(Sent by a friend to the university web page, I read the statement.  Finding the statement questionable, I sent the university an email. -- LL/OrMag)

Subject:  Oregon Magazine Energy question
   Date:  Fri, 28 Sep 2007 08:41:58 -0700
   From:   hobbit <hobbit@pcez.com>
     To:   sunpowerfilm@physics.ucsb.edu

"As fossil fuels run out ..." it says on your web page,
http://powerofthesun.ucsb.edu/ 

Does this statement include shale oil deposits in North America?  Are you
people associated with anybody who knows what "shale" is?  Or, how
about the stuff called "coal?"  Al Gore heats one or more of his six or eight
homes with electricity generated by this "coal" stuff.  We're running out of
both coal and shale oil deposits?  Do you have a geology department? 
The reason why I ask these questions has to do with both "institutions of
higher learning" and "journalism." 

Here, I'll explain. 

I am 65 years old.  When I was young, institutions of higher learning
which worked in the field known as "science" had a stated purpose, which
was that of finding and teaching something known as "facts."  And
journalism's publicly-stated purpose in those days was to find and
disseminate the same thing. 

Or, perhaps I am addressing this note to members of an organization
whose purpose is other than that I have supposed.  Perhaps "ucsb" is not
an acronym for "University of California at Santa Barbera," then?  Am I to
conclude that it stands for "Uninformed Children Spreading Bullcrap?" 

As our fossil fuels begin to run out? 

Oh, and one other thing.  Have you counted the number of operating
nuclear power plants in Europe, these days? 

I do journalism in the old-fashioned way.  Had I written the sentence in
question, here, I would have informed the web page readers that the
statement referred to politically  incorrect energy sources which, while
abundant on the planet (and available in the zillions of tons level right here
in North America), do not meet the fictional global warming requirements
of the hippie socialists who now propagate their fantasies as fact from the
professorial chairs of what once were places where politics did not alter
the truth.. 

If you have a moment, ask your meteorology department if the southern
polar ice cap on Mars is melting due to industrial plant emissions and the
popularity of SUV's on that planet.  You might also ask them why the last
ten or so ice ages on Earth ended. 

Cave men drove SUV's? 

All the best, 
Larry Leonard 
Oregon Magazine 
http://oregonmag.com 

© 2007 Oregon Magazine