Up until now, I’ve been silent about a lot of the political entrails that are splattering onto the solar and renewable industries from approaching politicians grasping to find new ways to attack each other in a desperate attempt to win the 2012 presidential election. I have pretty much always felt that I’ll stick to engineering and stay out of politics as long as politicians stuck to running the country and stayed out of my engineering.

Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out that way, as it now appears clear to me that a small group of politicians and people are trying to directly alter the course of humanity’s societal (and thus, technological) development for the sole purpose of short-term monetary gain for a small few. Quite literally, these people are willing to sell away all of our very lives in order to simply make more money for themselves.

While it should be obvious that my concerns and opinions do not extend nor apply to the entire populous of Texas, there are a specific few in key places within the state’s governing Administration (and elsewhere) that have been making decisions and acting in ways that I have strong disagreements with. There are five specific issues discussed below that I feel have been unduly targeted by partisan politics, on the part of the Republicans specifically within the Lone Star State.

The attack on Science

As difficult as it is to believe, the theory of evolution is still being questioned 152 years after it was first proposed by Charles Darwin. His original hypothesis was based on his initial observations during several expeditions around the world, as well as extensive study of fossils. He released his finding in a book titled On the Origin of Species in 1859, but his ideas weren’t confirmed as the general scientific consensus until the early 1950’s.

Incredibly, even today, it’s not uncommon to hear the retort from certain evangelical groups of Christians that “evolution is only a theory.” Just to clarify to everyone, that statement is extremely grating to people in the scientific community, because when used correctly, the term “theory” is the closest thing you can get to “law.”

Theory: A set of ideas or principles that has been proven as “correct” through repetition by others and confirmation by independent peer review. In order for something to be a theory, it must be confirmed by many, many people, subjected to many tests, and inquiry, and criticism, and when all is said and done, a consensus amongst the majority is reached.

Hypothesis: A set of ideas or principles that is an attempt to explain some observable phenomenon. It is not yet ratified or proven, but based on an “educated guess.” A hypothesis can only become a theory after it has been independently proven again and again by many others.

A contemporary example is the following:

We think that the Higgs Boson exists, which is a hypothesis. We built the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to test to see if it indeed exists. We hope to one day find out if it does.

We think the Electron exists, but the current theory is that it does. In fact, all of modern electronics exist, allowing computers to exist, allowing the internet to exist. This is how sure we are that the Electron exists. If it didn’t, the technology needed for you to read this webpage wouldn’t exist, and we’d still be sending telegraphs.

So really, whenever someone claims that “evolution is only a theory,” is really stating that “evolution is only a law,” and not really realizing just how incredibly asinine they sound.

So what does this have to do with Texas specifically? Well, I don’t need to go any farther than Texas Governor Rick Perry, who was caught in August explaining to a child and mother while on his campaign:

“Here your mom was asking about evolution, and you know it’s a theory that’s out there, and it’s got some gaps in it. In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools — because I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.”

Unfortunately, Mr. Perry, the scary thing about misinformation, is that you’re not even capable of figuring out which one is right. What’s worse is that the U.S. Supreme Court has long ago determined that it’s unconstitutional to teach creationism in public schools, so he’s not even correct in terms of what he assumes his state teaches.

Rather than teaching students outright creationism, recent attempts in 2009 succeeded in including intelligent design into biology textbooks. Intelligent design is the creationist-backed idea that DNA and genes are too complex to just suddenly “spring into existence,” therefore they must have been designed by a creator of some kind.

What absolutely boggles my mind to this day is the way in which creationists have to reject scientific theory outright and attempt to fabricate their own story, when scientists actually went out of their way to make it easy for them:

I am a scientist first, and therefore base my knowledge off of observation. If I look out at the sky with telescopes every night, I can look at the stars. If I spend my entire life watching the stars, I can eventually observe that they slowly move. If I work toward tracking and logging their movements, I can observe that all of the stars, all of the galaxies…everything in the universe is expanding away from everything else. The universe is expanding. Naturally, if I log this expansion and extrapolate backwards, I arrive at the fundamental conclusion that the universe was once much smaller. The farther I go back, the smaller it gets; smaller than our solar system, smaller than our planet, smaller than even a single atom…the Big Bang: the point in which the universe was born.

Raw observation tells us that there was at one point in time in which within an instant blinding flash, there was light, matter, energy, space, and life itself. From nothing to something…a point of creation.

Science has unequivocally proven that there was a point in which we were all blinked into existence, and yet that’s not good enough for evangelical creationists. They seem hell-bent on rewriting things as they seem to interpret from the Bible, no matter how out-of-whack it seems with reality.

