Can bloggers make a difference?

While perusing the morning paper, my husband has a habit of reading out loud things that he finds interesting. For instance, this morning he read an article about how scientists are planning on creating their own “big bang” in a particle accelerator (I think this is a very bad idea; haven’t these people read any science-fiction stories, cautionary tales of how the creation of a baby universe will totally anihilate our own?) and how all the information collected and burnt onto CDs, when stacked up, will create a pile 10 times higher than the CN Tower. Unfortunately, when he is reading these things aloud, I am rarely paying attention. Usually I am doing the crossword puzzle or reading the comics or still not completely awake. This story finally got my interest towards the end of the telling and I had to ask him to repeat himself, which is why I am able to relate it here.

However, he did hand me the newspaper at one point and said, “You have to read this,” and showed me an article with the heading “Why Iran wants bomb: The Shia regime in Tehran believes its nukes will speed the second coming of the Mahdi”. Well, I read it, and I advise you to also, although there is much you can skim. However, the important point is this: The Islamic government in Iran is creating an arsenal of nuclear weapons for the sole purpose of wiping out the “infidel”, i.e. the U.S. and its allies, and for totally destroying the State of Israel (which, I may add, has a very large population of Moslems) in the rather twisted belief that this will hasten the second coming of the Prophet.

There was one thing that rather struck me in this article. I wonder if it will strike you the same way. Let me quote something from it for you: “Islam also has four-fifths of the world’s oil reserves, and so controls the lifeblood of the infidel.” Do you not think, my intelligent and astute friends, that the time is well nigh for the “West” to finally develop and produce a non-petroleum based fuel technology, an alternative to the wasteful combustion engine? If we ceased to purchase oil from the middle east, the effects to Iran’s economy would be even more devastating than we can imagine. Why should we finance our own forecast destruction and destroy the already-depleted ozone layer at the same time?

The technology is there, it’s been there for quite some time, to produce a hydrogen powered engine, or alternative fuels, such as gasohol, or vegetable-oil based gasolines. I do not understand this reluctance, or is it just obtuseness, on the part of the wealthiest nation with the greatest resources, both in materials and brain power, in the world to be so off the mark in this business. Come on, guys, is there nothing we lowly bloggers can do about this?