Rants From The Rookery: Texas, the leader of all the states and all but six nations

Monday, June 04, 2007

Texas, the leader of all the states and all but six nations

In greenhouse emissions:

Washington, DC (AHN) - Texas has been crowned the leader of greenhouse gas. A recent study conducted by the Associated Press, shows the state comes in No. 1, mostly due to burning coal for electricity.

The Lonestar state produces more carbon dioxide than California and Pennsylvania, which have twice the state's population.

Texas produces so much carbon dioxide, it out produces every nation in the world, except for six.

Per person though, Wyoming produces more carbon dioxide per person. Coal burning produces nearly all of the state's power. But Idaho, which does not allow power plants, produces the least carbon dioxide per year.

While most states are focusing on cutting emissions, Nebraska has actually increased its emissions by 16 percent from 1990 to 2003.

Well. What do you expect from a state whose proclaimed state dish is chili? (With beans, I'm assuming...)

(Sorry, Steve, it's a joke! /runs away)

8 comments:

Sorghum Crow said...: Texas is number one is so many things, not all of them pretty.; 6/4/07, 11:18 AM
Steve Bates said...: Ouch. And I don't mean the beans joke; I mean the whole AHN article implying... falsely, IMHO... that Americans elsewhere can blame their environmental and political problems on Texas. That is nothing new, of course. But scapegoating is still an ugly business.

After sElection 2000 and again after (s?)Election 2004, a surprising number of lefty bloggers damned the approximately 40 percent of us in Texas who opposed Bush in every way we could. Those bloggers... I'll be polite and not name names... held us personally responsible for Bush's "victory."

Never mind that one group of us spent a year before Bush's first selection trying to tell everyone nationwide exactly what Bush did in Texas as Governor... and not only did no one listen, few would even publish our stuff in print newspapers. But some lefty bloggers thought we just didn't try hard enough. Or weren't smart enough. Or something. At any rate, we were blamed, individually, personally, for the character flaw of having lived in Texas when Mr. Bush was selected.

I went onto some threads defending the 40 percent and found myself treated as if I were a Bush supporter. Yes, I found it offensive. Wouldn't you?

At least one member of The Liberal Coalition will tell you straight out that Texas culture is uncivilized, that all Texans partake of that uncivilized culture, and that that culture is responsible for producing the man who would be king. Never mind that Bush was born in Connecticut and raised in obscene wealth (which as far as I can tell displays the same arrogance everywhere it appears), and that his "Texas" accent is a certifiable fake.

Another member of The Liberal Coalition, whose site is not primarily political in nature, didn't understand why I found his/her bashing of liberal Texans not funny. I guess we Texas liberals have no sense of humor.

And now it's Texas' environmental woes, from which Texans suffer worst and most immediately, that allow us to serve as a whipping boy. As if no one here noticed or tried to do anything about the problems. As if our local Sierra Club (which I served first as a political committee member and later an executive committee member) didn't hire one of the name-brand environmental lawyers in the country to sue over this issue and related issues in our area. As if no one here gave a damn. Sorry, but yes, it's tiresome. If any of the 40 percent lived somewhere else than Texas, we'd be thought of as comrades-in-arms. But state stereotyping trumps all.

FTR, I eat my chili with only beans and peppers. No damned hamburger goes into my chili; they need that in Austin to dump into the laws. (Or maybe that's primarily pork.) On good days, after a couple of bowls, I can compete with the noxious emissions from the refineries southeast of Houston, the ones that make a lot of the gasoline everyone burns... everywhere in the nation.; 6/4/07, 12:22 PM
ellroon said...: Steve, you are the best of Texas.

Sorry my joke triggered bad memories. Obviously some of us needed someone specifically to blame. Hope it made them feel better because you must have felt massively frustrated and silenced.

You can blame me for hatching Reagan in my state and letting him loose upon the nation. Did anyone listen to us about what an awful governor he was?

Nope....

Now about chili with hamburger... is that a crime?; 6/4/07, 12:49 PM
Steve Bates said...: "I don't mean any ill-will senior Bates, and I appreciate your membership in the sane 40% of your state. / Unfortunately, I see the state mis-characterize itself with its "We're biggest, we're baddest, and we're the chun-chun-chunkiest around." - mapaghimagsik

mapaghimagsik, who, exactly, is "the state"? Do 40 percent of us not represent a decent portion of the people in the state? (That number is higher now, by the way, though I don't have it at hand. A lot of the 60 percent have since grown fed up with Bush.) There's plenty wrong with Texas, and a lot of us are doing our best to rectify it. All I ask is acknowledgment that not everybody in the state is like Bush. It's surprisingly difficult to elicit that acknowledgment, even from people I would think understood the situation.

