Maybe you haven't noticed it, but I have. Over the past few weeks there has been a consistent theme emerging in the discussion over global warming:

Luxury vs necessity.

A few weeks ago, I found myself entrenched in yet another firefight regarding an environmentalist editorial. Seems I have this bad habit of leaving comments anywhere & everywhere when I read articles about global warming these days. I have this innate tendency to "stir the pot."

It's only a matter of time before I'm thrown in a padded cell after being diagnosed with "Restless Typing Syndrome." But until then...

The writer claimed that public transportation was the future, and implied that driving a car was a luxury. This marked the 4th or 5th time in recent weeks that I have read between the lines on what some environmentalists are trying to convince people of, namely that the current standard of living in the developed world is a "luxury," not a "necessity." And I argued that point, only to have the usual environmentalist drivel poured back at me. Eventually, the writer decided not to respond to me anymore.

And so, enter Obama:

Obama’s Real Religion: Welcome to Rhinotimes.com Greensboro

So here again, we read between the lines: having your thermostat set where you want it -- despite the premise that you get what you pay for -- is somehow a luxury in today's society in the developed world.

My parents grew up in a world without air conditioning. Modern advances in technology and human innovation have allowed my generation to grow up in a far more comfortable interior environment. And I am eternally thankful for it.

And yet somehow, I'm made out by snot-nosed, arrogant politicians like Barack Obama to be spoiled, despite the fact that I fully advocate this technology be implemented anywhere & everywhere across the globe.

Air conditioning is no longer a luxury in the developed world, it's a modern-day necessity. SUV's may be a little pricey, but let's face it: even people in the lower class can get their hands on one these days, despite the cost of gas. If only the rich could afford SUV's, I wouldn't find myself cussing a soccer Mom putting on her make-up & wandering across three lanes of traffic during my commute to work with such frequency.

And don't even get me started on the concept of, "eating as much as I want."

There's a motive behind these implied statements, and it's to plant a seed in the public's mind that combating global warming doesn't require one to lower their standard of living; all that is required is to scale back on luxuries.

This has never been expressly stated in any of these aforementioned articles (although Obama, carelessly in his inexperience, almost steps over the line with his statements) that I've read over the last few months, and for good reason. If it were, the average reader in the developed world would refuse to comply.

Don't be fooled by this attempted blurring of the line between luxury and necessity. I suspect this is a "test market" of sorts to see if average readers catch on to what is being implied.

Luxuries become necessities over the course of time. If that weren't true, we'd all unanimously consider fire and the wheel to be modern-day luxuries instead of the necessities that they are.

And as for Obama, I have a question for you, Bud: Where will the thermostat in the Oval Office be set if you win?

That's what I thought, you hypocrite.

When I get a tax credit for my costs in hiring a few women to feed me grapes & fan me with palm leaves, I'll shut up about it.

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"Skepticism is the highest of duties, and blind faith the unpardonable sin." -- Thomas Huxley

I never thought I'd see a politician use the Jimmy Carter era of "lowered expectations" theme in order to get elected. I guess there are just too many people who are too young to remember exactly what a bad economy looks like. When I talk to a young person and tell them my first home (a condo) had an adjustable rate loan that topped out at a little over 15% at one point, they look at me as if I'm making it up. Assumable loans? "Why wouldn't you want to get your own?" Hell, I remember telling people that once fixed loan rates got below 10% they should lock that in.

The fact that we are even talking about limiting our use of electricity simply astounds me. We must be the stupidest people on the face of the planet to buy into this crap. We are the ones who built the Panama canal (everybody else who tried it gave up), harnessed the atom, and landed men on the moon - and now we don't think we can supply ourselves with cost effective electricity? Hell, if we just relied on nuclear we could supply all the power we could need while also putting the sources closer to where it is needed to reduce the amount of transmission lines. This would free up using fossil fuels for things that they do really, really well - like create heat and provide propulsion. Should we ever get to a point where we develop a surplus of electricity then we can start thinking about fuel cells - either using the energy to create free hydrogen itself or using it to reprocess aluminum and gallium in a catalyst driven fuel cell. Either way, we're going to need cheap and abundant electricity if we are going to look at something to compete with the internal combustion engine.

We shouldn't be talking about "lowering our expectations" we should be looking at becoming and energy exporter again, and nuclear technology paves the way for that to happen.

I vaguely remember sitting in the back of the ol' wood-paneled station wagon waiting in line for 30 minutes just to get gas. I was pretty young.

