'Cuz they don't have decent energy production?
It is somewhat amazing.
Posted on 10/23/2007 1:45:31 PM PDT by Tolik
So Al Gore gets the Nobel Peace Prize, and my wife says to me, "Wow. First time they ever gave the peace prize for religion."
So true. And so sad. What has Al Gore done for the world? Ran loaded hearings in the Senate to promote the idea of global warming with no evidence worth a bucket of ... whatever it was John Nance Garner said was in such a bucket.
Then he was President Clinton's pet veep, treated with genial contempt, which he earned by his incompetence at running even an inconsequential office like that.
Then he tried to steal an election by a highly selective recount in the most Democratic counties in Florida – while accusing the befuddled Republicans of his own corrupt plan.
Meanwhile he tried to keep American servicemen's votes from counting. In other words, he was the scum of the earth.
Defeated in his plan to subvert the US Constitution, he grew a beard and appeared to have flaked out completely. But then he realized that the global warming religion was a dog that could still hunt, and he ran ahead of the pack to make it appear he was leading it.
Global warming: It runs in cycles. No serious scientific evidence indicates, let alone proves, a human cause for it. In fact, the evidence indicates the opposite, since global temperatures fell in the 1970s and 1980s, when global emissions were certainly not in retreat.
All the real evidence is supportive of solar and astronomical cycles as sufficient explanation of global warming and cooling patterns. At the very most, human-generated greenhouse gases are a small contributor to the greenhouse effect, and the greenhouse system seems to have methods of venting excess heat built in.
Not only that, but the close investigation suggests that one of the favorite "proofs" of global warming, the so-called "hockey stick," is downright fraudulent – rather like the so-called "Ophelia complex" – which turns out to be based on "evidence" that has not been made public by its primary claimant and cannot be replicated by reputable scientists.
Global warming is, in other words, somewhere between Piltdown Man and cold fusion on the scale of fake science.
But when I say this, the true believers become angry. Not because they can contradict my statements – they can't. Every word I just wrote is consonant with the evidence as it now stands.
They become angry because global warming has become the vengeful, punitive deity of a new fundamentalism: fanatical environmentalism. Global warming is rather like the idea of biblical infallibility or creation science – impervious to evidence or logic. It is part of a faith, and creed, and the true believers feel about people like me rather the way the ayatollahs feel about Salman Rushdie: Death! Death!
But, fortunately, science somehow manages to muddle along past its occasional idiocies. Piltdown Man gets exposed; cold fusion goes away; the Ophelia complex stops getting mentioned and we don't have to take our daughters to work any more and boys can be called on in the classroom without it being regarded as sexism.
Still, isn't it annoying that when the frauds perpetrated by the Established Church of Political Correctness are not so much exposed as forgotten?
If you do the slightest thing that smacks of political incorrectness, they're out for your blood, howling that you must lose your job or your business has to be boycotted, for the American Leftaliban is the most intolerant group that has ever had control of the American establishment.
But when the gods and prophets of the leftist elite are exposed as fakes, they are quietly ignored. Nobody loses his job. In fact, the elitists act as if nobody ever believed what they used to insist on with the utmost fervor.
In the real world, when you use establishment power to perpetrate a fraud – by, say, hiding exculpatory evidence in a highly publicized rape case that turns out to be completely faked up – there are lawsuits and people lose their jobs and huge sums of money change hands.
But when the serious scientists finally prevail over the true believers, and the bubble of global warming is finally popped for good, there'll be no cover of Time or Newsweek saying, "How Could We Have Been So Stupid?" or "Why Didn't Somebody Insist on Evidence?"
Instead, it will just ... disappear.
It's already happening. Haven't you noticed how the most sophisticated believers now speak of "climate change" being our great problem instead of "global warming"?
The word hasn't yet got down to the level of the sycophants and hangers-on – they're still writing essays about how we should stop waiting for evidence and act now. In other words: It is by faith in global warming alone that we shall be saved, not by having ideas that work.
And what will happen to Al Gore's peace prize? Where is the war he has resolved, like Teddy Roosevelt's arbitration of the Russo-Japanese War? Where is his noble service to mankind, like Mother Teresa's?
He will be a weird footnote in the history of the Nobel Prizes. "Oh, yes," future scholars will say. "That was an era when Europe enjoyed thumbing its nose at American realists by giving whatever rewards it could to any American who reaffirmed the fantasy world that Europeans were building for themselves."
The saddest thing is that there really are serious environmental problems that need solving, but after global warming, who will believe in anybody trying to warn us about the need to save the world from long-term dangers?
Worldwide crises are surely coming – insecticide-resistant disease-carrying insects, depletion of carbon fuels, the asteroid that is bound to hit Earth someday whether we're ready or not – and, having ignored the warnings, we'll run around in a useless panic like the idiots elected to govern New Orleans and Louisiana at the time when Katrina struck.
So because of global warming fundamentalism, we won't spend any money on workable solutions until it's way too late. Then we'll see the true cost of Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize.
But what am I thinking? Because even when Al Gore is forgotten as a prophet, the Leftaliban's devil will still exist.
Somehow, it will all be President George W. Bush's fault.
I think that’s how they’re usually categorized, although the docus seems to be more on the characters than in some sci-fi. Kind of a normal novel set in a different time among people with a few technological capabilities we don’t have now.
I did like it, but the characters might have been a little cardboard.
bump
The advocate of whom you speak has an impressive notebook full of collections and absolutely no solutions that don’t involve turning out the lights.
“Card-bored?”
Turning out the lights (when not needed) makes economic, energy, and environmental sense. Why do you think so many big buildings have computer controlled light sensors now? Because it SAVES MONEY.
There's a lot of material like this on the Web, mostly from state agencies: Why Should Businesses in Utah Care About Energy Efficiency?
"The main reason is that it makes good business sense. Virtually every business is using more energy than it needs to for its operations - for running assembly lines, fueling industrial processes, heating, cooling, and lighting. Many businesses use 20-50% more energy than they need to, as shown in the case studies in this Guide. Cutting this energy waste by investing in more efficient equipment is one of the most cost-effective investments a business can make�the rate of return on this investment is often 30% or greater�and returns are tax-free. In short, investing in energy efficiency will increase a business's profits. Conversely, continuing to operate with high levels of energy waste and excessive energy costs will reduce profits and put a business at a disadvantage when compared to more energy-efficient competitors."
So yeah -- any realistic multi-faceted plan would certainly involve "turning out the lights". Thank you for picking up on this!
Heck, Caldeira's idea (which has been put forth before) has potential too.
Empire, while written in the style and level to appeal to young SciFi readers, was creative in that it followed Roman History in an interesting way. I had just read a big biography of Augustus prior to Empire and found his relating some of the characters to the Roman models worked historical experience into the story quite well.
I was thinking more along the lines of those satellite photos of North Korea at night...
'Cuz they don't have decent energy production?
It is somewhat amazing.
Ooh, very good! I’m impressed.
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