Hypocrisy; A Rant

A rerun this Sunday morning

I remain away, so give you this rerun on this Sunday morning.

I don’t remember writing it, but I do enjoy a good rant once in awhile, and I think this is indeed a good one. I hope that you enjoy it too!

Photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash

My Old House

It was mighty cold in the Seattle area this past week. A great deal colder than we are used to, living here in our normally damp, but not cold climate.

Sticking close to home, and my fire, I began to notice local utilities asking their ratepayers to turn down the heat. Warning that the electrical grid could become overloaded. The gas company was doing the same.

Running the risk of not having enough power to keep everyone warm.

In this area we keep removing electrical capacity. Just a handful of miles from my home was a coal fired electrical generating plant. Was. It was deemed too polluting to stay a few years ago.

Hydroelectric dams here in the Pacific Northwest make plenty of electricity, without causing much pollution at all. But, dams have been removed, and loads of people are clamoring to have ever more of them removed.

We are on a clear path towards ensuring that we will have less effective electrical capacity in the future, than in the past.

The sun isn’t shining when it is black and cold out at night. The wind isn’t blowing when it is still, the windmills don’t turn when they are frozen.

Long ago, most homes here were heated with oil. Then gas. Now the big push is for everyone to move their home heating to electric.

Cars too, just plug ‘em in at night, be good to go in the morning.

Clean electric energy.

But if there isn’t enough electricity available when it is truly needed now, and if we insist on continual removal of reliable sources of electricity, what will make everything go? How wise is it to add even more demand, while removing supply?

Do we really want to freeze in our homes?

Maybe so. The folks who vote the issues of the day on our behalf, in this Republic, sure seem to think so.

So I saw those warnings from the power utilities, and threw some more wood on the fire.

Sure most people have converted their old fireplaces to gas and electric. I wonder how cold it will get in their homes on that future date when there isn’t enough power to run their furnace and their fake fire?

I saw those warnings from the power utilities, and remembered that my oil man was here with his big long measuring stick the other day.

I sat in warm air, warmed also by the remembrance of him letting me know that my oil tank still had just under five hundred gallons inside of it. My furnace could keep right on running for a couple more years before I ran the risk of running out.

Newer is not always better.

Politically motivated newer is rarely better.

My old house and its antiquated systems have been keeping everyone inside warm, fed, and happy for almost one hundred years now. Will the brand spankin’ new house down the street with all its modern gizmos and complete reliance on the electrical grid be able to complete the same task for one hundred years?

Or will it house, on those cold cold nights, people huddled together, shivering uncontrollably against the frost?

There was a time in the western world, up in the northern climes, when people did huddle in their homes, shivering against the cold. Then energy saved us. Dirty energy yes, coal can’t be good. But clean energy too, hydro is a nearly perfect renewable.

But lots want us to go back to shivering in our homes. The most prominent of them travel to fancy conferences to talk about reducing energy use. Especially delicious to see are those advocating for us to shiver in our homes, at conferences they flew in private jets to attend.

It is so odd to me that those who most seek to return us to the barbarism, poverty, and squalor of the dark ages, seemingly all have the means or pull to fly private, polluting more and burning more energy for a single trip than many would ever do in a lifetime. The joy of hypocrisy. But make no mistake, they want us to see that hypocrisy. Our inability to deliver consequence for that hypocrisy is their supposed proof of power.

I think I’ll keep my old house.