Photo by Clayton Henkel, NC Newsline.
Speaking as a person who has done some amazing things in my life, and also some… er… how should I put this…
…some sub-optimal things…
…I will confess that I like taking credit. But not blame.
Other people, I notice, act the same way. They like to take credit, but don’t want to accept blame. So it’s up to the rest of us to assign the blame.
Which we do, happily. And often.
I had coffee meeting with a friend earlier this week, and although we talked politics, we left the meeting still friends. I was a bit miffed, however, that my friend has become disenchanted with our current President, after voting for him three times.
“If I owned a MAGA hat,” he confessed, “I would burn it.”
That seems to me like the waste of a perfectly serviceable $47 hat. He could probably get $10 for it at a pawn shop. Instead of burning it.
I mean, it’s going to be a collector’s item someday. Just like my Social Security card, someday. A collector’s item.
And like my gasoline-powered car.
Driving a gasoline-powered car is something I’ve done, proudly, for the past 40 years. But some people want to blame me.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency — experts at assigning blame — a typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year. 4.6 metric tons strikes me as an exaggerated number, considering that a hot-air balloon full of CO2 actually floats upward.
Suggesting that CO2 weighs next to nothing.
But according EPA estimates, I have apparently been responsible for about 184 metric tons of CO2 over 40 years of driving various cars.
Cumulatively, the United States has emitted over a trillion metric tons of greenhouse gases. So my personal contribution has been relatively meaningless.
Nevertheless, it turns out that CO2 is not such a bad thing after all. Back in the late 1980s, the federal government swallowed the fake story that climate change was a real thing caused by a trillion metric tons of car exhaust and other kinds of pollution. But climate change is a hoax, as was explained to the UN General Assembly in 2025 by our President:
[Climate change] is the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion… All of these predictions… were made by stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes and given those same countries, no chance for success. If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.
Unlike the rest of the UN General Assembly, we don’t want our country to fail. So, a year ago, we stopped giving federal rebates for EVs. Which was a slightly amazing turn-around after 35 years of believing in climate change.
The current problem, however, is the price of gas.
Historically, when the price of gas goes above $4 a gallon, two things happen.
The oil companies make windfall profits.
And people start buying electric cars.
As some readers may have noticed, the price of gas has been above $4 a gallon since last April. This was not something I wanted to see happen.
For one thing, I hate the thought of oil companies making windfall profits, just on principle.
As far as people buying electric cars… I have always maintained that electricity needs to be tightly controlled, or else it will eventually be everywhere. When I was a kid, we all knew where electricity belonged, and where it didn’t belong.
Where it belonged: in light bulbs, televisions, record players, telephones, toasters, and electric blankets.
But we weren’t paying attention. By the time I was in college, electricity had found its way into a myriad other appliances. Electric can openers. Dishwashers. VHS video machines. Electric razors. CD players. Hair dryers. Electric guitars. Weed eaters. And most importantly, computers and printers.
But none of these items uses close to the amount of electricity an electric car uses. Without thinking, people started buying them. This was like turning a monster loose.
Now electricity is running entire data centers and AI, and threatening human existence.
We didn’t see it coming.
So pardon me if I want to assign some blame. Before it’s too late.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.