In the wake of Joe Manchin’s back stabbing of his fellow Democrats this week, an attempt to keep West Virginia comfortably in the Nineteenth Century, I felt the need to offer a realistic approach for the environmental cause going forward. In short, we need to move forward aggressively in the nuclear energy sector soon if we have any hope of staving off climate change.

Unfortunately like almost everything in the world of public policy, this point of view is not perfect, but is a lesser evil much in the way that Hillary was in 2016. If that didn’t rattle the cages of the ideological purists who squeamishly voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, enjoy your Supreme Court Justices for the next thirty years you bunch of simpletons.

The United States currently has fifty-five nuclear power plants with an average age of around forty years old, the most recent came online in twenty-sixteen. The fact is that nuclear power can provide a clean, stable source of energy for all the time that the sun isn’t shining on solar panels or wind isn’t propelling turbines.

Nuclear is the answer to how we power all the electric vehicles in the future, and move away from the most environmentally catastrophic sources of energy like coal, oil and natural gas. All of those batteries aren’t going to charge themselves, and a well regulated nuclear industry can be the bridge to our energy future as well as lower dependence on foreign sources.

Back to the purists, nuclear energy is not risk free, but significant progress has been made. Let’s take a look at three of the most commonly cited nuclear disasters: Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island. The Chernobyl disaster was a result primarily of misplaced Soviet bravado, and extremely short sighted cost cutting measures in the construction and composition of the plant that compromised safety. In addition there was a near complete lack of damage mitigation structure around the reactor.

With Fukushima, simply put, Japan never should have been in the nuclear business. The risk factors of being located on a major fault line that has repeatedly experienced major earthquakes, and susceptibility to tsunamis on the coast which ultimately caused the plant to fail and melt down should have been foreseen long before construction.

Three Mile Island was not as significant of a disaster as the aforementioned, but was in the United States. Though a relief valve failed and caused a partial meltdown of the reactor core, the concrete protective structure around the core prevented a much more serious radioactive event from taking place. Better regulation and safety procedures may have prevented the event, but the worst was avoided.

Building well regulated, modern nuclear facilities in areas statistically safe from natural disasters could prove to be a palatable comprise between the fossil fuel addicted right and the green obsessed left. I would even suggest using eminent domain to build facilities in areas that fit that criteria, here’s looking at you Dakotas.

That bumper sticker, and the dozens of memes and references I’ve seen since have never ceased to make me crack a wide, devious, and undeniably smug smile. Sometime this year, when I saw the sticker actually on the back of another Prius, I realized the world had come full circle and my grin was ear to ear. Please allow me take you through my last five commutes to work:

My Commute according to Google Maps is 24.3 miles, a combination of highway and city streets, and I averaged 52.88 miles per gallon over 5 trips. I was a History major, but I thought it would be important to include some of my mathematical insights as I did finish at the top of my only math class; MATH 1180 Math For Liberal Arts (Yes, it was actually called that).

This particular tank was filled at $4.99 a gallon, and for the purposes of not straining my little snowflake brain, I’m going to call it $5.00. So this is a sizable commute, from Northwest Columbus to the East side, and with these numbers, I was paying less than $5.00 a day there and back. Can somebody, anybody, give me a, “Let’s Go Brandon?!”

In 2015, the year I bought my 2012 Prius C, the average fuel economy for new cars in the United States soared to 24.8 miles per gallon. (Citation Below) I did pay more to buy a hybrid back then than I would have paid for an average car, but let’s put that into a little 2022 perspective. I paid $12,500 for my Prius in 2015, and have been averaging around 50 miles per gallon or more combined since then.

United States Average Gas Prices By Year 2015-Present:

2015: $2.45, 2016: $2.14, 2017: $2.42, 2018: $2.72, 2019: $2.60, 2020: $2.17 2021: $3.01 2022: $4.90

Cost of My Current Commute By Year, Average 2015 Vehicle Vs. 2012 Prius C

4 in office days a week, 8 trips a week, 24.3 miles, 50 weeks a year. (8×24.3×50=9,720)

Average Car 2015, 25 MPG = 388.8 Gallons/Year:

2015: $952.56 2016: $832.03 2017: $940.89 2018: $1,057.53 2019: $1,010.88 2020: $843.69 2021: $1,170.29 2022: $1,905.12

7 Year Total: $8,712.90

Prius C 2012, 50 MPG = 194.4 Gallons/Year:

2015: $476.28 2016: $416.02 2017: $470.45 2018: $528.77 2019: $505.44 2020: $421.85 2021: $585.15 2022: $952.56

7 Year Total: $4,356.52

My decision was based on both my environmentalist beliefs and personal economics, two things that are only mutually exclusive if you are a moron, or have consistent proximity to truck nuts. In short, you can irrationally blame gas prices on Biden, but you should have gotten smart long before a 2020 decision was in your care.

