An Unusual Bumper Sticker

Submitted by AndrewSshi on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 9:51am. Tags:

Social Issues

So I was home in TX, and in a strip mall I saw a rather unusual bumper sticker. What was unusual about this bumper sticker was not the sticker itself--it was a McCain 2008 sticker--but that it was on a Toyota Prius. As everyone knows, a Prius usually comes with a pre-installed Obama sticker.

Not only was it unusual, but it signified something deeper.

One of the biggest issues that we're going to have to deal with over the next couple of decades is the one-two punch of global warming and the Hubbert Peak. I suspect, though, that the latter is probably going to help us with the former--for most of the later twentieth century, oil was practically free, with the natural result that the air was filled with increasing amounts of CO2, since, if burning hydrocarbons is the cheapest form of energy, people are naturally going to burn hydrocarbons.

When hydrocarbons become more expensive because there are less to go around, we wind up using less, and people look for alternative forms of energy. Fortunately, these alternative forms of energy tend to be better for the planet as a whole.

And thus I come back to the bumper sticker. As long as energy saving measures are a fashion statement by left of center affluent white urbanites, the energy that they conserve is going to be a drop in the proverbial bucket. But when energy saving becomes something done not to let people know that you're the Right Sort of People, but because it's cheaper than the alternative, then you're going to start seeing real progress towards cutting back on the use of oil.

When it becomes in people's interests to find ways to move around that's not driving a land aircraft carrier all over the place, you're going to start seeing smaller cars and more citizens voting for transit that isn't just throwing more money at roads. And in such an environment, we may actually take the steps necessary to make the twenty-first century materially better than the twentieth.

When Republicans start buying Priuses, it's a sign that things just might turn out okay after all.
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AndrewSshi's blog
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Speaking of Bumper Stickers (#113257)

by Harley on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 10:01am

TIME Magazine had the temerity to ask McCain about honor in politics. It went like this:

There's a theme that recurs in your books and your speeches, both about putting country first but also about honor. I wonder if you could define honor for us?
Read it in my books.

I've read your books.

No, I'm not going to define it.

But honor in politics?

I defined it in five books. Read my books.

What a class act. He's willing to pimp the thing beyond recognition. But heaven forbid he should actually address it as anything other than a campaign prop.

Or maybe he was just stumped. That's entirely possible.

To think is not enough; you must think of something -- Jules Renard

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Wow, you saw that guy? nt (#113025)

by stillnotking on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 12:16pm

The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.

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That guy? (#113170)

by Bernard Guerrero on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 8:59pm

I thought we were on a first-name basis, SNK! (Ok, first handle basis, at least.)

The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer

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Unfortunately Petrorepublicans (#113011)

by Jordan on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 10:38am

like Bush and Cheney, basically the entire Texas wing of the party, being family friends of the House of Saud and the Emirs of Kuwait, etc., they are going to hold out until the bitter end before switching to a post-oil economy. They're going to fight tooth-and-nail to delay the switchover as long as possible, mark my words.

Wouldn't you, if your assets were likely to explode in value as supplies fall?

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH

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Yeah, yeah..... (#113171)

by Bernard Guerrero on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 9:02pm

....guys like that Pickens character simply can't be trusted to buy into business opportunities or anything. Good call. :^)

Me, I'm gonna install solar-panels to power the NG well in my backyyard. Comin' and goin', baby!

The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer

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These Folks (#113140)

by Inigo on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 7:31pm

will have no choice. They're big, but they're not that big. Methinks something very important has happened to the national psyche over the past year or so -- the masses, rather than merely dreading the next punch up in prices while still tooling around in the Suburban, have finally concluded, on a large scale, that basic behaviors need to change.

I'm an example of Andrew's point. I'm a sorta moderate Republican, and have personally been indifferent, until recently, to the whole thing (and for cultural (which is to say less than wholly rational) reasons, even pretty contemptuous of the self-righteousness of the green types). But I'm also in the market for a new car, and I'm tired of paying stupid amounts of money to (i) undermine my own personal financial interests, and (ii) advance the collective interests of our national adversaries. I'm sure my thinking is replicated around the country by folks very much like me. So, I'm going to buy something pretty small and pretty efficient. It ain't gonna be a Prius -- I'm not prepared yet for that level of self-emasculation -- but it also ain't gonna have a hemi in it.

That's how it is on this bitch of an earth.

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self-emasculation? (#113147)

by Username on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 7:50pm

The Prius is the most technologically advanced car on the market at its price range.

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Sure, but (#113166)

by Inigo on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 8:48pm

technologically-advanced, at least in this case, isn't quite synonymous with manly or cool. Those cars look like goofy little jelly beans. I'll probably get there some day, after my wallet has taken a more comprehensive beating, but I'm not quite there yet.

That's how it is on this bitch of an earth.

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Heh... (#113186)

by aireachail on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 10:13pm

Absolutely. It takes a special vehicle to make a Honda Civic Hybrid look muscular.

But the Prius managed to pull it off.

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. - W. Somerset Maugham

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I'm sorry, but (#113242)

by Username on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 4:00am

I just can't take seriously any argument on a political geek website about what's manly, cool, or muscular.

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Yeah, but... (#113149)

by Macallan on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 7:53pm

...nobody pronounces the name right.

“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”

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That's probably just a horrible accent (#113241)

by Username on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 3:58am

Quit hating on your neighbors!

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Where There's Money in Oil... (#113012)

by AndrewSshi on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 10:46am

There's money in the alternatives as well. Note that it's an Enron successor company that's working on one of the eight-ish Fischer-Tropsch plants that are under construction (not that gasoline from coal is eco-friendly, but as an example of traditional "bad guys" who nevertheless pursue alternative energy out of self interest).

And in a world in which Houston and Dallas finally have rail networks (well, it's a stretch to call Houston's a "network," since it's one line completed, one under construction, and three others approved and soon to have grount broken), even discussions of the petro-chemical and automobile centric Texas GOP are a bit simplistic.

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Enjoyed your diary. FYI, my (#113010)

by Brooks and B Ra... on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 10:30am

Enjoyed your diary. FYI, my understanding is that a lot of Republicans/conservatives -- e.g., Evangelicals -- are now taking global climate change very seriously. I know Greg Mankiw has been pushing for higher gasoline taxes and a carbon tax
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/10/pigou-club-manifesto.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR200610...

As an aside, the best bumper sticker I've ever heard of was from Boston in the 1970s:
"Jesus Saves...Esposito rebounds and scores!"
http://www.hockey-fans.com/players/esposito.php

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