| > | | | | especially cannot tolerate the continuing increases of |
| The recent Wall Street disaster reminds us that | | | | atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, which |
| citizens cannot trust industry. Greed has invaded the | | | | are leading irreversibly to global overheating and |
| most profitable companies to an unacceptable and | | | | destructive climate changes. |
| destructive degree. US citizens must consider the | | | | On the other hand, we cannot dare letting scarce |
| banking crisis as a wake up call for preventing the oil | | | | petroleum make our transportation systems |
| and energy industries from creating an even more | | | | unaffordable for the average consumer, we cannot |
| destructive energy catastrophe. We must outlaw fossil | | | | suffer the consequences of a sudden stop of all our |
| fuels and begin to produce renewable fuels for | | | | transportation systems at the instance we run out of |
| keeping the US secure. | | | | petroleum, and our Armed Forces cannot defend our |
| We are experiencing right now what unbridled greed | | | | country without plentiful fuels. |
| can do to a hardworking country. The effects of Wall | | | | If the supply of gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuels for |
| Street's fraud are becoming very painful for the | | | | automobiles, trucks, trains, ships, and airplanes ever |
| working stiff, who have no choice but to entrust the | | | | breaks down, we will experience a crisis that will be |
| results of their life's toils to our country's banks. These | | | | far more severe and much more damaging than the |
| same banks have become the most profitable sector | | | | 2008 financial crisis. |
| of the US economy. | | | | Because we cannot let these ruinous events happen, |
| Right now, these banks have stopped extending credit | | | | we must demand from US Congress and our |
| to large and small enterprises, to customers who have | | | | administrations that they begin to conceive plans and |
| been paying dearly for borrowing working capital for | | | | install controls that will make a future breakdown of |
| decades. | | | | the energy system impossible. |
| The effects will be felt throughout the US economy | | | | Such controls must assure that the energy industry will |
| and will lead to hardships for millions of bank | | | | convert its energy supplies during the coming couple of |
| customers, will accelerate an ongoing recession, and | | | | decades from fossil fuel based energy forms to |
| may force our country into a depression. | | | | renewable energies. These new energy supplies must |
| An equally profitable economic sector of the US | | | | also assure that we can continue to use our huge, |
| economy, the oil and energy industry, is following | | | | irreplaceable investments into our transportation |
| policies that may drive our country into an even more | | | | infrastructures consisting of automobiles, trucks, trains, |
| disastrous situation that will be more difficult to correct, | | | | ships, airplanes, airports, automotive manufacturing |
| and will deadlock our economy not for years but for | | | | plants, and maintenance facilities. |
| decades, if not corrected in time. | | | | Replacing major portions of our existing transportation |
| Indigenous and foreign petroleum reserves are being | | | | system would consume trillions upon trillions of dollars. |
| depleted across the world and will not last much longer | | | | Instead, we must preserve precious capital for the |
| than 50 years. Continuing petroleum combustion will | | | | most important future investments; the construction of |
| increase atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations | | | | novel energy conversion plants. We must invest in |
| by another 25%. Increasing carbon dioxide emissions | | | | building a sufficient number of energy plants that |
| from coal and natural gas combustion will increase | | | | produce plenty of petroleum substitutes and are able |
| atmospheric concentrations even higher than 600 ppm | | | | of replacing all fossil fuels. |
| before 2050. A concentration of 600 ppm is the | | | | We must invest in factories that build equipment for |
| absolute maximum that can be endured by our planet | | | | converting sun energy, wind power, marine power, and |
| and its inhabitants. | | | | geothermal power into electricity. Most importantly we |
| The most immediate and economically most damaging | | | | must install facilities that can convert plentiful and |
| consequences of our continuing profligate use of | | | | inexhaustible sun energy into biomass. |
| petroleum products will be the steady increase of | | | | We know that we can convert sunlight into diesel fuel. |
| gasoline and diesel fuel prices at the pump. These | | | | Now we must learn very fast how to convert |
| price increases will eventually have effects similar to | | | | biomass into petroleum substitutes. Preliminary |
| the presently developing credit crunch. | | | | evaluations show that the US can replace its entire, |
| US Congress has found the will to legislate measures | | | | annual petroleum consumption by growing biomass on |
| that hopefully have a chance of easing credit and of | | | | an area of less than 10,000 square miles. The lower 48 |
| allowing our economy to resume its normal activities, | | | | states of the US have an area of close to 3 million |
| eventually. | | | | square miles. A small fraction, well below one percent, |
| There are is no similar oversight for assuring that the | | | | is sufficient to provide the entire US with emission free, |
| US oil industry is developing actionable plans for | | | | affordable, and secure petroleum substitutes. These |
| replacing petroleum with renewable petroleum | | | | substitutes can be converted in existing oil refineries |
| substitutes, which do not emit greenhouse gases. US | | | | into the fuels we need; gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet |
| coal and natural gas industries have not found it | | | | fuels. |
| necessary to prepare for a future, in which all fossil | | | | We must force the US energy industry to use its |
| fuel combustion must be outlawed. These same | | | | exorbitant profits for developing new energy sources |
| industries are still not held liable for the irreversible | | | | and for making the US independent of foreign imports. |
| ecological damages they inflict on our Earth. | | | | A future energy crisis will be much more severe than |
| Any person with rational abilities and a basic | | | | any past financial crises. It will take decades to fix the |
| understanding of a few scientific facts must conclude | | | | looming scarcity of transportation fuels. The US and |
| that the world's economies will run into an abyss, if we | | | | the world must prevent a worldwide energy crisis that |
| cannot change our ways of using energy. We | | | | will threaten all countries with economic collapse. |