I’m confused too…

The attack on Education

Intelligent design isn’t the only conservative rhetoric that is being imposed on the young minds within Texas. In 2009, the Texas Board of Education decided that it had had enough with silly concepts like “facts” and “reason,” and decided the totality of American History was “way too liberally biased,” and thus, had to be rewritten.

Nearly all of the textbooks being used by the state of Texas had their focus and content altered in order to meet the new requirements set forth by the 2009 Board of Education. Many of the more startling changes are listed below:

• Economics textbooks were rewritten to emphasize the superiority of American Capitalism over other forms of economy, such as socialism or communism, or even socialized capitalism, like in Europe.
• History textbooks were altered to state explicitly that the decisions and writings of the founding fathers were guided entirely by Christian Principles. This is ironic considering the fact that nearly all early American Settlers came across the Atlantic in order to escape religious persecution from the Church of England.
• Darwin’s theory of Evolution was stricken from the record (until a recent overturning decision by the 2011 Board of Education).
• Notable Hispanic community figures and their accomplishments during the formation of Texas were either reduced in context or removed entirely. Considering the bloody and violent history surrounding the formation of Texas during the Mexican-American War, this is an absolute travesty to Hispanics and Historians alike.
• More emphasis was placed on the Black Panthers, a violent and militant group that took part in the civil rights movement than Dr. Martin Luther King and his efforts to cause change non-violently. This was a subversive effort on the part of conservatives to falsely create the image that minorities are intrinsically violent.
• All economics books had the word “capitalism,” replaced with “free-enterprise system,” in an attempt to stymie the phrase, “capitalist pig!”
• President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis was given just as much focus as Abraham Lincoln in historical textbooks.
• McCarthyism was completely justified based on the threat that Communism posed to the country.

While this is only a small handful of examples, there were in fact over 100 amendments made to the curriculum. It’s important to note that there was not one historian on the 2009 Board of Education; the most prominent member demanding the changes was Dr. Don McLeroy, a dentist by trade. I’ll wrap up this section with a few of quotes from this guy:

“History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left.”

“The biggest problem I saw was their overreach not to be ethnocentric [when asked about an AP History book used in Texas prior to 2009]. It’s a very, very, very, very biased book. Christianity didn’t even make it in the table of contents.”

“Abstinence-only is the only realistic message. It’s the only thing that works. Now, the subject of contraception could be mentioned but only in the context of marriage. The abstinent message needs to be given a chance.”

“I was pleased that the Supreme Court did not rule our schools were inadequately funded. Adequacy is a highly subjective assessment. The best way to judge an adequate education is to let the parents decide–give them the right to choose their child’s school.”

“What good does it do to put a Chinese story in an English book? So you really don’t want Chinese books with a bunch of crazy Chinese words in them.”

For a while, there was a media controversy regarding how many other states would be affected by the rather heavy conservative views of the Texas Board of Education, but this was mostly hyped. Most states now custom-tailor their textbooks to appropriately meet their own state curriculum, so thankfully the damage that these people did was limited to the 4.7 million students in Texas and few others.

The attack on Religious Freedom

As conservative as McLeroy was, he was only one amongst several on the board who placed blind faith above all else while on the Board. David Bradley, another conservative member of the 2009 Board and part-time real estate agent was quoted saying the following:

“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state. I have a thousand dollars for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”

It was from this twisted reasoning that the idea to begin implanting the Texas youth with the idea that the founding fathers were guided by Christian ideals while forming the country was created. This assumption by evangelicals not only couldn’t be further from the truth, but horribly perverts the work and efforts of our founding fathers, who were much wiser than to attempt to base the new government they founded with the church.

Anyone who actually takes the time to read up about what actually happened can learn that the vast majority of colonial settlers traveling to the American Colonies were doing so out of a desperate attempt to flee religious persecution from the Church of England. King Charles I was the reigning monarch at the time of the first settlers, but since the Church of England and the State of England are both run completely by the royal family, people fleeing the church were also fleeing the king, essentially.

The very first settlers in the American Colonies were actually somewhat of religious radicals. They called themselves the Puritans, and they were an extremist portion of the Church of England that felt that their separation from the Catholic Church hadn’t gone far enough, and demanded a higher level of devotion, worship, and piety from their following.

In fact, they demanded so much devotion to their faith that as a group, they began to lose all reason within their own communities, degenerating to the levels of superstition and fear necessary to allow the Salem Witch Trials to occur. This is a wonderfully dark point in our country’s history in which blind Christian faith was allowed to sit in place of legal justice, and people were murdered based on the ridiculous religious belief that they might be a witch. Throughout 1692, twenty-six people were dragged in front of the court and all 29 were killed, based on the following reasoning:

1. If you are a witch, then you couldn’t die, therefore attempts to burn/drown/cut/crush you will fail.
2. If you are NOT a witch, then you’ll die and your soul will be judged by God.

