The Barnard Observer

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Home  Vault  OpEd Contact                                                           c2003-09 Thomas Barnard

Opinions and Editorials

Organic

Probably organic has little meaning as it is, what with 25% of Los Angeles's air pollution orginating in China, but now that Walmart has organic food in its crosshairs, look for some deterioration in its meaning.  7/23/06

Iraq

I recently saw William Polk on Book TV.  With degrees from Harvard, University of Mexico, and Baghdad University, he has a broad education and wide experiene.  He suggested two developments might follow from our withdrawal from Iraq.

First, the insurgents will no longer have the U.S. as the enemy.  Polk says what generally happens is that insurgents become part of the government or they remain as radicals and then whatever government is remaining will go after them.

Second, oil flow under the U.S. occupation has dropped by half.  He suggests that this could be resumed at the pre-occupation levels of 3 million barrels per day.  Not only that but a huge pool lies under Baghdad, which might be enough to double production.  7/23/06

Energy Policy

I guess the reason we don't have an energy policy is because that is not in the best interests of the multi-national oil companies.

I don't think the oil companies have so much to worry about, we have a couple hundred million gas-eating autos.  But more importantly, since we don't have leaders capable of handling difficult and intricate Middle Eastern diplomacy, we should do everything possible to reduce our intake.  But let's do this with environment in mind, since Katrina's are expensive.  Let's fund all the possibilities:

Wind turbines - more efficient than solar, and I have heard numbers from 4 states in the midwest to 11 states in the midwest have enough wind to provide the entire nation's electrical needs.  Yes, they are a bit of an eyesore, but we must get ourselves off gasoline.

Solar - some solar ideas are more efficient than others.  Fund those first, but as a national security issue, fund them all.

Lunar - the tides are as regular as the moon.  There are already some methods to use this energy, let's use them.

Nuclear - My least favorite since there is still no good safe way of disposing of the spent nuclear materials.  Nevertheless, safer plants can be built than in the past, and surely they can be built more cost-effectively than in the past.

And finally, how are we going to fund this?  Well, one of the things we can do is set a floor on gasoline.  Anything under $3 becomes an energy policy tax.  We can tax the emissions of polluters such as coal burning.  We could impose a national sales tax.  I don't know if it is possible to make these funds only available for energy policy, somehow even Social Security Trust Funds get invaded.  7/23/06

National Health - Click here.