The long hot summer slowly sizzles away. Let say readers I took the summer off, doing my best to maintain my cool. During this period of personal hiatus though the energy debate surely did not stop. Daily news feeds from digital to paper provided ample stories and opinions often contradictory and contentious, in ways keeping the pot boiling.
Frankly I take issue with the extremes. It is difficult to support the climate doomsayers or the warming deniers, or the impassioned frenzied youth and an apathetic or condescending older generation. At times the chasm between the multiple influencers and the opined seems almost impossible to bridge. Possibly the climate change debate has totally disrupted and altered how many of us perceive the world community and our place in it. But to say humanity is on the verge of extinction if we do not reach zero carbon in the next several decades “we are all going to die” is as farfetched as saying fossil fuels have no impact.
By and large we the people are being led by an entrenched political culture and personalities that much like a chameleon will adjust to maintain control and power. This occurs at a truly real high cost to all as to quality and harmony in life. It’s hard to accept but we cannot go back “to the good old days” so called after the war that was to end all wars and the time of what’s been called the greatest generation. (The World War II generation).
That time is gone. America is more diverse as a people. Once quiet minorities are changing American demographics and our own “Weltanschauung”, (philosophical concept of one’s world view) possibly dismantling long held ideas of class and race, as well as exacerbating the tensions therein. It could be said the privileged and rich of both extremes seek to rule, and use power to maintain the home and the worldview of us against them, the exceptional mastering the deplorable.
Pontificating aside both sides of the folks north of Richmond continue to achieve their brand of divisive politics and yet get what they want. Biden’s Green Revolution has billions to spend through the Inflation Reduction Act, and at the same time the defense budget reaches nearly a trillion dollars, all of this on borrowed dollars. No matter the tug of war over tax code, the average Pennsylvanian is paying for windmills, and solar installations that lack electric generation efficiencies, availability and reliability. In coming weeks I will report on multiple examples of energy myth and reality. A closing point to ponder for those who relied on air conditioning during those hot humid days; can one imagine the thermostat mandatorily set and controlled at 78 degrees by others.