Despite being such an amazingly flimsy logical process, this was the basis of reasoning for hanging 19 men and women, drowning one woman, and burning eight others, and crushing one man to death because he refused to even submit a plea (therefore, he MUST be a witch, right?)

Pick a random point in any part of world history, and I can show you an example where Christian Indoctrination caused senseless death and violence. We’ve started with the Salem Witch Trials, but what about Africa? Well, here missionaries are sent to “help” the local tribes attempt to cope with insurrection and government instability into the area. What really goes on is an “exchange” of help. Help is only offered to those Africans who are willing to adopt Christian beliefs and go to church. The aid is really just a front to force other people into believing something that they don’t need to. Asia is completely the same, with Indonesia being one of the hardest hit countries. Here, poverty is very common, and starvation is a threat that nearly everyone there faces, yet these hardships are used as an excuse by Christians to establish their missions, in the name of “helping others,” which really is another way of saying, “spreading Christianity.” It’s imperialism where guns and swords are replaces with bags of grain and prayer.

Ok, what about Australia? Well, Australia is there today because of England. For years, the convicts, and criminals of England were shipped off and dumped in one of the harshest environments known to man. Those that couldn’t survive in the harsh landscape died slowly of heat exhaustion and starvation. Those that could survive grew and thrived until they eventually became the rather polite and hard-working country that we know today as Australia.

That brings me to the Middle East. Anyone pretending that the Crusades were anything other than a bloody argument over “which God is the right God” is fooling themselves. That’s all it was: hundreds of years of senseless violence and thousands of people slaughtering each other over how to name the invisible dude in the sky. Remember, the Crusades took place over a span of about 1200 years, intermittently, so this petty squabble has literally been going on since the dawn of recorded history.

But no matter how bloody and screwed up the Crusades in the Middle East were, they were nothing to the torment and violence created by the heart of evil, the skid-mark of European History: The Spanish Inquisition. Here, literally thousands of people were rounded up by the church, tortured until they screamed in agony that they believed in God, then murdered. This wasn’t some attempt to spread the word of God, like in other parts of the world. This was simply how civilian order was held in check. Didn’t go to church last Sunday? Tortured and killed. Didn’t pay off your debts? Tortured and killed. Spoke out something that the preacher didn’t agree with? Tortured and killed.

Let’s not leave any un-clarity here: there hasn’t been a single example in history where power wasn’t abused in the name of the Christian God. In fact, even the Pope himself right now has been accused multiple times of participating in the cover-up of child-molestation cases. If past and present historical events aren’t enough to raise some questioning eyebrows about the “sanctity” of Christian beliefs, then I’m really not sure what will.

And yet Texas is rampant with evangelical conservatives who believe that their ideals are somehow “better” than that of their predecessors. If that’s the case, then why are suicide rates amongst the gay, lesbian, and transgendered community so much higher in Texas? Why the need to write Hispanics out of historical events? Why the need to artificially make black people look violent? Why are the same people claiming to uphold the teachings of Jesus Christ, a peaceful figure who stood for love and forgiveness also turning around and condemning minorities for being minorities, gays for being gay, and science for being only a theory?

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” was supposed to mean that nobody is truly without sin; therefore nobody is within the right to cast a stone at all. It was not meant to be interpreted as, “as long as you go to church and pay/pray, you’re in the clear, line up and get your stones.”

As for Mr. David Bradley, and his thousand dollar challenge to anyone who can find the separation of church and state in the constitution, I’d like to address his challenge. You see, this isn’t the 18^th century, where there is only one hidden copy that is carefully shielded from the public. This is the 21^st century, where I can get any information I want within less than a second. Type the words “US Constitution” into Google search and you’ll be hit with over a million responses. It took me longer to write this paragraph than it did to find this excerpt:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Just for the record, Mr. Bradley…that law you thought didn’t exist is called “The First Amendment.” It protects the American People from tyrannical attempts to limit our right to opinion, our right to religious freedom, and our right to assemble and congregate. That part about “no law respecting an establishment of religion” specifically states that religion in any form cannot be ratified by the US Government as official.

