[Vision2020] RE: Hybrid Sales UP!

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

Donovan:

You disagree with the rest of what argument?  You stated that the fuel 
efficient small cars I discussed (Honda Insight for example) would not be bought by 
Americans because we want SUVs.  I merely pointed out that in fact these 
smaller fuel efficient automobiles are now being bought in increasing numbers here 
in the USA.

Though you appear to be debating with a fantasy opponent, I will address some 
of what you asserted.  

You have your facts wrong!  The consumption of oil and production of 
greenhouse gases by the USA is far more than 10% of global total.  I assume when you 
wrote "something is 10% of the problem" you meant the US consumption of oil?  
But US consumption is closer to 20-25% of global total now.  China or India may 
catch us in oil consumption eventually, but I think many Americans don't 
grasp the reality of how much oil the US economy uses compared to other nations.  

The massive US economy does not come cheap.  We need tremendous amounts of 
energy to fuel this gigantic economy, and most of it comes from oil.  And the US 
population is still increasing, and using more oil, though countries like 
China and India are increasing their rate of oil consumption faster than we are.  
But they still have a ways to go before catching us.  In per capita terms, 
China and India are way, way behind us!  The average American consumes many 
multiple times as much oil as the citizen of most nations on earth, even other 
industrialized ones.

Solutions must start somewhere, and hybrids are a glimmer of hope to slow 
greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption, though yes, it is true that 
greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption in absolute values continue to rise 
globally even with hybrid sales.

I am not sure there is a dramatic solution to the use of oil as a cheap 
energy source for energy hungry industrial nations who want the cheapest and 
fastest form of energy to fuel their economies.  Alternative energy just can't 
compete for the cheap easy energy of oil.  Maybe if gas goes to 5 dollars a gallon 
here in the USA?  Though this is a very unpopular view, I am inclined to 
accept nuclear power from the safer newer reactor designs, as a way to slow fossil 
fuel use, despite the long term nuclear waste storage problem.  My reasoning 
is this may be better than the damage that could result from dramatic 
destructive climate change from fossil fuels.

Or a dramatic solution would mean lowering energy consumption to levels that 
many will not accept here in the USA or Europe or Japan, along with 
dramatically slowing the industrialization of many of the so called "developing" 
nations.  Or a dramatic drop in world population.  Neither seem likely to happen, so 
I fear we are stuck with an oil dependent world until the bubble bursts, 
meaning either oil starts to run out, or the environmental effects of oil 
consumption become catastrophic, whichever comes first.

Could we call this a "catastrophic success?"  Bush used this phrase to 
describe the US war in Iraq!  Jeb Bush might want to use it again when Florida 
floods from rising sea levels from global warming, if he's around still.

Ted Moffett

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