Time for Solar

Our priorities are out of line. In our war in Iraq, we've spent far too much money and too many lives for oil rather than working for a cleaner, more sustainable energy source.

Thomas Friedman published another wonderful article in the NY Times explaining why we need to do something about energy. To illustrate how far we are behind other countries in our fuel effiency, here is a figure showing the current emissions standards in California and the US as a whole compared to other countries.



Please, check my sources:
Iraq: www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15499.htm
nuclear R&D www.ne.doe.gov/budget/neBudgetfY07CongRequest.html
other energy R&D: www.ncseonline.org/Affiliates/Handbook/cms.cfm?id=904#9-2
CAFE standards by country: theicct.org/documents/ICCT_GlobalStandards_20071.pdf

CA Voters Say, "Tax Grandma, not Exxon"

Overlooked due to the Democrats’ victories on the national level, the votes on CA state propositions provided two victories for Big Business: No for renewable energy and No on a cigarette tax. Oil companies spent around $100 million fighting against Proposition 87 to avoid paying a tax for extracting oil in California. The proposed 1.5% to 6% tax would have brought California in line with other states and raised between $200 and $500 million annually to be spent on alternative energy research.

Big Tobacco splashed out $55 million on the fight against Prop. 86, which would have taxed cigarettes to fund hospitals, tobacco-use-prevention programs, and cancer research. It appears the days are over when major tobacco companies were hauled to Washington DC and made to pay $200 billion.

While voters declined taxes of $4 billion over the next 10-20 years on oil companies that earned $286 billion last year and are set for another record year, they passed Propositions 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, and 1E, that will cost taxpayers an estimated $74 billion.

These results are a boon to the Economics professors, who have been provided with a textbook example of revealed preferences to use in classes this year. Despite all the talk of climate change, including Britain’s headline-grabbing Stern Report on climate change and Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth, even relatively progressive Californians aren’t prepared to put their money where their mouths are: guzzling gasoline at the pump.