Dann D writes, in part:
I think Gary's thoughts are good, but to try and discuss national energy policy in the Minneapolis Mayor's race shows how out of touch the Greens are.
GH: To turn it around, I have no intention of discussing a national energy policy with regard to the mayor's race. Mostly because we do not have a national energy policy. we do have a national energy scandal which involves huge corporate welfare to fossil fuel and nuclear industry special interests, and we unfortunately must operate within that real-world context.
I am persuaded that we need to address energy issues immediately, taking the initiative at every level -- especially at the local level. We need to design our city to generate a maximum amount of sustainable energy for human use, and design our urban infrastructure to use that energy in a very carefully thought-through way.
Katrina is not just a terrible tragedy for New Orleans and the surrounding coastal region. We will lose about a third of domestic petroleum production, a huge chunk of domestic refinery capacity, our biggest tanker port, and a large chunk of domestic natural gas production. This event is going to reverberate for weeks and months -- more likely for years -- with environmental, economic, and energy resource implications.
This evening oil topped $70/barrel and gas topped $2.13/gallon wholesale. Natural gas is up about 20%. We are bumping up against the limits of our habitat, folks. These immediate economic responses are a mere shadow of the issues related to resource depletion and pollution that will show themselves ever more clearly in the future.
The status quo local leadership continue to ask us not to pay any attention to the planet we are connected to, but only to assume that nothing will change for us....nothing will change at all.
There are steps we in Minneapolis must take -- as does every city and metro area in the country. We must delocalize as much of our energy supply as possible. We must learn to live within our local energy budget as much as possible. We must re-localize a significant amount of manufacturing and agriculture. We must re-integrate sustainably within our bioregion. This is something that no national government can do, but rather we must do for ourselves.
Again, the fact that political leaders consistently steer the debate to fantasy-based politics -- the new regressive stadium tax and various tried-and-true "law-and-order" campaign hot potatoes is a sign of political bankruptcy.
The political discussion in Minneapolis is fantasy-based. "The price of gas" is a tiny tip of the iceberg we've struck. We need to talk about "the price of gas" in more ways than one -- but that is just the beginning of the reality-based political discussion, not the end.
-- pedaling a different world into being -- from Lynnhurst for now -- Gary Hoover
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