Turn on the tube and you are likely to see a ad from "Energy Voters". These are folks who claim that essentially they like their current inefficient energy intensive lifestyle, and they don't care what harm it does to the environment, they will vote for anyone that promises cheap energy.
Face it we are addicted. Just like crack addicts, we were seduced into our wasteful ways by the low prices. We pay about half of what Europe, Japan and most other developed nations pay for their energy. Much of that is because those other countries tax the energy to offset the harm the pollution does. Because it is so cheap we waste an awful lot. We use three times as much energy as the Europeans, and yet they still live a comfortable lifestyle. They aren't shivering through the winters.
Crack addicts once hooked, are willing to do anything to continue their addiction. They will turn themselves, their wives, and their children into prostitutes and they will cheat steal and worse.
Americans are willing to destroy the environment with mountain top removal, strip mining, fracking, and deep sea drilling with inevitable oil spills that destroy the oceans. We are willing to allow global warming to destroy the environment for many generations to come, as long as it isn't in our back yard, and as long as it doesn't affect us. Even Liberals who are in love with clean renewable wind energy like the Kennedys in Cape Cod oppose it when it disturbs the view.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/bi...We are willing to destroy an area the size of Florida, triple the greenhouse gases, destroy our water sources, and pipe it across the country so we can still drive our muscle cars and SUV's. We don't care because we don't have to look at the destruction. It is up in Alberta Canada. If they want to destroy their environment for money why should we care?
http://catastrophemap.com/toxic-apocalyp...We are all for Nuclear power – unless it is in our back yard and we don't want trucks and trains laden with radioactive waste going through our community. We are willing to destroy the economic livelihood of shrimpers and fishermen with deep sea drilling because it is no skin off our noses. We are willing to destroy mountains and dump the toxic tailings into our valleys, rivers, and streams as long as we don't have to live there.
Yes we are addicted, but we are also the victims here. It is really the pushers – the fossil fuel industry and the billionaires who benefit from the destruction of the environment, like the Koch brothers, who are the real criminals here. They are the ones who are paying for the million dollar ad buys that convince people to sell their souls and nature, and to abandon the future, so they can live in wasteful splendor now.
The masters of propaganda are the ones that got us hooked and are still convincing people to vote for people and programs that will harm them. These are the people pushing nonsense like "Clean Coal" and the XL pipeline. They know what is best for the rest of the country and control the government so they get their way and all of the profits. Of course they only look at their own short term profits and are not concerned with the future or with trivial things like nature or endangered species.
Here is an idea. Since Canada, North Dakota, and other places like Texas, are willing to just write off part of the country, lets double down on the destruction. Since the tar sands area of Alberta is already ruined and will never grow trees or be able to support any animals for several generations, lets see if they are also willing to bury all of our nuclear waste there? Since there are no people to endanger, let's see if we can place our Nuclear plants and coal plants there? We could just fence off that entire area the size of Florida.
Europe could do the same with the thousands of square miles around Chernobyl. Instead of worrying about countries like Iran making bombs out of their waste we could just bury it at Chernobyl. All of the old nuclear plants have reached their planned lifetimes and when decommissioned are so radioactive they have to be taken apart by robots and buried. Here is the place we could bury them. We could eliminate most of our nuclear weapons, and bury the warheads deep underground in stable rock formations. Then when they are all safely disposed of, the rest of the world could easily detect stray nuclear material.
http://syzygyastro.hubpages.com/hub/Cher...In Asia we could use the Fukashima site. It will be uninhabitable for thousands of years anyway.
http://www.helium.com/items/2225554-mich...In Texas they have pumped all of the oil out of the ground leaving empty caverns we could fill up with our toxic waste. They care little for environmental rules and regulations. They are becoming the China of America.
http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story...If we could concentrate all of the toxic, poisonous stuff in a few areas that we have written off, then we can concentrate on protecting and beautifying the rest of the country.
If we could develop high temperature superconductors, we could just write off parts of the country as wastelands, and place all of our objectionable power plants, chemical plants, nuclear plants, and coal plants there. Just move all of the people away and put up big fences with skulls and crossbones to warn future generations away.
So where shall we place these sacrificial zones? How about where you live?