Environment consciousness and America...

...are poles apart. All the outwardly concern for the environment, by the American politicians, is empty rhetoric when juxtaposed with their policies.

Bush seems to believe that India and China are equally guilty of polluting the environment as the Americans. We have proven that bunk in the previous posts. Further, the American policies actually favor the inefficient and polluting.

The US is a country of automobiles. The cars there are highly inefficient and burn a lot of gas. The mileage efficiency mandate has remained stagnant since the early seventies. As a result the average mileage of today's cars in the US is the same as it was in the seventies. Surely there have been advancements in technology which could be put to use in increasing the mileage on a car.

In the mid nineties, electric cars began to appear on American roads. These cars were quickly becoming popular and were actually better than the gas burning cars. They were threatening to kill the gasoline burning ones. The electric cars were being offered to the people to meet the California Air Resources Board (CARB) mandates to reduce emissions in the state. However the oil lobby felt threatened and began a counter attack on the electric car programs. It bought out the CARB, the car companies argued that it was impossible to meet the emission mandates prompting the CARB to relax them and in effect killing the future of electric cars. This attack on the zero emission electric cars had the backing of the federal government under Bush, not surprising knowing his oil connections. To completely kill the electric car program, Bush announced investment in fuel cell technology which we all know is not viable. The fuel cell technology is four times as inefficient as the electric cars. The documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" discusses this pretty well.

When there is still a lot of money to be made on oil, until it runs out, the oil lobby will continue to squash all alternative developments that threaten it. And the American politicians are equally involved in this. Until the American leaders continue to do this, they are not going to sound credible at all. Bring back the electric car; it is the best thing to do. Kick the oil habit.

Related Posts:

Bush's lip service on climate change

Climate change can't happen without the US

American needs oil

America needs oil

The American argument that we must eliminate all WMD has lost all it’s credibility. It’s now abundantly clear that this was not the original intent behind attacking Iraq. It most definitely was oil.

The concern for global peace & security shown by the US leaders is hardly sincere. If that was the case they would not support Pakistan & Saudi Arabia. These two countries are the two largest financers, suppliers & trainers of terrorists in the world.

The US consumes 1/4th of the world’s oil. It has only about 2% of reserves of what it really needs. That’s just not enough to support they domestic oil demand. The American & indeed the world economy are heavily dependent on oil. Almost every single thing in the modern world is made possible by oil. Today’s urban lifestyle is all oil driven. An overwhelming 98% of the world’s vehicles run on oil, not to forget a lot of industries as well. And at the same time, the world oil reserves have been depleting fast. Since the late sixties, there have hardly been any new discoveries of substantial oil fields. And the existing ones are drying up fast.

Today the motorists & gas stations in the US are 2/3rd empty most of the time. That was not the case a few years ago. The gas stock today is historically low. A while ago, America produced copious amount of oil domestically. But the production has dropped now & the domestic infrastructure is rusting. It is importing much needed oil from Saudi Arabia. This has profited the Saudi King & a few politicians & oil companies in the US. Saudi Arabia is home to 25% of the world’s oil. Naturally a relationship between the two developed. The US had the money & Saudi Arabia had the oil. But this oil is not going to last long. The Saudi oil fields are on the decline. It’s current production capacity of 10 million barrels a day is pretty much at its peak. Now with the increasing demand, due to the growth in India & China, this could soon turn into demand & supply imbalance triggering a crisis. And the increasing oil prices could be an indication. Saudi Arabia will not able to meet the world’s demands for oil in the coming years. It seems that Saudi Arabia is ‘cashing out’ on its remaining oil by inflating the ‘proven reserves’ so the OPEC allows it to produce more. Aramco has not released detailed production data for 20 years now, so no one knows that the real ‘proven reserves’ are.

The American dream is literally fuelled by oil. The lifestyle that Americans enjoy is rather wasteful when compared to the world. Only 300 million Americans manage to burn 25% of the world’s oil. And this demand is only increasing. In order to meet this demand, the American foreign policy is all oil driven. This is evident from Bush’s regime. The president himself dealt in oil & has close ties with the oil executives. The close friendship of the Bush family with Saudi royal family is not a secret either. Besides politicians are concerned with their electorate, giving Americans the bad news of oil shortage would surely defeat any politician. Besides Americans find it hard to be frugal & think about conservation. Why else would so many of them live off borrowed money with no savings.

With the Saudi oil becoming pricey & falling short in supply, Iraq was conquered. Upon doing that, the first thing the American army does is secure all the major oil fields. No concern for the WMD which was the pretext behind attacking Iraq. Actually, there weren't any. The concern for democracy is also proven bunk when you realize that the petrodollars in Saudi Arabia have failed to uplift ordinary Saudis. Only the King benefited. The average per capita income of the Saudi’s went down from $11,700 to $6,300. Where did all the money go is anybody’s guess. However for America, it's all about oil.