Many "alternative fuels" such as E85 ethanol and Biodiesel are being touted as cure-alls for our impending energy crisis in America. With apologies to Chuck D. and company, Don't Believe The Hype.
The MacGuffin
Fossil fuels, specifically as used for automobile fuels, are probably the biggest environmental problem we face. Consider this document from the EPA: HTML version, PDF version which clearly states that " in numerous cities across the country, the personal automobile is the single greatest polluter." While pollution figures have dropped considerably for automobiles in the past several decades, cars continue to be our biggest polluters. Of gravest concern for many is that cars, in burning so much fossil fuels, add extra carbon to the air in the form of carbon dioxide, since this carbon was formerly locked-up underground, this creates a net increase of CO2 and thus, a net increase in greenhouse gas levels, potentially leading to global warming.
Enter "alternative fuels" in the form of ethanol and biodiesel. While these fuels still add CO2 to the air, the carbon in these fuels ultimately came from the air itself, since they are from living sources, meaning that they are theoretically carbon neutral. Biodiesel comes with the added benefit of removing what was formerly an environmental hazard (used cooking oil) from the waste stream. Best of all, you get to keep driving your gigantic Escaladepedition or your Canyonero or whatever giant gas guzzling "look at my giant penis, er, SUV" car you want to, since these fuels can be used in standard gasoline or diesel engines with very little modifications. Wow, you mean I get to be good for the environment and take no responsibility for my own behavior? Great!
Not exactly. It turns out that the major source of ethanol is from corn. Also, it turns out, that if the entire agricultural capacity of the U.S. was turned into producing nothing but ethanol for cars, it would only meet 12% of our automotive fuel needs. (see Ethanol demand will outpace corn supply by Matt McKinney at Scripps News) Biodiesel makes even less of an impact. Well, 12% is better than nothing, right? Maybe not. Consider this report: Ethanol And Biodiesel From Crops Not Worth The Energy from ScienceDaily. It turns out that, in terms of energy needed to produce these alternative fuels, every biomass source of ethanol actually uses more energy that it replaces. This is not unexpected, as no system can produce energy for free. However, where does most of that energy come from? Well, it comes mainly from natural gas and oil burning power plants, which are fossil fuels. The net result is that for corn-based ethanol (E85), 29% more fossil fuel energy is needed to make it than the ethanol itself produces. In other words, using ethanol in your cars actually causes more fossil fuels to be used than just using good old gasoline. The prospect for non-agricultural based sources, such as switchgrass and wood, are even worse.
So why is there such a big push to get ethanol into cars? As already implied, the biggest source of ethanol will be corn. Who stands to benefit? Well, not the old Nebraska family farmer. The guy in the plaid shirt and overalls tending 40 acres is a romantic myth. Who really makes most of the money from corn? Archer-Daniels-Midland, that's who. ADM is one of the largest corporations in the U.S., and they are essentially the market-controlling syndicate in charge of the entire corn output of the U.S. (think of how DeBeers handles diamonds worldwide, and that's how ADM handles corn). The push for E85 ethanol is driving the price of corn through the roof, and that's what its all about. The entire ethanol-as-good-alternative-fuel story is a boondogle, designed to make ADM shareholders tons of cash.
The Real Issue
Ultimately, the only real solution is the abandonment of the internal combustion engine as a means of transportation. As long as we have cars that burn carbon-based fuels, we will never get out of this trap. Biodiesel is at least a noble enterprise in that it does remove material from the waste stream, but again there isn't near enough cooking oil out there to power all of your cars. There is a technology on the market. Its 50+ years old, next-to-no pollution, and could end all of our problems. What is it? Fuel cells. Basically, a fuel cell is a battery designed to run on hydrogen and oxygen. Rather than burning, the cell maintains a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen and uses electricity generated by that reaction to power your car. (I could go into far more detail, I am actually a chemist by training, but I'll leave it there for the lay person.)
Why have fuel cell cars not replaced gasoline cars, or even entered the market? Well, for one there are too many vested interests in keeping gasoline around. As already mention ADM is getting rich by making you think that ethanol will solve all of our problems. We're in a war in Iraq which is maintaining artificially high fuel prices to drive record profits at ExxonMobil and BP/Amoco. You don't think that with this much money flowing that anyone in any position of power is interested in turning off the tap.
