by Mike Anderson, Saturday, 21 July 2007
It's tough to have any faith in the Global Warming issues when, over the course of my life, I've been told that:
- Food would eventually run out (for the reasons below and "just because it will" and we'll all starve).
- The world's population is growing so rapidly that soon we'll be out of not only food but all resources (minerals, oil, etc.) and, of course, room.
- The world is growing colder and soon we'll lose all arable land.
- The world is desertifying and soon we'll run out of arable land.
- We'll destroy all crops using pesticides like DDT.
- Wild storms will destroy cities and farmland.
- And there have been so many other scares that I can't remember them all.
On to Global Warming:
My first issue with this is with the evangelists.
The scientists firmly locked into The Belief refuse to accept any reasoning other than their own, and, to me,
that's a sure sign that they have doubts themselves but refuse to accept that they could possibly be wrong. And
when a guy like me, just plain ol' Joe Potatoes, questions them, they smile beningly and tell me that I'm just not
smart enough to understand what they know. I don't particularly like being thought of as an idiot. I read their
results and studies, I read the results and studies of the "other side" and I'm quite intellectually capable of making
an intelligent decision.
The same scientists go after their colleagues who disagree with hammers and tongs and power tools. They tell
them that they'll see that they never work again, that they'll be decertified in their fields of expertise, that they'll
come to regret their apostasy. A great example is the female meteorologist from the Weather Channel who has
demanded that meteorologists who will not buy into GW MUST be decertified by the AMS. Way to make your
point, huh?
And meteorologists supporting GW? Cripes, these are the same people who can't tell you at noon with any
certainty what the weather's really going to be like locally six hours later. And they admit it! We should trust
these monkeys when they say that our icecaps are melting, the glaciers are melting, the polar bears are
disappearing? How come the guys who really know this stuff, the Eskimos, say something that's exactly the
opposite?
We had a pretty bad hurricane year in 2005, that Katrina thing and all. Then the experts told us that 2006 would
be even worse. Umm..pretty calm. So they came back and told us that 2007 would be even worse. Umm...so
far, not so much. The rest of the hurricane season is to come but it's looking like they're wrong again. But that's
the way weather prediction works. We'll see.
Then there are the celebrity supporters, movie stars and wealthy people who will latch onto any issue that will
make them look more sensitive, more thoughtful, more intelligent, more caring than the rest of us, presuming that
their status will impress the rest of us. First thing to keep in mind is that most of these "celebrities" are dropouts
educationally. Many of the entertainment folks are Scientologists and that alone should tell you a story. They are
easily led by "gurus" and by their peers into accepting the current wisdom, whatever it happens to be in the
current week.
My favorite celebrity was the supermodel who was vacationing in the Pacific when the tsunami hit the island
where she was staying. She survived, her boyfriend was washed away. Sorry for that. But then she came back
with a statement that she "forgave Mother Earth for the tsunami...it was just the planet being sad." She went on
to blame Global Warming for the tsunami and thus for earthquakes. There is no end to the mischief that Global
Warming can play!
And it's all the fault of humans!
My next issue is with the fraudsters:
The biggest fraudsters are the carbon emission credit companies, the largest of which is owned and operated
by...
AL GORE!
Yup, that's right, Mr. Gore and his partners are happy to take your company's money, to mitigate your use of CO2
emissions by trading it for some other activity that will let your company emit whatever you want and Mr. Gore's
company do something that will balance it out, like planting a tree or two.
1 unit of CO2 = 1 unit of O.
See how
that works? Gloriously simple.
It works like this: you like to eat broccoli, but it gives you gas. I also like to eat brocolli, and it also give me gas.
If you pay me, I won't eat broccoli, and my level of zero-farts will mitigate whatever farts you exude.
Believe it or not, there are dozens of companies already set up for this. God, I love capitalism!
The fraud of excess CO2. Now, I have to think back to my personal dark ages, to high school biology, but I seem
to remember that carbon dioxide is what we humans (pernicious species that we are) exhale, after inhaling the
mix of oxygen and nitrogen we call an atmosphere. Then the plants latch onto it, use it for photosynthesis, and
poop out...oxygen! It's a fair exhange, I think, and it's worked wonders for millions of years. But I recently read
a carefully prepared scientific study that told me that, because of the excess CO2, the growth of Poison Ivy has
accelerated. Much more Poison Ivy this year than last! Look out! You're gonna need an ocean of calamine
lotion! Uhh...except that, if one plant grows larger because of the CO2, wouldn't others? Like my lawn? Or my
trees? Or the green beans and peppers and tomatoes my friends have planted? Hunh. They didn't. What's
wrong with this CO2 picture? Bigger tomatoes! I want bigger tomatoes, at least as big as my Poison Ivy!
The fraud of hybrid vehicles. Maybe not so much a fraud as a great misdirection: know how every so many
recharges you have to send your iPod back to Apple for them to install a new battery for a few dollars? Hybrids
are like that. The battery, as all auto batteries, doesn't last forever. Except when you have to replace the
batteries in your beater, it costs $75. That Prius, that you bought to save the environment, will cost you
thousands. Cameron Diaz and Ed Begley can easily afford it every couple years. Can you?
The fraud of ethanol. Gas from corn. Sounds like a great idea, until you realize that it takes 1.1 units of energy
to produce 1.0 units of energy producing ethanol from corn. There are actually much better and more efficient
ways and substances to use to produce ethanol, but the GW folks seem to insist on using corn. Now, we're
seeing huge price jumps in the cost of everything else that uses corn as a "fuel"...like feed for cattle and chickens
and the use of high fructose from corn to sweeten food products. Do you think the GW activists will actually go
without ice cream?
The fraud of veganism. These are the holy warriors who have been telling us that cattle produce too much
methane and that by eating meat we contribute to blah, blah, blah. I'm having a big-ass sirloin for dinner tonight.
Plus corn on the cob and a baked potato.
The fraud of alternative energy sources. Wind, for example. It actually works, and it's cost-effective. But it's a
NIMBY issue, even for the King Of All Liberals, Ted Kennedy, who won't allow the coast of Massachusetts to be
"blighted" with the sight of off-shore windwills. Solar, great potential, but the technology is still prohibitively
expensive. Nuclear power is a great idea and the technology has advanced to the point that the reactors are
safe and cost-effective. But environmental activists resist. If they really wanted alternative energy, they'd latch
onto one or more of these.
Is our species to blame for all this? Well, yes, by allowing these radicals to deny the use of rational solutions to an
easily solved issue. There is more oil in the ANWR reserve (although we may have to build more oil refineries).
There is always wind and sunshine. And nucs power Europe, these radicals' favorite example of politics and
diplomacy. Why not the US?
Even the concept of Nuclear and Environmental Winters is being challenged. Past history with volcanoes, for
example, has show that, while a world-wide cover of ash and whatever other crap they spew can affect the
environment for a while, the Earth and the atmosphere cleans itself!
As crafty as homo sapiens and our immediate predecessors in the evolutionary chain seem to be, I think that it's
mightily arrogant to believe that even a few billion of us, with our cars and cattle and smoke-belching power
sources and industries, are capable of putting the quietus on a living, thriving planet that's been spinning around a
bright, shining sun and generating species after thriving species for a real damned long time.
I drive a Lincoln Town Car. It gets horrible gas mileage but I don't drive it very much, maybe twenty miles a
week. It's exactly the right car for me to use, considering my age and physical condition. The very first
environmentalist who approaches it to key it, paint their message on it, or drop my tires will live to regret their
action.
Three, four years from now? We'll be worrying about something else. I just betcha.
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