Here’s an interesting article on a subject that I don’t think I’ve given much thought to, but makes a lot of sense
More highways! Fight climate change! (Wait a sec…)
It’s an article of Democratic Party faith in Oregon that climate change and global warming threatens our planet with devastation within this century. This prevailing Democratic view follows the science that the human burning of fossil fuels is causing climate change and global warming, and that somewhere around one-third of this problem is coming from motor vehicles that burn fossil fuel in internal combustion engines on our highways.
It’s also an article of Democratic Party faith in Oregon that our highway infrastructure needs to be built out at breakneck speed in order to deal with growing congestion on the state’s highways, so that our economy can thrive. The annual Oregon Business Summit, held earlier this year, attended by thousands of businessmen, and capturing our leading politicians of both parties to speak there, recently proclaimed this congestion as the state’s number one issue. The Democratic Party in Oregon seems led by the nose by unions who also love that argument, including particularly the building trades and the AFL-CIO, who are dying for these local union highway construction jobs that used to be so numerous but have virtually disappeared as people drive less and drive vehicles that use less gas per mile.
No one in the Democratic Party is trying to publicly reconcile these two inconveniently opposing points of view. In fact, politicians of all stripes in Oregon would prefer that there be no public reconciliation. If there were reconciliation, the politicians would all be negligent by not acting to prevent the devastation to the planet that will eventually be caused by man-made climate change. That means rejecting the false arguments of the business and labor lobbies that we must somehow build our way out of job-stifling congestion with many large highway expansion projects.
Huh. Excellent point, and we can extend this to Obama, who is constantly pushing more roads and stuff as his “economic stimulus” idea (not ideas, he’s a one trick pony). If fossil fueled vehicles are Bad for Hotcoldwetdry, then why make it easier for them?