We're stuck in a Catch-22. Before hydrogen-powered cars can gain a foothold on the market, there needs to be a hydrogen-delivery infrastructure in place (hydrogen fueling stations, hydrogen pipelines, hydrogen-producing plants, etc.) However, in order to establish that infrastructure, there needs to be a demand for it. As there are no fuel-cell cars at the moment, there is no demand for a hydrogen infrastructure. See; there are no cars because theirs no hydrogen; there's no hydrogen because there are no cars!
Why won't the government step in to fix this? I mean, after all, the government is forcing us to abandon our old TV sets in the next few years, as the FCC is requiring the end of old analog transmissions in the favor of digital transmissions. Why does the government do that? Because if left up to the market, we would never make the change over. Major corporations want the huge amount of bandwidth currently taken up by TV; it stands to make them tons of cash. So the government is helping them along by requiring us all to make the change. So why doesn't the government do the exact same thing for automobile fuels; require us to change over by a certain date? For the exact same reason, it turns out. Major corporations have a vested interest, but instead of an interest in forcing a change (from analog to digital TV), this interest is in preventing one (from gasoline-based economy to a hydrogen one). Thus, there will be no major government push to the newer technology, because the major oil companies stand to lose out in the long run if it ever happens.
The other problem? A total lack of public transportation in the U.S. At my count, there are 5 major cities with reasonable public transportation infrastructure (New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington). Of those, only in New York does public transport actually beat the car in terms of ridership. Again, public transportation would greatly reduce our reliance on cars. However, it is expensive; in order to be affordable to the individual passenger it needs to run at a loss, and the loss needs to be made up in public funds. Is the money there? Sure, but only if we take it away from the major corporations that pay money to the campaigns of every political candidate. See the abortion article below; if it means taking money away from pork-barrel projects and putting it into worthwhile ventures, the donors will beat the voters every time. All the politician needs to do to get your vote is put up some random worthless environmental promise (such as requireing the use of E85 ethanol); they use some MacGuffin, some meaningless plot device to get your attention and get you to ignore that they are doing nothing to help you at all. Emotion, not reason, wins elections...
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Today's MacGuffin: Abortion
Well, I am starting off with an easy one today (yeah, right!). Today's MacGuffin is abortion.
The MacGuffin
It's the perfect political MacGuffin. Most people have never had an abortion. Some people may know friends or loved ones who have had them, or have had the opportunity to and chosen not to. However, for most people, it is an issue many people care intensely about, even though many of us have never been personally affected by it. I am not here to tell you whether abortion is right or wrong; whether it should be legal or illegal. That would be the easy thing to do. That would be what the talking heads would do. Keller is here to tell you what the real issues are and why the talking heads chose to give you this MacGuffin rather than to discuss the real, hard issues.
Abortion has been so MacGuffin-ized in American society that it has been reduced to two words. You are either Pro-Life or you are Pro-Choice. You are told that if you are Pro-Life, you believe that an unborn fetus is a human life, which should be afforded all of the protections as any human, and that to take that life is no less a crime than to intentionally take any other human life. You are told that if you are Pro-Choice, you believe that decisions about a woman's own body are to be made by that woman and that woman alone, under the advice of her loved ones and competent medical professionals, and not by politicians, religious leaders, or anyone else. And that is it. Any time an issue has been reduced to two opposing positions, understand that the entire issue is a MacGuffin. The whole point of the issue is to present something you should care deeply about, and then to allow politicians to use the same convenient, simplified label as you might, and thus to get you to automatically vote for them.
The two positions are ludicrous. Think about it. Who is not for life? Life is the fundamental right; without life all other rights are moot. Can the dead speak? Can the dead assemble, or petition the government, or own property, or pursue happiness? Likewise, who is not for choice? Isn't this America, land of the free, home of the brave, where no one, least of all the gubmint, is going to tell me what to think and feel and say and most of all do? So we have an argument based on two positions that no American would ever actually oppose. As a result, the argument is reduced to an emotional, knee-jerk reaction; not one based on what is actually good for the nation or that actually fixes or changes anything.
