A Revolution Of One

Happy Day Earth!

Happy Earth Day to ya!
Happy Earth Day to ya!
Happy Earth Daaaaayyyyy!
-Stevie Wonder Paraphrased

Actually, I'm finding out that there are two Earth Days. One on the Vernal Equinox and one on April 22nd. But isn't every day really Earth Day? *sigh*. If you're going to spend at least part of your Earth Day weekend watchin' the teevee, you might want to check out these two specials on CNN - The most trusted name in news, We Were Warned: Tomorrow's Oil Crisis. Or on Sunday, Melting Point: Tracking the Global Warming Threat. After you watch the first one you might want to ask yourself how a country like Brazil, not that there's anything wrong with Brazil, could anticipate and develop a solution to their energy crisis based on Ethanol from sugar cane? Forty percent of their nation's cars now run on it. They are very near complete energy independence. Three-fourths (75%) of their new cars are Flex Fuel cars that run on ethanol or gasoline or any mixture of the two. Flex Fuel cars that are now available from GM in the good old US of A. How could they have such foresight and we, the richest, most powerful, nation on the blah blah, yada yada, are going to be paying a finger and a toe to fill our SUVs?

And after you ask yourself that you might want to ask yourself why it took so long to develop an alternative when one of the very first cars ever made, the Ford Model T, was a Flex Fuel car? That was 1908. Before that the first biodiesel car was awarded the Grand Prix at the World's Fair in Paris. That was 1900. You might want to ask why in 2006 we are still using fossil fuels at all? And why the President in his State of the Union Address can say with a straight face that America is addicted to oil? An oil baron from an oil dynasty family. That's like Tony Montana telling someone they snort too much coke. It's enough to overload your sense of paranoidar.

So after that you might want to ask yourself, hey! what is up with all the dang questions about alternative fuel? I get it. Big oil is evil. Jeez. It's Earth Day. Chill.

Photo of earth, western hemisphere courtesy of NASA.