But I'm well aware of what happened in the 70's and what stagflation is. Today's youth, however, is probably clueless. Considering 20% of high school students can't even find the US on a globe, it's not really surprising.

America's uneducated youth are in for a rude awakening, I'm afraid. Eventually the Fed will have to raise interest rates to keep inflation under control. Hasn't happened yet, but with food & gas prices spiking, it's pretty much inevitable. We've paved the way to let history repeat itself all over again. But it's only "history" to you, me & everyone else who either lived through it or was taught about it. The rest, as I said, don't even realize we've been here before.

Well, at least they submitted the application for Yucca Mountain last week. It's a late start, but a start nonetheless.

We've got a rough decade ahead of us economically. I'm far from a pessimist, but as a wise man once said, "If history teaches us anything, it teaches that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly."

We haven't had a long-term energy policy in place for decades, and now we're paying the price for it.

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"Skepticism is the highest of duties, and blind faith the unpardonable sin." -- Thomas Huxley

I agree, nuclear is a good way to go, in europe (i think france) use numerous nuclear reactors for energy, and they have all been successful.

However, the environmentalists WILL NOT settle for anything other than solar or wind. Here in our province, there has been talk about building a nuclear reactor but the environmentalists are using the same card again, nuclear energy is dangerous blah blah blah, and that the money would best be spent on wind farms. I don't know the specifics, but I'm all for nuclear energy.

oh btw, it'll be the day when they start capping so called luxury items. Way I see it, we work hard to be able to afford luxury items, and i'll be damned if some tree hugger tells me what i can and can't do with my own money that i worked hard for.

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"Skepticism is the highest of duties, and blind faith the unpardonable sin." -- Thomas Huxley

My first job was sitting in gas lines refilling my dad's work trucks. We even had odd/even days. The funny thing was that it parts of the midwest they couldn't give gas away, they had too much.

As people start feeling hit in their pocketbooks they will start questioning the need to start taxing ourselves. We already saw that with the recent Carbon tax bill in the Senate. A lot of Dems wouldn't go for it because it would hurt their constituents too hard. If I had a bunch of employees and Congress was trying to force that kinda crap though again, I'd send notices to all my employees to inform them a 20% reduction means 2 out of ten of you will be looking for jobs in a jobless market.

It takes 4 years to build an actual nuclear powerplant. It takes an additional 5 years to get it approved. The new designs use many more passive systems for cooling, making them both safer and cheaper to build. We should be building them now (only Texas has one planned to come online anytime soon). Here in California we can't build anything but natural gas plants and we still have a hard time getting those passed. We rely way too heavily on other states to provide our power (even Mexico). Now you can't even get people to approve transmission lines to bring power to us. The biggest problem with getting more nuke plants online is that they can be shut down before they even are allowed to open, meaning billions of dollars are spent with nothing to show for it.

That's actually a shorter time period than I thought. I had referenced in another thread that there was only one plant (in Japan) capable of producing the central piece, but some others think there's a way around it.

Admittedly, I have little knowledge of nuclear power plants.

BTW, is it true that a politician in California proposed GPS devices on all thermostats to be controlled by the government? I thought I read that some time ago, but it may have been just a rumor.

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"Skepticism is the highest of duties, and blind faith the unpardonable sin." -- Thomas Huxley

Here is a couple of websites to learn a bit on nuclear power. The second link describes all the different type of reactors either already approved or in the process of being approved:

U.S. Nuclear Reactors

New Reactor Designs

The newer technologies involve more passive cooling, which makes those designs safer and cheaper. Also, some reactors (Like the Pebble Bed Modular) are meant to be placed near the population they serve. Being a modular design you can build cheaper initially and add modules later as demand increases and the design itself relies on passive cooling, no pumps that might break and cause a situation. Also, since it works hotter than normal reactors it is better prepared to cheaply convert water to hydrogen. General Atomics is working on the GT-HMR reactor which also is looked at as a possible "refinery" for free hydrogen as well, though it is not yet approved for use. This reactor will be more efficient than current ones and will produce less waste.

Also, it is important to note that even the "waste" from nuclear power plants can be reprocessed using existing technologies and newer technologies will make recycling more efficient. This will not only reduce waste but extend the fuel life for fissionable material many, many years.

unfortunately, do you think the environmentalists will even look at that ? not unless energy is from the sun or wind, they won't even look at anything else.