No one, not even the most ardent Pro-Choice person, would ever say that abortion is good. No one desires more abortions, that people should actively seek to find ways to increase the number of abortions in America. No one would ever say "Go out, honey, and get pregnant. We need to abort more fetuses." There's the issue. There is where the common ground is. There is the hard question. Not "Is it the government's role to regulate abortion?" That's the MacGuffin question.
The Real Issue
The real issue, the one no politician will ever answer because it involves making real hard changes and real hard decisions, something no talking head would ever risk, is much deeper. The real question is "Why do people have abortions and what should be done about it?" Does making abortions illegal stop them? Do people stop having unprotected sex and having unwanted pregnancies because they can't abort the fetus? Contrawise, does anyone make the choice to have unprotected sex because they could just have a legal abortion, and would they make a different decision if abortion were illegal?
So why do people have unwanted pregnancies? Who has unwanted pregnancies? We have these studies. Consider this one: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3422602.html, titled "Patterns in the Socioeconomic Characteristics of Women Obtaining Abortions in 2000-2001". The study analyzed the demographic data of 10,000+ women who had abortions in 2000 and 2001. What did it find? That the abortion rate was highest among, and I quote, "Women who are aged 18-29, unmarried, black or Hispanic, or economically disadvantaged—including those on Medicaid" Additionally, and I quote the study again "Abortion rates for women with incomes below 200% of poverty and for women with Medicaid coverage increased between 1994 and 2000." On the other hand, women in the highest economic brackets and those with college degrees showed the sharpest declines in the abortion rate. The results are clear. If you don't want to have an unwanted pregnancy, be rich, advantaged, and educated. If you don't want someone else to have an abortion, educate them and enable them to get out of poverty.
And there is why you never hear any politician talking about the real issue. Why? Because providing people with education, and providing the means to get people out of poverty is expensive. Its not that we don't have the money to do this, its that we would have to take the money away from somewhere that the talking heads cannot afford to take it away from. The politician could take the money from some niche interest; some pork-barrel line-item that was put into legislation to reward some big campaign donor. They will not do this; because to face the real issue, to make your life better, they would have to take money from the people who really got them elected; and that is not going to happen. So how do they get your vote instead? How do they get you to put them into office when they aren't actually going to do anything to fix your life? They get you to have an emotional, knee-jerk response to the issue of abortion and make sure that you will identify with them. They use the Pro-Life/Pro-Choice MacGuffin because to actually fix the problem would require them to do the hard thing. The right thing. And they aren't going to do that if it means that the people funding their campaigns might not give them any more money.
The next time the issue of abortion comes up, ask yourself "Does this talking head actually have a plan to solve the problem?" If all they want to do is stick a label on themselves then the answer is no... Make your own decision on whether or not abortion should be legal or not; but don't make the choice because some talking head has told you that you should feel one way. Make the choice because you feel it will fix the problem. And don't vote for the politician because he chooses the same pointless label you would. Vote for the one that actually proposes a solution, and that will actually enact it.
The MacGuffin
It's the perfect political MacGuffin. Most people have never had an abortion. Some people may know friends or loved ones who have had them, or have had the opportunity to and chosen not to. However, for most people, it is an issue many people care intensely about, even though many of us have never been personally affected by it. I am not here to tell you whether abortion is right or wrong; whether it should be legal or illegal. That would be the easy thing to do. That would be what the talking heads would do. Keller is here to tell you what the real issues are and why the talking heads chose to give you this MacGuffin rather than to discuss the real, hard issues.
Abortion has been so MacGuffin-ized in American society that it has been reduced to two words. You are either Pro-Life or you are Pro-Choice. You are told that if you are Pro-Life, you believe that an unborn fetus is a human life, which should be afforded all of the protections as any human, and that to take that life is no less a crime than to intentionally take any other human life. You are told that if you are Pro-Choice, you believe that decisions about a woman's own body are to be made by that woman and that woman alone, under the advice of her loved ones and competent medical professionals, and not by politicians, religious leaders, or anyone else. And that is it. Any time an issue has been reduced to two opposing positions, understand that the entire issue is a MacGuffin. The whole point of the issue is to present something you should care deeply about, and then to allow politicians to use the same convenient, simplified label as you might, and thus to get you to automatically vote for them.
