REPOST from old blog: Big Industry does whats Popular

I would like for you to remember back in th late 80's and early 90's when the whole paper or plastic thing started. Remember when we started going all plastic because paper was made of trees. And cutting down trees was bad. Now it turns out trees are "renewable" and plastic bags are made from oil in some fashion. And now everyone hates big oil enough to start cutting out plastic bags. Whole Foods has just announced that they are no longer having plastic bags. And they are going to encourage us to use re-usable bags, which is great. I guess it just sucks that it takes so long for industry to admit there are problems.
Another great example is "Who Killed the Electric Car". Which especially angers me as of late. I saw a GM commercial on the TV saying something to the effect of 'we are finding ways to get us energy independent'. YEAH, NOW THAT ENERGY EFFICIENCY IS POPULAR. Back when it wasn't popular GM took a bunch of money from oil companies to not make more efficient cars. Which they probably still do to this day. But back in the day GM made the EV-1 which everyone liked so much, it made 200 miles on one charge, all electric. No complaints from anyone as far as the engineering went. When it came time for the lease to be up, GM took all the cars back not allowing the owners to buy the car at the end of the lease. So what happened to all those cars basically stripped from their owners? They were taken to a GM proving ground where nearly all of them were CRUSHED. Basically someone in GM said these cars are just too good and we aren't going to get any kickbacks from oil if we keep producing them. I believe this was also the same time when you could get a 3k deductable in your taxes for a hybrid. Or a 30k deductable for a gas guzzling GM hummer for your business. Fast forward to now and they have GM "hybrids" that get over 20 miles per gallon..wowee! And 85% ethanol vehicles that get even worse gas mileage, and are dependent on corn instead of oil. Guess what? We don't have enough land in america to have enough corn fields to fuel all our vehicles with E85 fuel. (actual calculation by motor trend) But that stuff sure is popular now, even with the president. You also have to use even more energy to take the corn from the fields to the factory to make the ethanol. And I have already heard reports of shortages in edible corn because all the farmers are converting to ethanol corn because it pays so much better. So yeah I could go on forever. Basically the point is that if enough people tell industry they want one thing, as long as it makes more money industry is happy to oblige. THE ONLY WAY TO RID OURSELVES OF OIL DEPENDENCY IS TO NOT USE IT AT ALL. BIODIESEL and ELECTRICTY. No one is going to change until they have to and by then it will be really late in the game.