She sips nitro... with Phase 4 heads! 600 horsepower through the wheels! She's meanness set to music and the bitch is born to run!

Forgive me if I'm less than excited that the "Cash For Clunkers" bill passed the House.

The bill awards cash vouchers of $3500-$4500 for those willing to trade in a vehicle rated at an EPA estimated 18 mpg or less for a vehicle rated at a marginally better MPG.

If you can hear my cynicism bleeding through this writing then that would be because I consider this bill poor social engineering if you're trying to get more fuel efficient cars on the road. A better use of these limited federal funds would be to renew now defunct tax credits for the purchase of the most popular Toyota and Honda hybrids.

It seems to me that the environment would be better served by getting more city folks from marginally good MPG cars into excellent MPG hybrids than it would getting rural folks from sucky MPG trucks or SUVs into slightly less sucky MPG trucks or SUVS.

I realize that a big part of the push behind this bill has nothing to do with the environment. The idea is to give the U.S. auto industry a boost by moving some of the surplus sitting on lots as soon as possible. Great.

But if you REALLY wanted to help the U.S. auto industry long term then wouldn't this 4.5 billion be better spent on developing a hybrid or electric car that's affordable (i.e NOT a $40k Chevy Volt?)

Take a loss on the crap sitting on lots at the moment by drastically discounting it and selling it. Then start actually working to position itself for the rest of this century by focusing on inexpensive, environmentally sound cars.

But then I'm just some poor schlub blogging on the internet and not a politician. What do I know?

Officer O'Clancy, take care of this toxic waste.

One of the dreams of those that have spent the last several decades pushing for alternative energy sources is that of breaking our dependence on middle east oil.

An inevitable side effect of the United States leading the search for these alternative energy sources would be a revolution in U.S. industry. Much like the advent of the the automobile green energy would spur the U.S. economy and help the U.S. regain it's slipping lead on innovation and technology.

That's why it's been incredibly frustrating watching this administration spend eight years fighting investment in green energy solutions for purely ideological reasons. In doing so they were hurting the United States. They were making us weaker. (I think about this and a million other examples when Bush administration apologists tell us their greatest accomplishment is "making us safe." They've accomplished exactly the opposite.)

Their inaction doesn't mean some other nation(s) won't take the lead:

Gulf Oil States Seeking a Lead in Clean Energy

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — With one of the highest per capita carbon footprints in the world, these oil-rich emirates would seem an unlikely place for a green revolution.

Gasoline sells for 45 cents a gallon. There is little public transportation and no recycling. Residents drive between air-conditioned apartments and air-conditioned malls, which are lighted 24/7.

Still, the region’s leaders know energy and money, having built their wealth on oil. They understand that oil is a finite resource, vulnerable to competition from new energy sources.

So even as President-elect Barack Obama talks about promoting green jobs as America’s route out of recession, gulf states, including the emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are making a concerted push to become the Silicon Valley of alternative energy.

It is going to cost the United States a lot to catch up to these countries but it is a matter of national security that we do so. We must initiate a green Apollo program, and quickly. It seems like everybody in the world except the GOP dead-enders and their Democratic enablers can see the writing on the wall. Will they act?

I won't hold my breath.

'Course, three minutes to Wapner.

Overdroid made a great observation on my last post-

Sure, and things are so great in Russia now. Also - I'm not to worried about the social pendulum as I am in the scarcity and environmental pendulums. In fact, they aren't pendulums - they are finite resources that won't swing or bounce back when gone (take you pick - greenhouse gasses, oil, water, or all of the above).

He's right. Finite natural resources may not be able to wait on the political power pendulum (PPP) swinging back towards those that are more friendly to a scientific approach to the natural world.

Jerome a Paris has a diary up at Kos today that touches this very issue. Jerome takes apart a Financial Times column on politics and global warming:

Politicians have understood that appearing to be at least greenish is good for their election prospects, but to them it's just one issue among others. The message of the column is there: that "tick the box" approach is wrong, and the issue of global warming requires their full, total and undivided attention*.

And it comes from one of the most influential voices of the London "beltway". Not a green wacko. Not a single-issue activist. A respectable, moderate member of the establishment.

Outside of a few uber-conservative politicians who stubbornly insist on reciting industry talking points to cloud environmental issues those of who support stronger governmental action towards protecting natural resources are winning the fight for the hearts and minds of the general public. We just need to translate that into legislative action. This is where we have to watch the clock.

But what about conservatives? The recent spat about Civil Rights that emerged from political ads running around the country might give us a hint as to where they'll be on this issue in a few years. As an example; two weeks ago the National Black Republican Association ran ads in Maryland claiming that Martin Luther King was a Republican.

Conservatives have a tendency to drag their feet and stubbornly fight the reality of a given situation until the last minute where they gloriously pirouette and claim the opposite position, the position they've been fighting all along, as their own.

In twenty years conservatives will claim that it was they, not progressives, that fought to limit greenhouse gas emissions and warned of a looming peak oil crisis.

Then we can pat them on the head and tell them them "that's nice."

As long as we don't have to do it while standing in three feet of water.