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Literature Discussion - Lit-Talk.com
On the Threshold of a Dream -
Renewable Fuels in America
By Warren Turner, Farmers Growing Fuel (USA)
Click here if you'd like to exchange critiques
In 1908—exactly 100 years ago—the visionary Henry Ford created the Model “T” Ford. Its engine was fueled by Ethanol: the “perfect fuel”, as Henry called it; clean-burning, efficient, inexpensive, and produced from crops grown by American farmers, so that farms and rural communities throughout the nation could forever be self-sustaining and viable. Now, not only would farmers produce food for people and feed for livestock; they would also produce inexpensive transportation fuel, to fuel the great number of automobiles that Ford assembly lines were poised to produce.
At the same point in time, another American visionary, George Washington Carver, in noting America’s blessing of an abundance of natural mineral, gas, oil, and coal deposits, also noted that these natural deposits need never be frivolously or unnecessarily utilized, and that they should be allowed to remain in their natural state as emergency reserves. Mr. Carver’s focus was on rural development, and, specifically, rural development in the deep South, and his position was that American farmers could forever grow crops to produce all the transportation fuel necessary to fuel America’s vehicles, while helping to sustain their communities and to guarantee their own livelihoods.
A fast-forward of 100 years brings us to today, October 24, 2008, where we are poised on the threshold of that dream first envisioned in 1908—to produce and utilize renewable fuels for personal transportation and in our transportation industry, in the United States--and now, in doing so, to accomplish the following:
1. To revitalize our rural communities, where jobs have been lost to other countries.
2. To provide inexpensive transportation fuel and a return to stable prices, as opposed to fluctuating and escalating costs for fuels derived from imported oil, over which we have no control.
3. To halt the greatest transfer of wealth the world has ever known--from our country, now dependent on imported oil, to those countries which have oil.
4. To sever our dependence on foreign oil (and all its ramifications), and, specifically, oil imported from areas where terrorism originates.
5. Last—and above all—to arrest and (hopefully) reverse the climate change caused by a century of burning fossil fuels, so as to maintain a habitable planet for ourselves and future generations.
All intelligent, scientific information points out that the continued burning of fossil fuels will result in the demise of our planet; and every intelligent voice on Earth is now demanding that a “green revolution” begin immediately.
These are exciting times for the United States and the world: from this “green revolution” will arise more positive activity—more employment, more industry, more production, more invention, and more innovation-- than the world has ever known. And, ultimately, with the green revolution that is about to begin, we will guarantee a habitable planet for ourselves and our children and grandchildren. What could be more important?
Warren Turner
www.farmersgrowingfuel.org
