If there's one thing in politics guaranteed to get a laugh, it's those 'Blue Sky Thinking' think tanks.

Irrelevance on a grand scale. One bunch looked at the traffic situation, and after Lord knows how many dinners, came up with, wait for it... to build more motorways next to the motorways already there! No doubt the tens of thousands of pounds that scheme took to reject on the grounds of expense and impracticality was worth every penny.

George sky thinking

So I thought I'd waste some time on some blue sky thinking of my own. So here we go, how to combine solving the world’s oil crisis, breaking the stranglehold of exponentially wealthy OPEC nations, whilst turning Africa into a powerful continent again, and at the same time clean up the atmosphere. Now stay with me, as the simplicity of my plan may be hard to accept!

But first, a bit of history.

Back when Henry Ford was pioneering the mass production of bone rattling automobiles, he had the choice of two different liquids to power them. The black gold that was difficult and expensive to produce at the time, or a sustainable, cheap and easy to refine oil made from hemp.

Now before we go any further, there are many forms of hemp and most of them are not the stuff of wacky baccy. Up until a few years before the Second World War, hemp was not only legal in most places, but had been the human races most utilised raw material (paper, clothing, food, and medicine). In 1850 there were over eight thousand hemp "plantations" measuring 2,000 acres or more in the USA and presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were all hemp growers on an industrial scale.

So how and why did it become illegal? Sorry about clouding my plan with a history lesson, but it’s good to understand the facts. William Randolph Hearst, the man Orson Wells based Citizen Kane on, was the Murdoch of his day. He not only owned the most influential newspapers and magazines, but had his hand in just about everything, including forests used for paper mulching and the newly formed and desperate for custom Mexican Gulf Co. along with Lammont Dupont.

The ease with which hemp is able to be grown is one of its appealing traits, which was not good for business. So, in a sustained effort, Hearst used his immense influence to get the USA government to pass legislation to ban the growing and use of Hemp in any way, whilst at the same time threatening Ford with bad reviews and zero advertising space, if he should choose Hemp over oil. In fact the term marijuana was made up by Hearsts editorial staff as a pejorative word to accompany the overtly racist lies about the dangers white American women were threatened with!

So that's the history, what's my plan?

Grow hemp on a massive scale, right across the vast baron deserts of Africa (the hardiness of the plant means it will grow anywhere, under any conditions). Cultivate and refine it into oil, then store it. Do this for a couple of years in order to engineer the quality, then invite the engine builders of the planet to take a few hundred barrels away each (free) and develop combustion engines that are compatible with this clean, cheap and limitless supply of oil.

Bosh! No more worrying about spiraling costs, or supplies running out, or pollution (Hemp gives off pure and rich oxygen into the atmosphere). If you don’t believe it'll work, Google: ‘Bougainville’ and see what can be done with vastly inferior coconut oil, when a small nation stands up against the tyranny of corporate stranglehold.

And that's only the start of my pie in the blue sky thinking. Why don’t we filter coal fired power stations and turn the chocking smoke they produce into carbon solid blocks, useful for construction? Don't forget, China have two new coal powered stations coming on line every single week for at least the next
25 years! All chugging out poisonous filth! Can the air we breathe take it? Oh and as for motorway traffic, one word: MONORAIL right down the central reservations, carrying freight.

I’m just providing a public service here guys!