This week we learned the 900-plus acre Fort Davis-area wildfire was sparked by a short in a solar device used on a ranch. Thus, I called it something like “the great solar wildfire of 2015” and commented on the irony of all. Then, I get the message below. I post it because you’d be surprised at how many of these things I get where folk either hear only what they wish to hear or, are deaf to humor, irony or satire on certain topics beloved by them.
Sent: Wednesday, April 1, 2015 6:38 PM
Subject: Texas – ‘solar’ wildfire.
Robert,
A number of ranchers have been using Solar powered water pumps for decades (well before the ‘green’ movement) because there is no way it is economic to run 10 or even 100 miles of electric lines to run a stock watering pump where the water table has now dropped below what their WIND powered water pumps have been pulling up water for over a century.
How many wild fires are started from grid power lines sparking or dropping each year?
Solar and wind has been, around well before the greens. It is FAR from a political monolithic topic.
GET OFF YOUR IGNORANT HIGH HORSE ON THIS TOPIC IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE BASHING !!!!!~
Doyle
NOT a liberal green, but from an economic efficiency and resource conservation viewpoint.
My reply:
Good grief Doyle. There was no criticism of ranchers using solar power, I use solar power for similar.
Have you no idea of the claims made by the greenies about how evil everyone is for using fossil fuel and how it is destroying the planet? More pollutants were likely released in that one fire than years of running a power plant off natural gas or likely even coal.
Do you not see irony in a major wildfire being started by a solar device? That’s the point, the irony.
There was nothing ignorant in my comments, all was factual, but your inability to understand the humor and irony is sad.
Pratt
Robert,
I’m sorry, but you are doubly wrong.
First,
There is NO irony in that story about a Solar stock pump, because you confused and conflated Solar with Green and Carbon Credits.
Then you did it AGAIN in your reply, and backed it up with an argument that again displayed your ignorance of the difference. They are absolutely NOT the same, and it is critically fatal to your argument.
TRUCK wrecked in blowout could be the story.
Tire company truck wrecked in tire blowout is irony.
Ranch truck wrecked in tire blowout is NOT irony.
If the rancher in your story is not a vocal Green advocate of Carbon Credits THERE IS NO IRONY, except for someone who has bought in to the lie of the liberal press that Green means Solar. You are just repeating that lie.
It is an ignorant, lazy mistake, on the level of confusing Libertarian with Liberal, and as a Solar equipment owner, you should know better.
Second,
The real irony is the damage YOU, as a Texas conservative commentator, ignorantly inflict on West Texas Small Businesses in the Solar industry with that sloppy error.
Your continual use of Solar as a synonym for Greens aggravates the unfavorable and even hostile economic, regulatory, and reputation-by-association environment we have to deal with in the West Texas area. Local businesses that, more often than not, simply want to provide some measure of energy independence and/or economy to our local neighbors.
Words can hurt.
Ask any Vet who has been called a ‘Baby Killer”.
Or a Solar industry small business trying to do business in the West Texas oil field, and getting called an Anti-oil Green, again, and again, and AGAIN. Not only by oil well owners, but by electric co-ops, retail business owners, even individuals, who are quick to accuse US of being part of the Green conspiracy to undermine Texas and local economies, our heritage and our way of life.
As this straw, among many others, puts LOCAL SMALL Solar businesses out of work, only the BIG businesses, mostly headquartered outside of Texas, are left to provide YOU and this rancher with Solar equipment.
Is that Ironic enough for you??
SOLAR does NOT equal GREEN.
Listen to US, admit it, and quit stabbing us in the back.
—-That is what – I – have to deal with —-
Doyle
Retired Veteran self-employed as a Renewable Energy Consultant
You need to find a sense of humor in retirement Doyle.
Robert,
I thought you might enjoy a short tale (novelette by modern standards?) that I think is rather humorous, and on topic for Texas politics.
Originally published as A PLANET FOR TEXANS in 1958
LONE STAR PLANET
by John Joseph McGuire and H. Beam Piper
Free-text from Project Gutenberg:
http://gutenberg.org/ebooks/20121
Enjoy!
Doyle