The September 14, Sunday edition of The New York Times is a study in what might be called journalistic cognitive dissonance. On the front page the lead story was “Storm Damage is Extensive and Millions Lose Power.” On the editorial page, Pulitzer Prize winning bloviator, Thomas Friedman, was explaining why we have to stop using oil as an energy source for transportation and replace coal and nuclear with wind turbines and solar panels to produce electricity. The title of Friedman’s column was, “Making America Stupid”, and it is a pretty good description of the entire environmental movement whose main objective often seems to be the thwarting of any new energy, i.e., power, sources in America. “Almost the entire metropolitan area (of Bad news for Texans, but worse news for the rest of us. “The magnitude of the power loss and the flooding raised the possibility that several major oil refineries would take more than a week to reopen.” It helps, if you are a New York Times editor, to be unable to make the connection between your page one story and the babbling of Thomas Friedman who is inside the same issue calling for “innovating a whole new industry of clean power” for America after the grudging admission that “Of course, we’re going to need oil for many years.” You think???? Friedman’s column lambastes the bad old Republicans for wanting to “focus our country on breathing life into a 19th-century technology—fossil fuels—rather than giving birth to a 21st-century technology—renewable energy.” That fabulous renewable energy, wind and solar power, would surely have been embraced by now if it could deliver the power that, for example, is not available in In This is what happens when government intrudes itself into areas left to intelligent people. During the Carter administration, the Department of Energy was established in 1977 for the purpose—we were told—of reducing our dependence on foreign oil. Thirty-one years later the budget for DOE is $24.2 billion a year. It has 16,000 employees and some 100,000 contract employees. Are we energy independent yet? This is the same Jimmy Carter who had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House. They’re gone now. Friedman pauses in his criticism of Sen. McCain and the Republican solutions to our energy needs (“Drill, baby, drill!”) to make fun of their proposal for more nuclear plants. Rumor has it that There’s a reason why we don’t have more coal-fired and nuclear plants generating the electricity we need. There’s a reason our electric power grid is not being upgraded to meet our future needs. There’s a reason oil companies won’t spend billions to build new refineries. There’s a reason food costs more when corn is converted into fuel instead of food. The reason is thirty-one years of government regulations and general interference with the power and energy industries that must answer to their investors while coping with “environmental” laws that slow or render impossible the provision of our energy needs. Enthralled as all liberals are with Sen. Obama, Friedman assures us that, when elected, he will improve education and health care, deal with the deficit, and forge “a real energy policy based on building a whole new energy infrastructure.” No, he won’t. The government just makes a botch of it when it intrudes into the marketplace to control education and health care. The government has given us the deficit, not reduced it. And real energy policy is based on access to our nation’s vast deposits of affordable coal and the ability of the oil and gas industry to extract the vast reserves of oil and natural gas that exist. Friedman thinks it’s stupid to drill for oil and natural gas, and mine our coal. He thinks it’s smart to throw money at windmills and solar panels. He thinks you’re stupid enough to agree with him. |
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Who Are You Calling Stupid?
