OT: NewHerb
You owe no one an apology for your lifestyle. I surely didn't mean to suggest that.
It is a common misconception that direct energy consumption, particularly what type of automobile one drives is what counts. Of course, it's not. A commercial fisherman who spends a substantial part of his life at sea presumably consumes only a fraction of the energy heating and cooling a dwelling, and a fraction of the transporation energy as the average commuter. Here's an irony for you ... most environmental professionals I know are among the heaviest users of energy, as they tend to have heavy travel requirements for work. dilleet can razz you about how much gas you use in a car, but I think he would probably admit a year's worth of your driving would equal a couple week's worth of apportioned jet fuel from his plane travel if he knew you or your lifestyle.
FWIW, wind energy is a sideshow of extremely limited worth. There are substantial (unattractive) environmental trade-offs with wind that I won't go into here.
Our government has failed us miserably in energy policy. Essentially, we have none. If we set goals, and directed sensible investment, our economy would be in much better shape, we'd all be much wealthier, and we'd have much reduced environmental costs being absorbed.
I'm not about to defend Jimmy Carter's presidency, but I will say that he is the last (and perhaps only) president who ever invested any appreciable political capital in trying to develop a sensible national energy policy. He shouldn't be ridiculed for that, regardless of his other shortcomings. Were some of the things that got hilighted a poor distraction? Sure. The notion of telling people to turn off their Christmas lights during a time when the country was searching for some cheer was idiotic - a case all too typical of the poor political skills Carter exhibited while in office. For a man who served with some reasonable skill in Georgia, from the moment he took office he seemed to go almost entirely tone-deaf, and to develop a bad case of emphasizing the wrong syllable. The Christmas lights was an example of that. Getting sidetracked on something that was meaningless in producing a better long-term result, while alienating and eroding the political support he needed for a holistic plan.
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