Environmentalism is not a four letter word...

... as long as the rationale behind it is sound.

Saw this thing on HGTV, Ed Bagley Jr. does this show. He's been green as newborn poop for decades and he does this show about homes that are all green and everything. various Hollywood types, you get the picture. What the show breaks down to is millionaire mansions with solar panels, wind generators, electric cars and minimal carbon footprints, all done on a budget any of us would need to work five years to achieve. Overall, a useless show, but it got me thinking.

To make 100 gallons of ethanol from corn, it takes 129 gallons of fossil fuel. Corn in and of itself is not a very efficient crop to make ethanol. Take something else that grows in the same climate, with the same general soil needs, etc, like sugar beets, and all of a sudden you have something far far more tailored for ethanol production. 50% of this nation's sugar, the kind you put in your coffee or on your cereal or watch your kids spill from the bowl, comes from beets, not cane. So looking at Brazil as an example, just by removing the "subsidized" corn and replacing it with beets, we could be swimming in inexpensive ethanol inside five years. Doable for any first term president.

But a total aside from that is this: Now that gas is cripplingly expensive, Mom Necessity is knocking. Where are the fuel efficient cars? Where are the hybrids? Oil just topped $120 a barrel and it is not coming down anytime soon. Does the technology exist for coal to gasoline? I know the technology exists for natural gas to gasoline. It's just that natural gas is used for too many other things to convert. And diesel is $4.20 a gallon. Someone isn't coming up with bio-fuel to help out? Someone like Wal-Mart, who holds more trucks than anyone else nationwide?

THIS is the key to the economy. Break this stranglehold oil, and not just imported but all kinds, has on our economy and every single sector I've mentioned flourishes. Food prices drop. Farmers win. Domestic production and distillation of ethanol wins. We still drill and refine domestic oil. gas prices drop and everyone has more disposable income. Prosperity.