The same law that allows you to meet in your Church is the same law that allows you to spout your ignorant views and close-minded rhetoric, and it just so happens that that’s the same law that you’re so ill informed that you believe it doesn’t exist. If this law didn’t exist, then by definition, you would not have the right to even meet at your church, as a church congregation would be an unlawful assembly. And you have the audacity to try and claim that this law doesn’t exist while at the same time reaping the rewards from the freedoms it grants…there’s a word for that kind of behavior.

I’ll take that thousand dollars now…in cash please, you don’t seem trustworthy.

The attack on the Environment

There are so many things to cover in this topic that I could have easily made a guide out of examples from just this section alone. Should I begin with Texas Congressman Louie Gomert endorsing legislation that would allow hydraulic fracturing (fraking) to be legalized in more places in the United States? Or should I start with how Gomert, Ralph Hall, and Sam Johnson (also Texas Congressmen) all support the idea of opening up offshore drilling again? I could mention the Keystone XL Oil Pipeline project that pretty much every conservative Texas Congressman is pushing for, and the fact that it would end up devastating the atmosphere and ensuring that global warming hits the earth with full force within 20 years…

But none of these come close to truly measuring the level of just how messed up the environmental thinking is in conservative Texas politics. Sure, each and every point above is just another example showing how blatantly the Republican Party seems to despise the very idea that life can exist without God and the “free market.” I truthfully would not be surprised if the United States declared a War on Trees while under a Perry or Bachman Administration.

I don’t need to try very hard to make my case, either, as the current lashing out from various conservative politicians toward the Environmental Protection Agency is more than enough fuel for this fire. Texas Congressman Joe Barton is apparently spearheading the media and legal assaults on the EPA, claiming outlandish things like, “the EPA is the Grinch that is stealing Christmas from the American Economy.”

Congressman Barton isn’t the first of his kind to begin the attack. In fact, the original driving force behind the first challenges to the authority of the EPA came from George W. Bush during his 2000-2004 administration. During this time, the political manipulation of the scientific community’s findings and publications became so distorted and misinformed that a petition was written and signed by more than 9,000 scientists, including 49 Nobel Laureates and 63 National Medal of Science recipients. The petition stated:

“When scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict with its political goals, the administration has often manipulated the process through which science enters into its decisions. This has been done by placing people who are professionally unqualified or who have clear conflicts of interest in official posts and on scientific advisory committees; by disbanding existing advisory committees; by censoring and suppressing reports by the government’s own scientists; and by simply not seeking independent scientific advice. Other administrations have, on occasion, engaged in such practices, but not so systematically nor on so wide a front. Furthermore, in advocating policies that are not scientifically sound, the administration has sometimes misrepresented scientific knowledge and misled the public about the implications of its policies.”

Simply speaking, the scientific community directly stated on a public medium, in writing, “We’ve had people stretch the truth before, but never to this extent.” This is the turning point by which the Republican Party began its systematic attempt to attack science and the environment simultaneously, and it all started from the actions of a single Texan.

In 2006, the bush administration attempted to de-fang the EPA by claiming that greenhouse gas emissions did not classify as air pollution, removing the regulation power from the EPA, preventing them from being able to do anything about carbon emissions. Thankfully, the decision was overturned by the Supreme Court. But since 2006, the EPA has been continually under fire as a result of Bush’s first efforts.

As of today, the EPA is currently facing several forms of legislation that are all directed attempts to counteract and undermine its ability to do its job. Here’s just another recent example from Congressman Barton:

“Unfortunately the EPA has once again chosen to put environmental activism over economic common sense.  The health benefits are questionable, but the economic costs of this rule are beyond question and extremely punitive. Next session of Congress I will encourage Chairman Upton to hold hearings and consider legislation to remedy this rule.”

One of these bills currently on the table is the American Energy Act, which is guised as a means of “securing our Nations energy needs.” It basically outlines the systematic dismantling of the EPA’s achievements by creating an entirely new governing entity that monitors energy-related industries under an entirely different set of rules. It would basically allow oil, natural gas, and coal, nuclear, and other energy-related companies to do whatever the hell they want, however the hell they want. This brings me to my last major point…

The attack on the Renewable Energy Industry

First off, every National Congressman from Texas endorses the American Energy Act, which essentially tears down the rules and regulations preventing more coal, nuclear, “hydropower,” geothermal, and biomass facilities. Each of these plants has their own horrifying downsides, so let’s stop and really think about what they’re proposing:

