolving Subjects

I have written a lot about various things the last several weeks. There has been of course some extensive stuff on Progressivism, which can go much deeper and get much more coverage as well, a little bit about various events that have been happening and their impact on our lives, and a little bit about some of my pet subjects, one of those being "climate change."

I would like to get some feedback from the few of you in cyberspace that read my blog. What kind of issues do you think are important to address? What are some things we need to be aware of to protect our future, the future of our children, and our nation?

I think for the next couple weeks I will write on "climate change" and energy independence. I believe at some level the two topics intertwine a little bit.

I have posted via Twitter and Facebook some articles on "climate change", in particular some information regarding the "climategate" scandal. There was a great three part series written on it. You can find them here, here, and here.

Energy independence is something that stretches into several different areas of concern. It not only has the obvious economic and environmental concerns, but national security concerns as well. In today's post i'll give a brief overview and in subsequent posts address each one individually. National Review did post a great article today concerning the national security implications of energy independence.

The most basic thing that people scream about is the cost of energy. Oil prices are high so gasoline and heating prices go up. There aren't enough resources for electricity production so the cost of electricity goes up. Those of us that live in desert areas know how that power bill just sky rockets in the summer months. People always spout off about the evil oil companies and their monopolistic hold on energy. When you look at the actual profit these companies make by percentages, they make far less profit then your local McDonald's. Its a simple function of math and economics that produces the high dollar amount listed as profit. They move a lot of product at a cost relatively higher than a Big Mac.

People in some circles complain about how dirty oil and coal are. They complain about how dirty fossil fuels are in general. Do you think you could keep the environmental impact down with production here where there are some protection laws and the companies work to do it in a clean manner, or in some third world country who could care less about how much waste or damage they cause pulling the resources? Keeping energy development here would better protect the environment.

I'll just touch briefly on the common sense national security argument. Do you think it would be harder for our potential enemies to get funds for their campaign if we weren't giving money to countries who don't necessarily like us?

There are several things that we can do to improve our energy independence that would create benefits in all three of these areas. First, economically we strengthen ourselves by creating new jobs to get the resources we have been blessed with. The money stays in our own country, and because we are producing it, the end cost for the consumer is less. Second, environmentally we safely take the resources ourselves which we can do better than anybody else while at the same time researching and investing in alternative energy resources. You can have a balance. You just can't wreck the entire economy by cutting off your current supply of energy. Even my three year old could explain that to you. I think the national security argument above can stand on its own today.

I believe we should go after the resources we have; oil, natural gas, coal, etc. Force the companies with leases to start pulling the resources, and open up more land and locations to do so. We need to build Nuclear Power Plants. It's the perfect and abundant energy source to take care of our electrical needs. France gets about 80% of their power from nuclear sources. They also lead the world in reprocessing and recycling the spent nuclear material. I think I am going to write my science paper for school on this very subject.

We can be an energy independent nation with some effort and a little bit of common sense.

Remember to keep yourself informed, and don't be afraid to speak out!