Solving The Wrong Problem

As the candidate makes the final drive to election day have you noticed that they have very different issue sets?  Conservatives are about what they have always been about – lower taxes, smaller government, better business.  Liberals are all about race, gender, inclusion, funding the arts and the environment.  It’s funny, but when liberals are in control, things seem to turn south in a big hurry.  Go through the archives here to read a chronicle of what has happened in California under liberal control.  Yesterday the host had a panel on how Minnesota has gone to pot.  But the truly fascinating thing to me is that even if you take the liberals at their issue set – they get the solutions wrong, almost ever time.

Let’s talk the environment – the issue I know best.  Remember back when we were convinced that plastic straws were killing all the sea turtles.  We were soon subjected to the paper straw – in many blue places, it was mandatory.  Nobody like paper straws.  Even those die hard libs that use them and virtue signal while they do so, do not like using them as well as an old-fashioned plastic straw.  That’s where the virtue signaling comes in  – they tell you how morally superior they are while they suffer the inconvenience of paper straws.  Well, guess what – new studies show the old fashioned plastic straw is best for the environment among available straw materials.  (Remarkably covid-like solving a problem before the problem is fully understood, isn’t it?)

But that is ticky-tacky stuff.  It’s climate where libs hope to pretty much destroy the entire economic functioning of the planet.  A couple of days ago an electric semi pretty much brought the already unbearably heavy east San Francisco Bay traffic to a complete halt – catching on fire.  By this point everybody knows an electric vehicle fire cannot be extinguished and must simply be contained until they burn out and they leave a toxic heap requiring additional long hours to clean up before normality can be restored.  Even infrequent such fires pose a major economic impact simply in transportation disruption.  The limited range and hauling capacity of an electric semi is a whole different issue it would take multiple posts to sort out.

But here is what really gets to me – the whole point of these problematic electric vehicles is to reduce automotive emissions.  It is now cliché to note that the electricity still has to be generated and that generally emissions result from said generation.  So, using current generating technologies, emissions are not really reduced, just relocated. – The problem is not solved.

I have used this chart before to illustrate how much energy is lost in inefficiencies.  What really needs to be noted from this chart is that in total,  67.5% of the energy produced is lost to various inefficiencies in its production, transmission and use.  Everyone is focused on how we produce energy to reduce emissions, but if we just got more efficient at moving it around and using it, we would only need to produce 33% of what we produce now and that would mean a 67% reduction in emissions – without changing the production methods at all.  One has to wonder if changing how we produce energy is really the best way to solve the problem of emissions – if we are solving it at all.

So back to how this post opened.  The liberal issue set seems to be about something other than what is stated.  They are not solving the problems they claim to need office to solve.  They are instead perpetuating the problem so they can continue to claim to need to stay in office to solve the problem.  Their platform is, at best, deceptive.

I do not like being deceived.  I don’t think you do either.  Vote accordingly.