The two positions are ludicrous. Think about it. Who is not for life? Life is the fundamental right; without life all other rights are moot. Can the dead speak? Can the dead assemble, or petition the government, or own property, or pursue happiness? Likewise, who is not for choice? Isn't this America, land of the free, home of the brave, where no one, least of all the gubmint, is going to tell me what to think and feel and say and most of all do? So we have an argument based on two positions that no American would ever actually oppose. As a result, the argument is reduced to an emotional, knee-jerk reaction; not one based on what is actually good for the nation or that actually fixes or changes anything.
No one, not even the most ardent Pro-Choice person, would ever say that abortion is good. No one desires more abortions, that people should actively seek to find ways to increase the number of abortions in America. No one would ever say "Go out, honey, and get pregnant. We need to abort more fetuses." There's the issue. There is where the common ground is. There is the hard question. Not "Is it the government's role to regulate abortion?" That's the MacGuffin question.
The Real Issue
The real issue, the one no politician will ever answer because it involves making real hard changes and real hard decisions, something no talking head would ever risk, is much deeper. The real question is "Why do people have abortions and what should be done about it?" Does making abortions illegal stop them? Do people stop having unprotected sex and having unwanted pregnancies because they can't abort the fetus? Contrawise, does anyone make the choice to have unprotected sex because they could just have a legal abortion, and would they make a different decision if abortion were illegal?
So why do people have unwanted pregnancies? Who has unwanted pregnancies? We have these studies. Consider this one: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3422602.html, titled "Patterns in the Socioeconomic Characteristics of Women Obtaining Abortions in 2000-2001". The study analyzed the demographic data of 10,000+ women who had abortions in 2000 and 2001. What did it find? That the abortion rate was highest among, and I quote, "Women who are aged 18-29, unmarried, black or Hispanic, or economically disadvantaged—including those on Medicaid" Additionally, and I quote the study again "Abortion rates for women with incomes below 200% of poverty and for women with Medicaid coverage increased between 1994 and 2000." On the other hand, women in the highest economic brackets and those with college degrees showed the sharpest declines in the abortion rate. The results are clear. If you don't want to have an unwanted pregnancy, be rich, advantaged, and educated. If you don't want someone else to have an abortion, educate them and enable them to get out of poverty.
And there is why you never hear any politician talking about the real issue. Why? Because providing people with education, and providing the means to get people out of poverty is expensive. Its not that we don't have the money to do this, its that we would have to take the money away from somewhere that the talking heads cannot afford to take it away from. The politician could take the money from some niche interest; some pork-barrel line-item that was put into legislation to reward some big campaign donor. They will not do this; because to face the real issue, to make your life better, they would have to take money from the people who really got them elected; and that is not going to happen. So how do they get your vote instead? How do they get you to put them into office when they aren't actually going to do anything to fix your life? They get you to have an emotional, knee-jerk response to the issue of abortion and make sure that you will identify with them. They use the Pro-Life/Pro-Choice MacGuffin because to actually fix the problem would require them to do the hard thing. The right thing. And they aren't going to do that if it means that the people funding their campaigns might not give them any more money.
The next time the issue of abortion comes up, ask yourself "Does this talking head actually have a plan to solve the problem?" If all they want to do is stick a label on themselves then the answer is no... Make your own decision on whether or not abortion should be legal or not; but don't make the choice because some talking head has told you that you should feel one way. Make the choice because you feel it will fix the problem. And don't vote for the politician because he chooses the same pointless label you would. Vote for the one that actually proposes a solution, and that will actually enact it.
Who is Keller A. Teel?
I am a 30-year old stay-at-home dad with lots of time on my hands. I started this blog because I was getting fed up watching the talking heads on all of the news channels telling me what is wrong with the world, and getting it so wrong themselves. There are no easy answers, and if anyone can tell you in a 30-second sound-bite what is wrong and how to fix it, they are bullshitting you.