1. Coal plants are one of the most intense greenhouse-gas emitters humans could ever invent. We couldn’t design a more effective means of pumping CO2 into the atmosphere if we wanted to. It just so happens that it was such a cheap and easy means of lighting a fire 200 years ago, that our entire society eventually grew to require large amounts of coal to produce our electricity. Nowadays, there is no excuse for building more of these facilities, because as of 2011, solar power is now cheaper to install.
2. Appalling as it is to believe, most of the Texas Congressmen refer to nuclear-power as one of the “renewable” options. I don’t even understand where anyone could be so confused as to make this association. All nuclear-fuel is formed from radioactive material that was created billions of years ago within the collapsing core of a supernova star. Being radioactive, the fuel naturally decays into a non-useful form whether or not we’re around to use it. By definition, something we cannot create and that continually degrades is not “renewable.” There is no excuse for such willful misinformation. Anyone old enough to remember Regan is old enough to remember the downsides and public hazards associated with nuclear facilities. For the rest of you, I have only one word to say: Fukushima.
3. Hydropower plants are a white elephant, or “bridge to nowhere.” The U.S. has pretty much tapped out all of the locations where it’s feasible to build hydro-electric dams. Since humans naturally tend to inhabit the areas around bodies of water, any attempts to build another reservoir would result in many thousands of people being forced to move, or face an entirely new definition of “underwater mortgage.” If you live within a mile of a river, write a letter to the EPA and thank them that your home isn’t a 20^th-century Atlantis.
4. There are only a handful of locations in the US that are actively volcanic, so this suggestion basically translates to: “let’s build a power plant on top of Yellowstone, or within one of Hawaii’s national forests.” Considering the inherent dangers of messing with volcanic grounds, combined with the small population near these same areas, the only reason I can fathom for this suggestion is utter contempt for the environment. There is no benefit to this technology.
5. Biomass…sounds fancy, right? It’s corn. These facilities just burn the parts of corn, wheat, and other crops that we don’t otherwise use. They’re basically glorified coal plants, except instead of burning coal they burn wood, corn, leaves, or anything plant-based. That’s where the term “bio-mass” comes from.

Notice how wind and solar don’t make an appearance? The two technologies that actually are renewable are completely left out of this bill. In fact, if enacted, the American Energy Act would exempt all forms of oil or energy-based companies from any EPA regulations whatsoever, instead placing total authority under a new administrative branch, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). This bill would single-handedly defang the EPA and open the floodgates to all sorts of terrible things for the American people, such as fracking, offshore drilling, and carte blanche for all companies in terms of air pollution.

After a shocking revelation as intense as that, it’s hard to even fathom that this is only scratching the surface. There are those within Texas who seek to misinform and drum up false controversy like claiming that global warming is a hoax altogether. One in particular: Larry Bell, a Professor at the University of Houston, went so far as to make accusations that the renewable industry as a whole is corrupt, because it receives an “undue share” of federal subsidies. Here is a link to a Youtube interview of him, where he rambles aimlessly, spouting very obvious incorrect rhetoric, even to the annoyance of the interviewer. At 9 minutes and 45 seconds into the video, he mumbles this:

“Wind isn’t going to get us there, it’s just a blow-hard sort of scam. Solar is probably a bigger scam. The notion of a hydrogen economy is an oxymoron.”

With people like this teaching the young and upcoming minds in Texas, I’m almost afraid to see what kind of close-minded, conservative craziness that’s going to come out of the Lone Star State in the years to come.

Speaking of craziness, I feel that out of respect, I must take a moment to point out Texas Congressman Ron Paul, a man who seems to be living proof that if you pile up enough political bull-crap, you can eventually build up enough pressure to crush some of it into a crap-diamond. Ah yes…Ron Paul, both brilliant and attention grabbing, yet despised by nearly everyone in the political scene.

Hated as he is by his peers, the man actually makes a lot of sense. Listen to some of his opinions and explanations on Youtube, and judge for yourself. He honestly reminds me a lot of a calm and collected George Carlin. From what I can tell, he’s actually got a well-thought-out platform for reform for several large institutions within our government. Some of his issue stances are the following:

• He wants to dissolve the Federal Reserve
• He is against the Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act
• He wants to end the War on Drugs, and make drug information accessible to the public, so there is more general knowledge and less dependence on the FDA.
• He stands for the rights of the working class people.
• He also wants to eliminate the EPA…but he wants to re-write the laws so polluters have to directly pay the victims of their pollution, instead of paying fines to Washington levied by the EPA. This is odd, but better than his peers, who just want the EPA dead.

He’s a little unorthodox, but he actually makes sense the more you listen to him. I think he’s actually sees just how intertwined and engrained many of America’s problems have become within the government, and he understand that the only way to fix things is to make several massive changes to several overlapping systems at once. I’m curious to see how this election year will turn out…hopefully it’ll stay out of my industry so I don’t have to make any more political articles like this.

 

<< Return to Index