"Sorry my joke triggered bad memories." - ellroon

"You can blame me for hatching Reagan in my state and letting him loose upon the nation. Did anyone listen to us about what an awful governor he was?" - ellroon

ellroon, this isn't about whether I have a sensitive spot, or whether California "hatched" Saint Ronald: this is about whether liberal bloggers are, or are not, down with the concept of collective guilt. I'm not. I realize you're not, either, but I am repeatedly astonished at the general instinct to blame Texas and Texans for problems brought on at least in part by Americans' own worst instincts, then fed by Texas, which, in the case of oil products, provides Americans with their addictive drug. Who is more to blame, the pusher or the addict? I can see arguments both ways, but I am very reluctant to see otherwise sensible bloggers lay all the blame on Texas. It's not merely unfair: it's untrue.; 6/4/07, 1:15 PM
ellroon said...: /searches for concepts of collective guilt... feels guilty...

Good points, Steve. Texas is truly part of the U.S. psyche and even though we'd like to deny it, we've helped make Texas what it is.

It's just frightening to see what happens when our baser instincts are given free rein: pollution, corruption, racism, greed.

But then... you can find those qualities in any state, just with different accents and no cowboy boots.; 6/4/07, 2:28 PM
mapaghimagsik said...: I think this is more that Texas is more the symbol of all that's horrid, rather than being blamed.

It is no more correct to blame all the US for the 28% of dead enders we have.

It might not be fair, it is what it is, and what we do to combat that symbolism is what makes use *not* part of the 28%.

I'd also like to point out that the 40%, as noble as they may be, still live in a state that has the highest rate of capital punishment in the nation. As a state is an entity by virtue of its laws...as much as I can enjoy a conversation with 40% of the state, I'm still going to avoid visiting or going there because of the 60% that seems to disagree with moi.

Cheers and all!; 6/4/07, 3:01 PM
Steve Bates said...: On the TCEQ air quality site, Houston is having a "red" air day: "unhealthy for sensitive groups," and a former colleague involved in air issues tells me that almost everyone who breathes is in a sensitive group. Beyond that, there are dark red, purple, and black air days. In the years since the site started, I've seen two instances of "purple" days and no "black" days... I doubt I'd live to report a "black" day. We really do get the worst of the pollution we generate. Maybe Houstonians should get federal medical coverage for the risks we take in behalf of America's Hummer drivers... yeah, right, like that would ever happen; even the troops back from Iraq can't get decent medical care.

mapaghimagsik, I agree that Texas has become a symbol for a variety of outrages, including those legitimately assigned to Texas. That high rate of capital punishment is in part due to one hyperactive prosecutor... in my county, which is Harris. Until my feet gave out, you could find me almost any Wednesday evening, rain or shine, at the weekly anti-death-penalty protest at a public fountain in the middle of Main Street, and it is my sense that we are making progress in legal aspects if not yet in public opinion. (BTW, mapaghimagsik, every few months I write an anti-death-penalty screed on my blog. I'll try to let you know the next time I do so.)

ellroon, you of all people have no reason to feel guilty about collective guilt; you are not among those who have hammered on me just for living in Texas during the reign of Bush Junior. Relax. Here, have a Saint Ronald, um, I mean, a Saint Arnold, a product of our local microbrewery. I assure you it won't leave a bitter taste in your mouth. (For a different opinion, consult Stella, who detests all beer. :)); 6/4/07, 4:16 PM
ellroon said...: "Here, have a Saint Ronald, um, I mean, a Saint Arnold, a product of our local microbrewery. I assure you it won't leave a bitter taste in your mouth. (For a different opinion, consult Stella, who detests all beer. :))"

Okay, this made me laugh. Thanks, but I don't drink. (Think my husband married me to have a permanent designated driver.)

Saint Ronald... Saint Arnold... could you possibly mean Ahnold the Gropenator as well? After wasting 60+ million on an unwanted election of unwanted propositions that the voters voted down, he's begun to talk centrist talk. Talk about a bitter taste...

People are talking about changing the Constitution to get him to be president. Just remember, this is California warning the nation.; 6/4/07, 4:44 PM