I have a wife of 7 years, named Ellie Wheater, and a 1 1/2 year old son, Li'l Keller. We live in suburban North Carolina, and are firmly entrenched in the middle class. I have a Master's Degree education, as does my wife, and demographically we are damn near average. I don't smoke, don't do illegal drugs, drink occassionally, and eat too much. I grew up in New England, am a die-hard Patriots fan, and still only feel like New England is my only true home, though I haven't lived there in 12 years.
Politically, I am a registered independant. I often vote for third party candidates, frequently Libertarians, though I find myself changing drastically as I get older. I have never identified with any platform of any political party (even the Libertarian Party), though I might describe myself as a radical centrist. All politicians lie all the time; the question is not who is telling the truth but whose shit are you willing to eat.
Welcome to The MacGuffin Report
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin:
"A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or Maguffin) is a plot device that motivates the characters and/or advances the story, but has little other relevance to the story... The element that distinguishes a MacGuffin from other types of plot devices is that it is not important what the object specifically is. Anything that serves as a motivation will do. "
The term MacGuffin was created by Alfred Hitchcock to describe an object in a work of fiction that drives the plot forward, but it doesn't actually matter what the object is. The object is important not because you, as an audience member should care about it, but because the characters in the work care about it. Consider a popular movie, Pulp Fiction. An important element of the movie centers around a glowing suitcase. The suitcase is intensely important to many characters in the film, and whenever something happens to it, major shit goes down. Now, here's the important part, it didn't have to be a suitcase. It could have been a set of confidential files, jewlery, a car, a girl, ANYTHING, and the plot of the film would have been essentially the same. It is an interchangable issue, but we as viewers care about it, not because of what it is, but because Jules and Vincent care so much about it. Again, it is not what the object is, it is how the film manipulates our emotions that makes it so important to us.
The world as we know it is filled with these MacGuffins. Politicians especially know this, and as such, use it to their advantage, exactly as a film maker like Hitchcock and Tarantino and many others do. Many times, these are not major issues in our own lives. However, the issues are framed in such a way that we care because the politicians seem to. The important thing, as an informed citizen, is to be able to recognize what is happening, and to know what the real issue is.
When the talking heads show you a glowing suitcase, and make you care about it, The MacGuffin Report will tell you what is in that suitcase. Remember, the goal of these people is to get into power, and they will use whatever MacGuffin will work in their favor to do so. The MacGuffin Report is here to show you what the real issues are, and allow you to decide for yourself how to feel about them.
"A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or Maguffin) is a plot device that motivates the characters and/or advances the story, but has little other relevance to the story... The element that distinguishes a MacGuffin from other types of plot devices is that it is not important what the object specifically is. Anything that serves as a motivation will do. "
The term MacGuffin was created by Alfred Hitchcock to describe an object in a work of fiction that drives the plot forward, but it doesn't actually matter what the object is. The object is important not because you, as an audience member should care about it, but because the characters in the work care about it. Consider a popular movie, Pulp Fiction. An important element of the movie centers around a glowing suitcase. The suitcase is intensely important to many characters in the film, and whenever something happens to it, major shit goes down. Now, here's the important part, it didn't have to be a suitcase. It could have been a set of confidential files, jewlery, a car, a girl, ANYTHING, and the plot of the film would have been essentially the same. It is an interchangable issue, but we as viewers care about it, not because of what it is, but because Jules and Vincent care so much about it. Again, it is not what the object is, it is how the film manipulates our emotions that makes it so important to us.
The world as we know it is filled with these MacGuffins. Politicians especially know this, and as such, use it to their advantage, exactly as a film maker like Hitchcock and Tarantino and many others do. Many times, these are not major issues in our own lives. However, the issues are framed in such a way that we care because the politicians seem to. The important thing, as an informed citizen, is to be able to recognize what is happening, and to know what the real issue is.
When the talking heads show you a glowing suitcase, and make you care about it, The MacGuffin Report will tell you what is in that suitcase. Remember, the goal of these people is to get into power, and they will use whatever MacGuffin will work in their favor to do so. The MacGuffin Report is here to show you what the real issues are, and allow you to decide for yourself how to feel about them.
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