My take on "green politics"

First off, this is in no way an attempt to slander environmentalists. Its pretty evident that a lot of people are ignorant of nature when they would rather throw their # on the side of the highway than just as easily drop it in the next trash can they see. They would scoff if you tried to make them aware that the litter would quickly add up and literally suffocate earth if everyone was as lazy as them. But I really don't think the government's interest is in saving you from industrial pollution- I think its just a facade.

The right-wing has always been suspicious of the concept of global warming. I don't think most would doubt that the industrial revolution had at least some negative effect on the environment, but most are skeptical that its as severe as we're being told it is. Now obviously, environmentalists are still a minority in the U.S. Yet we're constantly being bombarded with TV commercials from corporations that are celebrating the fact that they "went green"- as if we should all be literally excited by it. You probably already have a specific commercial in mind. They're everywhere. What makes this shady is the fact that advertisements normally preach to the choir; the target audience is usually made of people who are already supportive of the company and can easily be persuaded. But in the case of these "green" commercials- the majority of the audience is of people who really don't care at all. Yet we are constantly exposed to the emotional appeal of these advertisements as if we're supposed to change our minds after so long... almost like Nazi propaganda (let the flaming begin).

President Obama, himself, has mentioned in his speeches that he wants the U.S. to be a leader of "clean energy" and whatnot. And at the rate we're going, it looks like Americans are going to have a monopoly on this new technology and whatever alternative fuel sources we invent. China is currently accelerating their research into the development of the same technology, but it seems like our government is confident we'll come ahead in the little arms race of energy research.

The secondary selling point of green technology will be the desire to become independent of oil. Tons of people who don't think twice about the environment are still very supportive of the green movement because they're convinced that the world oil supplies are quickly depleting. I know some of you here have seen the "Collapse" documentary and believe we're only a couple years away from completely running out of oil. I'm not saying it isn't the case, but its quite possibly just another conspiracy to push the elite's agenda.

If and when corporate America feels ready to mass produce their new energy systems, they would likely try to panic the world into believing that there is very little oil left anywhere on earth. It would almost be a common sense tactic. How convenient it would be when people are already waiting to hear that all the oil wells have run dry...

Now convincing the other nations that there's no point in drilling for oil on their own soil would be a challenge, but I think our government is experienced enough in deceiving people that they could pull it off somehow. I'd imagine we'd continue to secretly stockpile oil. Less wealthy countries wouldn't be able to afford the reform of their energy structure and our government would use these "secret" oil supplies to milk as much money out of those countries as possible. The ones that can afford the green technology would be conned into buying it from the U.S. since we'd have a monopoly on it and would be the only consistent source. Now we wouldn't necessarily be trading the manufactured devices for the new energy system; it could simply be the blueprints or other critical information that the other nations could use to build their own technology. This would be a lot easier than trying to horde all of the special natural resources required to manufacture this.

So there's my conspiracy. I seriously put no political bias into this post. I'm sure somebody can rip my whole theory apart but I'm sharing it just out of curiosity if anyone else has thought the same thing.

The problem I see with your OP is that you assume a desperate country in need of energy would respect patents on technology and not just buy/steal one and copy it. Unless the technology was so complex, had safeguards build in or would be cost prohibitive against reverse engineering you would not have a monopoly. Also, I can see countries going to war, more so than we already are, for a decreasing source of oil because of the ramp up time to roll out the technology. I can't see an easy roll out of efficient green cars for example: Attention citizens, you are required to buy an electric car or you will not be allowed to drive. All gas fueled vehicles will be collected and destroyed.

Thanks for the thought provoking thread. I have thought about this before and seems very, very unlikely. I agree that corporations have exploited the whole "Green" thing, but they have done it in a BS way. They have made "green" (by this I mean, green energy, the Whole Foods craze, hybrid cars, etc...) a commodity that can be bought and sold. One can simply justify being a terrible human being by buying a hybrid car or buying "organic" food from Whole Foods. But the facts of the matter are; A) hybrid cars still run on gasoline. This means that they are still emitting CO2 into the atmosphere and still burning fossil fuels. This in turn means that the oil companies still get to do their thing, and still get huge government subsidies. This is bad for everyone, except the people who get to rob all of us blind by continuously raising gas prices (as a form of blackmail) until they get even more government subsidies, then they drop the price by 50 cents. B) Most food from stores like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, are not completely organic. This being said they are still a great way of eating slightly healthier food. BUT most of the food at these stores is still factory farmed. This means that in order to make all of the food their are still huge CO2 emissions. If one wants to truly help the environment through their eating habits, going vegetarian or vegan is the way to do it, especially if you are buying locally grown foods from local farms. On an annual basis, carbon emissions from factory farming contributes more to global warming than all modes of transportation. 3) Global warming is real. 98 percent of climate and environmental scientists agree on this and if you don't believe me just pop on over to AlterNet.com and I'm sure it will only take you a minute to find an article supporting this. Or you can subscribe to the podcast the Best of the Left, and Listen to the "Climate" episode from just a few weeks ago.
That being said, thanks for the thought proving thread, really got me thinking.

Oh boy we're running out of oil, jeez how many times are they gonna trot out this old dog and show him off. Back in the 70's they trotted this baloney out and said within 20 years there would be no oil left. Now they move more oil worldwide than there was avalible back then.

It's nothing but the speculators and oil companies manipulating the market to steal more money. If what they say is true then why are they still making huge profits every year in the name of searching for more oil. Oddly they keep finding more all the time. But we are running out right!

The gas prices are continuing to go up because they closed refineries therefore they can't produce gas fast enough and they create an artificial shortage. They have the oil but can't process it without the refineries. So with this nice artificial shortage the markets get manipulated and the oil companies and speculators get rich.

Green technology should have taken off along time ago. The reason I think that it didn't is that with people going off the grid, the energy company lobby saw to it that the government didn't support it. If the government had supported it better in the past 40 years it would have already have come to pass and the energy companies would have had to adapt to having their profit base eroded out from under them.