Toyota has been selling the Prius in the United States since 2000, and many other auto makers have followed in the hybrid market since then. What I’m trying to say is that if you haven’t made a smarter decision on your vehicle by now, I have no sympathy for you. You don’t have to buy a Tesla to make a difference, willful ignorance however is inexcusable.

I’ll leave you with another quote to ponder, and know that it’s never too late to go green, but you might have to remove the fake testicles from your vehicle first. “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.” – Otto Von Bismarck

Average fuel economy of U.S. vehicles hits record high of 24.8 mpg

https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/planes-trains-and-automobiles/average-gas-prices-through-history/

It wasn’t my first time seeing palm trees, it wasn’t my first time west of the Mississippi, but it was my first time in the Republic of California. That Eagles lyric, ‘You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave’ needs to be updated to; ‘If you can afford it, you will never leave.’ I can’t find another way to describe it: paradise.

Spending the better part of a week there was magical. The only regret I had was not making it two weeks. I started planning the trip wanting to play Torrey Pines Golf Course, but after a few youtube videos I realized that was totally out of my league. My best friend and I did still make the trip up to Torrey Pines and it was the most beautiful golf course I have ever seen.

Despite a water crisis the course looked great, if my handicap dramatically improves I will be taking another swing at this one. I did fulfill the golf requirement of the trip however, as the next day we headed to Mission Bay Golf Course. The course was fantastic and the weather couldn’t have been better, we played a 4 ball scramble and started out -2 on the front but ended +2.

We continued on the following day to Los Angeles, and I have to say even though we encountered a limited amount of traffic during the time we were there, I understand the nightmare. Coming from San Diego on the 5 freeway we got a great view of the skyline, and made our way to the L.A. Galaxy stadium we were looking for.

The stadium was great, and we weaseled our way into getting this photo by persistence and friendliness with the front desk staff, almost as if Ted Lasso was with us. My friend has a bucket list to visit every MLS stadium, so one more down and I collect jerseys so I got their June pride jersey. Honestly how could I escape Los Angeles in June without something colorful?

We continued on to the tourist trap of the Hollywood sign, not my first choice, but my friend is never going back to California. It was worth it since we were there, and the Hollywood sign park is definitely the place to go if you need the picture.

From the Hollywood sign we moved on to Pasadena and the Rose Bowl. I don’t know a bigger Ohio State fan than my best friend, so this was like seeing Mecca. I have no idea what will become of The Rose Bowl now that USC and UCLA will be joining the Big Ten, but seeing it even from the outside was a religious experience.

‘The Big Lebowski’ is my favorite movie, and I studied film extensively in college, so this trip to California was a long time coming. I’ve been to Europe and I knew that would be the only comparison I could make as I reside in Ohio.

California did not disappoint. If you are looking for a vacation with perfect weather and don’t have a passport, Southern California is the answer. We stayed in La Jolla, and I can’t say anything negative about it. Europe has a leg up for historical significance on almost any western destination, but Southern California is where I want my ashes spread.

After these last couple weeks I’ve come to find that the US Constitution is very similar to the bible, in that, if you want to be a hateful, vitriolic dipshit, it can be interpreted to prove whatever perverse conclusion you want. While this is nothing new, and was most notably exercised to justify slavery in this country, the christian rights’ insistence on pushing their values on others is no less infuriating.

Even though the first amendment begins with, ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion’ it is very clear that the current Supreme Court will be ruling as a fundamentalist christian entity. The decision on Roe appears to be only the first target in its crosshairs, and represents a landmark decision in that it takes away rights from millions of people rather than advancing them.

With that being established now, their final day of rulings had to include an attack on the environment. All of god’s creation, something christians care so little about, really brings into question the role they see for their creator. How could you possibly think that a loving god came down and created this beautiful planet, and didn’t have any expectation of taking care of it?

The decision at the end of this July fourth freedom week is a big victory for coal, yes, that old boyfriend you never thought you’d hear from again. For the court to rule that The Environmental Protection Agency does not have to the authority to regulate industry and protect the environment is so absurd that it’s as if they are prepping for a banana republican open mic night. 

Remember when Obama said that Miami was flooding when the sun was shining? That was seven years ago, and four of those were under the rule of a president who put a former oil executive in charge of the EPA. Climate change is real, like hell apparently, and we appear to be moving closer to that temperature with every stroke of the pen from this group of Salem wanna-be jurists.