Posts
One Dollar One Vote
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
We vote every time we spend our money. For every dollar we get one vote. I’m voting for biodiesel. If more people voted for biodiesel, production and distribution will happen. If the market decides that it wants biodiesel it will be created to meet the demand. Let’s take some responsibility here and create the kind of America we want. Why give up our right to choose? We must continually question why we have what we have and how we can we get what we really want. Get out of the I’ll just take whatever they feed me and be miserable complaining how bad it is syndrome. We have the power if we would claim it.
Why is it that it is cheaper to go to the store and buy a package of Twinkies than a bunch of organic carrots? The same reason Americans are obese because the cheap food is all subsidized. It’s time to help the family farmer and grow a strong economy by subsidizing those who want to create jobs in this country. Why is government allowing all these corporations to leave with their money and create jobs in other countries while crippling the American way of life. Do ethics have to be legislated?
I want to help the family farmer. I want sustainable fuels grown and processed locally. Bring back the Grange Halls where farmers can come and collectively sell their produce and buy in bulk. They can get the highest prices for selling their produce and pay the lowest prices for buying whatever they need.
The biomass needs to be grown and processed locally because transportation and distribution costs impede sustainability. Let’s make sure the farmers get the best prices for their fuel needs by assuring all agricultural sectors run on biodiesel reducing dependency on imported oil. The diesel fuel necessary for the blend could come from domestic oil reserves.
At the same time car manufacturers need to produce greater fuel-efficient flexible fuel vehicles that will run on biofuels. Right now many vehicle’s warranties are void if biodiesel is used. If you do have a biodiesel vehicle or are thinking of purchasing one, here’s a map to show locations where you can buy biodiesel.
Why are we importing all this foreign oil when we can be growing our own biomass, converting it to biodiesel and protecting the environment while making our country economically stronger?
Every day new developments in technology are making it feasible and economically attractive to produce biodiesel reducing our dependence on foreign oil. Algae have been proven to be an excellent source of biomass for biodiesel production. The process of taking the CO2 from fossil fuel burning smokestacks and using it to grow algae keeps our air cleaner too.
Do you like breathing fumes from gasoline engines while you’re taking a walk or riding your bike? Never mind what it’s doing to our environment. Have we breathed too much lead and MTBE to realize there are proven technologies that are in place to cut our dependency on foreign oil, create jobs, cut the trade deficit and protect our environment?
Maybe it’s because people don’t know their voice counts. It does count and you are voting every time you buy anything. For every dollar you get one vote. Vote for peace. Vote for life. If you can’t vote for yourself, vote for your grandchildren and great grandchildren. They will thank you instead of curse you.
Tags: Appropriate Technology, Environment, Family Farms, Peace
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 7th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
I have been watching algae biodiesel in the news since the first articles broke about Spain’s Biofuel Systems claimed it would have a system for making a “crude” oil substitute from plankton by late 2007 (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34239). Since then, other companies have also announced large demonstration projects from New Zealand to several companies in the US.
Yet, for all the early furvor, it seems that the zeal may be fading. All the companies are tight-lipped and emphasize using other crops like canola, soy and palm oil as initial crops to get their activities going. And the never-stated subtitle in all this is “this is a subsidized product that can’t compete with petroleum without the subsidies”.
It seems that every fish tank in America would be harvesting algae oil, if it really cracked up to its billing. Come on, Willy. See if you can get your science friends to find out how far along this game really is. Will we in fact see profitable projects in 2008? I hope so, but I have stopped holding my breath.
At least not as long…
May 8th, 2007 at 12:09 am
Thank you for the excellent comment Bill. It is encouraging to see other people looking at alternatives.
One of the things we want to do here is keep attention on these new technologies. Some are more esoteric than others. We will all have to wait to see what happens in the end. Partly, I’d like to think that we, being the market, will have some influence. We should all do whatever we can to prevent the multi-national energy corporations from making all the decisions for us.
Subsidies aren’t the entire subtitle. As the price of petroleum products rise, and it is certainly the intent of the current administration to keep prices up, biofuels will become more viable.
And, subsidies are now a fact of international relations. The 2007 Farm Bill will potentially adjust that landscape considerably. There are many interlocking issues involved. That is why informed people like yourself, Bill, are so valuable to future developments.