Educated Idiots

I have come to really wish that Rep. Thaddeus McCotter was my Congressman. He appears pretty regularly on The Dennis Miller radio show, he is funny, grounded and pretty common sensical. McCotter has a site called McCotterrocks.com that I recommend if you want a common sense approach to issues and Ideas and what he calls Educated Idiots. His first Educated Idiots award is to evironmentalists who think that increasing gas prices is needed to cut carbon emissions.

(In what is rarely a good sign) a New York Times blog reports the Harvard-based Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has determined fuel prices must rise significantly to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Thus, in the name of discredited Leftist psuedo-science, your gas prices could reach $7 a gallon.
In this tepid spat of Think Tanks vs. Gas Tanks, we glean two things: these researchers have recession-proof jobs; and they are unconcerned you don’t.
How else to explain these researchers’ cavalier demand that your shrinking family budget must get smaller and your job must become more tenuous all so Goddess Gaia can keep her cool?

Here is the problem with increasing gas prices that McCotter assumes but doesn't break down:

We are a gas dependent society!!. We don't have big mass transit programs that will enable us to get from home to work without getting in our car. Our attempts at developing "sustainable" communities is laughable. How many times do you get in your car to run an errand? How far do you have to drive to get to the grocery store? How far do you have to drive to get to work? How much do you drive to get to things on teh weekend, your kid's soccer/baseball/hockey/football game? How far do you drive to go out to dinner?

All those planned, mixed use developments are miles from your house. We are a nation of suburbs, which means we are a nation of commuters. Gas at $7 per gallon will kill this economy faster than anything else.

So yeah, that is good idea.