Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

A few weeks ago, my wife Andree and I – and of course her guide dog Titan – visited my nephew who has just relocated from Connecticut to North Carolina. We had decided to make our 20 year pilgrimage to Washington D.C. and spent a full day there before pressing on to see David and his wife Corin. The very first time I had visited the nation’s capital was on November 24, 1963, two days after President John Kennedy had been assassinated. Four of us in Danbury, where I was attending college, had decided to hitch to Washington to attend the funeral and show our respect to a president we all loved.

Some months ago, Nicholas Sarkozy’s government commissioned one of Frances most respected energy regulators, Jean Syrota, to draw up a report analyzing all options towards building cleaner, more efficient cars by 2030. The 129-page report, completed in September, possibly will never be published because it confirms some inconvenient truths the global warming crowd would sooner ignore. The report concludes, according to the Financial Times , that electric powered cars are cultural and technological a cul de sac , to use a French term: “Instead, it suggests that the traditional combustion engine powered by petrol, diesel, ethanol or new biofuels still offers the most realistic prospect of developing cleaner vehicles. Carbon emissions and fuel consumption could be cut by 30-40 per cent simply by improving the performance and efficiency of traditional engines and limiting the top speed to about 170km/hr. Even that is well above the average top speed restriction in Europe, with the notable ...