Posted on 07/31/2006 7:27:38 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
Technological advancements have elevated mankind to its healthiest and wealthiest level in history. Our lives are longer, our health is greater, our food is more plentiful, and modern conveniences are now so affordable that even the poor among us own what only the rich could afford 50 years ago.
It is against this backdrop that we now find ourselves debating the merits of many of these conveniences and advancements. From the chemical scares of the 1960's and 1970's (e.g., DDT, dioxin, food preservatives), to the fear of runaway population growth and rapidly dwindling petroleum supplies, the very people that have been blessed with the prosperity that unbridled human ingenuity brings are increasingly anxious about the world we have created for ourselves.
Fear of the ultimate environmental threat, global warming, is now striking at the very heart of modern life, casting doubt upon the future availability of inexpensive energy that is necessary to keep society running. Al Gore's movie 'An Inconvenient Truth', Discovery's recent special 'Global Warming: What You Need to Know with Tom Brokaw', and a deluge of media stories and editorials are all dedicated to convincing you that we need to be saved from ourselves.
And while it is true that there are potential negative side effects of our use of fossil fuels (as well as most other natural resources), little attention is ever paid to the practical question: what should be done about it? It is much easier to point out a problem than it is to actually fix it....and 'fixing problems' too often leads to unintended negative consequences.
A century ago people would be too busy working -- trying to stay fed, clothed, and sheltered -- to worry about any ill effects from the industrial revolution. Today, though, we have enough wealth to not only support ourselves and clean up most of our messes in the process, but to donate to causes that claim to be 'making things better' by lobbying for ever-increasing levels of cleanliness and safety in our environment.
What reasonable person could be against 'clean water', 'clean air', and 'clean renewable sources of energy'? Who dares argue with politicians, scientists, and other pundits who lead the fight against global warming?
The dangerous illusion underpinning many environmental efforts is that it is both possible and preferable to keep pushing toward a 100 percent clean and safe existence. Those of us who try to point out that there are practical limits to cleanliness and safety are immediately branded as shills for big business. Meanwhile, environmentalists and politicians get to hold the high ground of altruism and concern for the public's interest.
P.J. O'Rourke once said, "Some people will do anything to save the Earth...except take a science course." To that I would add, "...or a basic economics course". If for a reasonable cost we can remove 98 percent of the contaminants in our drinking water and make it quite safe, is it then a good idea to spend ten times as much to push that purity from 98 percent to 99 percent?
In the real world, there are only limited resources to accomplish everything we want to do, and resources diverted to wasteful ends are no longer available to tackle more pressing problems. Only in the imaginary world of the environmental lobbyist, pandering politician, or concerned journalist is it a public service to keep pushing toward 100 percent purity.
Occasionally, the light bulb will go on, and someone realizes the practical limits that (thankfully) keep "Earth saving" goals from rarely being achieved. This happened to '20/20' consumer advocate John Stossel in 1994, with his special "Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death?". For me, it was about 1985, when I started reading about -- and understanding -- basic economics.
While most people are out making the system work, others are devising ever more alarmist ways to make it look like the latest drought, flood, or hurricane is mankind's fault. The implication is that, if only enough of us can agree that something bad is happening, we will then be motivated into action. And we indeed should do those things that make the most economic and scientific sense -- for instance national investments in energy research.
But when the pundits push for solutions that will not work (the Kyoto Protocol, or the rapidly failing EU carbon trading scheme), one begins to wonder about either their intelligence or their motives. In the end, these efforts do little more than redistribute wealth and let their proponents feel good about themselves.
Could redistributing wealth be the true motive? Disdain for 'wealth' and 'big business' arises when people neglect the fact that these conditions only occur when someone figures out a better way to provide more desirable goods and services, at a lower cost, that people want. Economic transactions benefit the seller and the buyer, otherwise they would not occur.
But instead, our language belies persistent beliefs in economic myths: 'workers' versus 'management' (as if managers have no economic value), or 'price gouging' (when gasoline supply is disrupted, or has a threatened disruption, and prices rise, we somehow expect the laws of supply and demand to be repealed). We may be envious of those that have more than us, but it is misguided to believe that if they had less, that we would have more.
Everyone benefits from the promise of profits that motivates investors to risk their money on better ways to provide what people want. You say you don't like the disparities in wealth that a free market generates? I would be glad to have my wealth increase by only 40 percent as the rich see a 200 percent increase in their wealth. The alternative is for all of us to be equally poor and miserable. If you must, think of profits as a necessary evil...but for the good of all of us, profits (as well as the risk of losses) are a necessary part of our high standard of living.
As long as the media continues to portray the global warming issue (as well as other environmental threats) as an ideological battle between politicians and scientists who are trying to save humanity on the one hand, and evil petroleum-pushers bent on maintaining our 'addiction to oil' on the other, we will be no closer to solutions to our energy problems.
Journalists have the power to frame the debate, and so far that power has been, at best, misused. At worst, it has been abused.
This is true of most Democrat-sponsored programs, all of which require federal taxation and interference in our lives, and few, if any, of which would be needed if they solved the "problems" they purport to deplore.
Sure. It's the ecological version of the "Plantation" scam.
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
HL Mencken
I do; I do! I see it as the ultimate canard.
Meanwhile, environmentalists and politicians get to hold the high ground of altruism and concern for the public's interest.
Whoa! Wait; I see no altruism there. It would be altruism if they all gave up their houses and cars (I mean totally, not for a token excursion on a bike to tent out in the woods for a couple of days). Until then, their altruism and concern are nothing but rank hypocrisy.
Could redistributing wealth be the true motive?
Of course! How communist is that?
It's more complicated than that.
1. There is probably evidence that average global temperatures are warming. Not conclusive but serious evidence. So that is not a scam.
2. There is pretty good evidence that CO2 levels in the atmosphere have risen very substantially. Not a scam.
3. There are good theoretical arguments that, if you held everything else the same and changed the CO2 levels in the atmosphere, global temperatures would increase as a result. Of course, everything else is not the same. We have very long periods of ice age in the earth's history where CO2 levels were much higher than they are today. And, noone can say if changing CO2 levels are a result or a cause of the changes that may be warming the globe.
4. Up 'til here, we have serious science.
5. Now's where we get to the scam part. Eco freaks build computer models that are supposed to tell us what the effect of increased C02 levels are--of course, they predict disaster. But that's what eco-freaks always predict. The models are just their ideas about how the physics of the atmosphere work and its immensely complex interactions work. Not tested, not validated by evidence. Just ideas running around in a computer. The models are not actionable science or statistics in any sense I recognize because they do not make predictions about reality that can be tested except by waiting around to see if the predictions were right (not actionable science). And, when you ask the models to make predictions about stuff where we know the answer (stuff in the past), they are wrong (not actionable statistics).
The global warming folks have raised valid scientific questions and there is some evidence around the issue of warming (not humaan causation--around that, there is only theory). That there is a definite answer to both questions is the scam. There is not even a tentative answer to either that has any scientific merit (except the data on solar output and temperature. That may have merit).
That is really good. One of the clearest pictures of the situation I have seen painted here. Thanks.
And to further their scam, the vast majority of greenies refuse to consider Nuclear Energy, or other "pro Business" or "market" approaches to reducing CO2 emissions. Having said that, it looks like SOME of them have seen the light.
I tend to agree.
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