[KSagal]

Wow, JohnM volunteering to be what I have been characterized as!...

In this case he is right. Government, more specifically too much government, is much more likely to be a problem than a solution.

Civicsbudy... Socialism is not the solution. If you feel so enlightened that your personal vision of the way the world should work and should be forced upon the 'unwashed masses', maybe you should run for office. By the way, socialism is voluntary. Forcing it upon these masses for their own good, as you say needs to be done, is communism. It has been tried, and it does not work.

You can do what ever you like, and educate yourself as much or little as you like, but you did say that many who did not agree with you were simply bashing what they did not understand.

My post from a year ago was specific to the question of that day, but you indicated that you were introducing that cheap energy comparatively from fossil fuels was the reason we do not use other forms of energy, and I simply found one of the posts where I had said exactly that... Some of my post was out of context to this exact point in this thread, but my words still ring true... Artificially raising the cost of something thru punitive taxes does not work. If it did, no one would smoke cigarettes. Often what it does is hurt the lower economic ranks more than the rest, that is all.

Some people who do not agree to larger government and the concept that the government is the solutions to all problems in society are not just bashing that which we do not know, but instead are re-affirming the very reason that the United States has been successful for so long... The very social structure for the last several hundred years has been to reward the industrious, and the risk taker. That is the American dream. It is the reason that others who are willing to work hard, and take their chances, have been willing to risk it all to give up their homelands and come here, legal or otherwize, for generations...

I happen to feel that the majority of people will do what makes sense. They have no desire to waste, or to be irresponsible to the envornment. However, neither do they wish to spend more than they need, either in money nor inconvenience... Therefore, it makes sense if you want to entice them to do a thing, you need to make it easier to do, and cheaper.

That is what car companies have done. Since they were introduced, it has taken less and less of an average wage earners annual salary to buy a car.

That is what computer companies have done. They get cheaper and faster and easier to use, with each generation... And they are faster than rabbits, and seem to have a new generation every 3 months.

That is what energy smart designers will have to do to sell it to the masses. That is the way the world works. And it will. Forcing a false event by tariffs, or taxes, or luxury taxes simply do not work. Never have in the long term, will not start now.

I surely do not look forward to when a faceless personality on the internet can dictate what will happen to me and my family in the restriction of my choices of transport or anything else... Expressing an opinion, fine. Dictates, no.