Loony Harry Reid

By Alan Caruba

This nation is in serious trouble because it has people in very powerful elected positions that say crazy things.

Take, for example, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) who is the Senate Majority Leader:
“The one thing we fail to talk about is those costs that you don’t see on the bottom line. That is coal makes us sick. Oil makes us sick; it’s global warming. It’s ruining our country, it’s ruining our world. We’ve got to stop using fossil fuel.”

Where does one begin to dissect this totally idiotic statement? Well, fortunately, my friend Ron Arnold, Executive Vice President of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, has a response.

“The one thing we fail to talk about is how much America needs fossil fuel. Coal powers 22%, oil 40%, natural gas 22%, nuclear and hydropower 11%. Biofuels, wind and solar less than 5%. Junking fossil fuels for non-existent substitutes is sick. We’ve got to get rid of infected politicians.”

Arnold is probably citing overall national percentages, but I can tell you that just over 50% of all the electricity in the nation comes from coal-fired plants. In a nation of more than 300 million people and growing, we need more coal-fired and nuclear plants for electricity. As for transportation, oil in the form of gasoline and diesel represents virtually every car and truck on the highway today. We have nearly as many cars and trucks as people, about one per person in use.

Since Sen. Reid is not even vaguely concerned with reality, the actual percentages are superfluous.

Where did this loony Senator come up with the notion that coal and oil make people sick? I suspect he’s been reading too much of the “dirty fuel” propaganda that the environmental organizations have been publishing of late.

It’s all a part of the Big Lie that carbon dioxide (CO2) is such a threat to the Earth’s atmosphere and climate that it must be drastically reduced. The fact that energy use generates CO2 might just have something to do with this lie. Here, though, is a bit of truth as tiny as the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. CO2 constitutes 0.038% of the Earth’s atmosphere. The rest is mostly water vapor (H2O). CO2 plays virtually no role whatever in terms of the Earth’s climate.

And part of the Big Lie is the intention to impose “carbon taxes” on every single activity of mankind, thus generating billions for governments around the world to waste and corrupt officials to steal. Others, like Al Gore, will engage in the buying and selling of utterly worthless “carbon credits” that will make them as wealthy as the oil sheiks.

Why actually have to produce a commodity like oil when all you have to do is print up some certificates that say it’s okay for you to bake bread or make candles or do anything else that requires energy?

The other crazy thing I keep hearing from people like the Speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is, “You can’t drill yourself out of an energy crisis.” Oh yes, you can! It is just about the only way the price of oil can be reduced. It is called supply and demand, but apparently the members of Congress think that this immutable law can be or should be suspended. That’s crazy too.