CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – Which would you rather have, clean energy or food?
Before you answer, consider what’s happening in Europe. All of the European Union nations are signatories to the Keyoto earth protocols. And meeting the climate obligations they’ve already agreed to are next-to impossible. Germany’s transportation minister proposed a nationwide ban on weekend driving, which still won’t be enough to de-carbonize his country. Holland has difficult nitrate and soil requirements. They will depopulate 35-percent of their farms and will begin importing more of their food. In France, farmers can’t afford new electric tractor rules and will shut down. Canada will convert so much farmland to solar fields that they will become a net-food-importer by 2032 – which, ironically, is the year our Canadian friends will ban the sale of new vehicles that run on fossil fuel.
Earlier this year came a report that electric vehicles are not more environmentally friendly that their fossil fuel counterparts. Not when you factor in the strip-mining to make the batteries, or the disposal challenges when the batteries no longer hold a charge after 10 years or so. And the electric cars are much heavier; brake dust and replacement tires aren’t factored in. There was even a satire article written last week that supposed an electric car world where new internal combustion cars were on the horizon. (“They cost less!” “They last much longer!” “They can be refueled in minutes!” “They have a much longer range!”)
We are reaching peak environmentalism, and there will be pushback. When people are told what and when they can drive; when solar panels compete with the food supply, this crazy green fever will break.
Chris Conley
Comments