The Beijing Bus Blues
In October 2022, in Seattle Washington, Kamala Harris announced new funding for electrically operated school buses saying, “Who doesn’t love a yellow school bus? Many of us went to school on the yellow school bus, right? And it’s part of our experience growing up and, today, 95 percent of our school buses are fueled with diesel fuel, which contributes to very serious conditions that are about health and about the ability to learn.”
All through my youth from elementary school through high school, I rode a yellow school bus. It's no wonder I write these articles for free, I contracted “dieselitis” and that disabled me with the inability to learn.
She went on further adding, “. . . a step forward in our nation’s commitment to be a leader on addressing climate change The clock is ticking — loudly”, adding, “We are witnessing around our country and around the world the effects of extreme climate. There is a direct correlation that, thankfully, as we progress as a nation, is not being debated, which is the correlation between all of that and human behaviors.”
These are never referenced by actual scientific reality, just progressive political hyperbole.
The EPA announced that they will provide $5 billion taxpayer dollars over five years (FY 2022-2026) for these buses.
What they failed to announce is that the program is 90% dependent on China and the Chinese Communist Party. Further, each bus will cost $ 381,191, more than four times the cost of a standard diesel school bus.
As the linked Daily Caller article cites, “China currently accounts for approximately two-thirds of global EV battery cell production, while the U.S. manufactured just 7% as of 2022, raising national security concerns as the U.S. would likely have to depend on Chinese EV technology for its electric school buses “ all according to a congressional report on the matter. While the subject article talks of using Uyghur slaves in China, they overlook the manual mining by children in Africa as I describe in my article “The Misery of Mining” and in the related video produced by Gravitas Plus called Blood Batteries.
In comparison to buses that operate on diesel fuel, electric buses have a limited range, and in colder climates, this can become a very dangerous issue for the children. As well, as described in the linked article from Clemson University, “Lithium-ion battery fires are a growing public safety concern”.
It is no wonder though, that China, Russia, and Iran have endorsed the Harris-Walz presidential ticket. It’s not just their weakness in National Security and continuing military frailty, but, as well, the unrelenting deterioration of the American economy and reliance on others for resources.
Someday those same resources, if not produced domestically, will be refused by adversarial countries.