Michael Giberson
I tried typing with gloves on, but it didn?t turn out so well. (Can you read this: ?Tgjhkis a tewaest rfp0 k,u tuju[o9jme woytuj gp0v4es pjm.? Me neither.)
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman is urging consumers to be more ?energy conscious? and called for greater conservation and energy efficiency. I forgot to turn the heat up this morning and my fingers were beginning to feel the effects of last night?s energy consciousness, hence the glove experiment. Until I get a gloves better suited to typing, however, I?ll just have to remember to crank up the heat.
I was getting my fingers warmed up to complain about something Bodman said in a speech in Washington on Thursday. According to a Dow Jones Newswire story:
“The damage that was inflicted on our oil and gas production by the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico … have certainly increased the public’s awareness of energy issues,” Bodman told the group. “Now we must do an even better job of heightening this awareness to make America’s energy consumers smarter, more conscientious, and more efficient.”
That struck me as not quite on target. Contrary to our esteemed Secretary of Energy, I would suggest that it wasn?t the damage, per se, but plain old higher energy prices that increased public awareness of energy issues. However, when I found the full text of the speech on the Department of Energy website, it turned out that the ellipsis concealed a relevant addition. Here is the full paragraph from the speech:
The damage that was inflicted on our oil and gas production by the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico–and the high prices exacerbated by intense global energy demand–have certainly increased the public?s awareness of energy issues. Now we must do an even better job of heightening this awareness to make America?s energy consumers smarter, more conscientious, and more efficient.
This is awful, of course, because it means that checking original sources is actually useful. As a fairly standard blogger ? well I am out of my pajamas already this morning, but aside from mode of dress ? I prefer to bloviate untaxed by traditional journalistic norms and old fashion practices like fact checking. I promise that I only went to the Department of Energy website because I couldn?t find a public, non-subscription version of the Dow Jones story. I wasn’t trying to check my facts, honest.
So anyway, I had this rant about the relative value of prices and politicians with respect to getting the public to economize on energy, but I?ll have to find another hook to hang it on. Meanwhile, my fingers are getting cold, so thjhat iow all I jhave top sqayu on thje tyoppioc.