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Home  Latest News Latest Sheryl Crow and toilet paper
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Sheryl Crow and toilet paper |
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by Bobby Fontaine
August 19, 2008
I don’t know if anyone really understands how much of an impact Sheryl Crow had on pushing the issue of global warming out in the open in the daily dialogue of mainstream USA with her comment on the need for laws to govern how many sheets of toilet paper we should be allowed to use to, you know,,, to take care of business.
Think about it – If she had come out talking about how anhydrous ethanol mixed with gasoline significantly increases low level ozone which is harmful to human health, pets and wildlife, the environment, and is proved to cause weather pattern changes in the regions where the pollutants that cause it are emitted, who would’ve listened. So she said something that everyone latched onto as being stupid with some even taking her serious with anti-global-warmingists tried to turn into a left verses right debate about just how far treehuggers are willing to go in order push there environmentalistic agenda on America.
As it turned out, she purposely put the comment in her blog to see what kind of reaction it would get and it worked. Everyone looked at her like she was crazy putting her on the front pages of every media outlet on the planet next to Brittany Spears while anyone with any sense knew she was joking. And I mean no disrespect to Brittany. I don’t care for Brittany bashing.
Her point was to give anti-environmentalists something to sound off about when getting drunk at black tie affairs in Washington. Then some of their more sober constituents who’d been on the fence about global warming where there position on it had been quietly changing, not because of rhetoric they were exposed to in the elite political bubbles they travel in but by winters coming and going with no snow and summers with little relief from drought and heat unless it comes in the form of floods or hurricanes.
Its funny really, not funny at all actually, how the minds of so many conservatives, and even liberals who have been lying about global warming for political reasons not really believing in the issue themselves, were finally convinced by Mother Nature herself. I believe the truth is they all know it is real now because of the way weather patterns are changing but there are always those stubborn few who refuse to go home after a war ends no matter how badly they get slaughtered. So when the good-ole-boys from Texas got sloshed at fund raisers and tried to stump Sheryl on her TP suggestion, they were met with serious discussion rather than cordial laughter from lobbyists and campaign donors who previously could be counted on to be anti-anything that was from the left side of the isle.
Soon after, the Bush administration conceded that mankind is responsible for climate changes. Her comment was perfectly timed. The issue was at a peak where all it needed was an ice breaker at free money parties held by lobbyists around Washington to let conservatives and liberals know that if they want to keep showing up night after night for free booze and cash, they need to get on the good side of taking the future of the environment seriously.
A lot has change since then even though it has only been a little over a year. The global warming debate has shifted dramatically but the truth about what has happened isn’t being reported responsibly by the news media. Dick Cheney has been pressuring the EPA to lie about the issue of low level ozone and how it causes changes in weather patterns in the regions that pollute heavily with the kinds of chemicals that it’s formed from. Since the media has been following Al Gore around as the hero of saving the world from global warming caused carbon dioxide, no seems to be hearing the truth from two top NASA scientists who have been censored by the Bush administration from publicly presenting certain aspect of their science related to low level ozone formation.
Drew Shindell and James Hansen both make claims that CO2 has nothing to do with global climate change but rather we’re experiencing regional weather pattern changes on a global scale caused by low level ozone precursors and methane reacting with atmospheric water vapor.
Apparently the reason Cheney did this was to keep pressure off Bush’s legacy of replacing 20% of our gasoline with anhydrous ethanol trying to make us less dependant on foreign oil. Anhydrous ethanol is basically moonshine distilled two more times to get the remaining water out of it so it doesn’t separate from gasoline when mixed with it. But doing it this way causes huge losses of mileage in most vehicles, much more of a loss than the government is willing to admit, in fact more then the mileage it offers in many cases. It also cause much greater emissions of low level ozone causing pollutants and nitrous oxide, which is the worst greenhouse gas, 300 times more so than CO2. Refineries that produce anhydrous ethanol also emit huge amounts of these pollutants.
Since it’s been being produced and used in such mass quantities since the spring of 2006, weather pattern have taken a dangerous turn nationwide and in other parts of the world where they’ve followed our lead mixing anhydrous ethanol with gasoline. Meanwhile many of our leaders are supporters of ethanol, at least during this election cycle they are because of all the farmers and distillers who make money from it who won’t vote for anyone who speaks out against ethanol.
But see the problem is not ethanol, its that they are using anhydrous ethanol instead of hydrous ethanol. Hydrous ethanol can be added to gasoline using new technologies where it won’t cause a loss of mileage or emissions of greenhouse gases while producing ethanol this way is much simpler, cheaper, and safer to handle. The reason you haven’t heard of this problem or its simple and effective solution is because of the politics that surrounds it.
Anhydrous ethanol is an oxygenate like another additive to gasoline that it replaced, MTBE. MTBE also caused low level ozone and weather pattern changes while it polluted groundwater nationwide. Its use was mandated by the EPA because it caused low level ozone which forms when these oxygenate emissions mix with smog made up mostly of nitrogen oxide from coal burning and diesel fuel. At the time oxygenates were first required, it was thought low level ozone was safer than smog. It turns out however to only be less visible but extremely dangerous for the environment and human health.
Near a hundred percent of congress supported oxygenate requirements so when it turned out to be a mistake, Washington went into deep denial about the truth that it worsens air quality. Politicians don’t make mistakes or they don’t get reelected because the other party is sure to point out every little misstep an incumbent candidate makes, unless of course both parties made the same mistake, which seems to be the new order of business in Washington, they’ve both made so many mistakes together while taking money from all the same lobbyists that they might as well be one party.
So even after all the harm MTBE had done, when it was finally banned for polluting groundwater, the truth about its effects on weather patterns and human health was kept silent which meant ethanol was required to takes it place. When California proved that oxygenates worsen air quality, Bush stepped in saying that it wasn’t being required for air quality but to lessen dependence on foreign oil. So all of a sudden anhydrous ethanol became a fuel rather than an oxygenate even though it doesn’t deliver mileage.
Even thought there’s a cheap and easy ethanol solution that will actually help makes us less dependent on foreign oil that everyone would happy with, the fear in Washington is breaking ethanol down the issue into separate categories of anhydrous and hydrous fuel, too many Americans will become fluent in the language ethanol and begin to ask why we ever used anhydrous ethanol in the first place, which will lead back to MTBE questions that no one wants to talk about. So they’re content to sit back and let our environment and energy future die while telling us their ethanol program is working.
So I got to thinking that if Sheryl Crow could come up with a platform for limiting the amount of booze our leaders can drown themselves in at fundraisers in Washington so the excess hydrous ethanol that flows through that town can be emulsified and added to gasoline, it might get them talking about reality around the night life on Capitol Hill where the truth might wake up without a hangover the next morning.
I do have to give them credit Sheryl, they’ve come a long way on the toilet paper suggestion. And we all know there’s no point on saying anything serious in Washington DC if we don’t want to make enemies of or confuse most of the leaders of the free world. They all stay way took drunk to go for any of that. But if you attack the root cause of the problem, their booze, it will get them talking. And there are enough of them in that city that know the ethanol program that is failing now could be working if given a fair chance by getting them to baulk at jokes made about adding hydrous moonshine to gasoline.
So if you and your brother still have a sense of humor, come up with some good lines or a song about the truth about ethanol and low level ozone because these drunk bastards are never going to get this thing right without you putting your foot where they still use as many sheets as our tax dollar can buy them. And by the way, I Love You Music
“Texas Gov. Perry failed with ethanol when he could have succeeded” by Bobby Fontaine August 8, 2008 |
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