I'm no great fan of President Bush. I know, hard to believe. He's not conservative where he should be, liberal where he shouldn't be, and no where libertarian. Meh. But, he did save the planet from certain doom! One should give credit where credit is due. It happened on his watch, ipso facto, he gets the credit. Now, I still don't give a lot of credence to the environmentalists. Sure, I like clean water, soil and air, who doesn't? When those things were mostly cleaned up (or much better then they were 20-30 years ago) all those hippies at EPA and DEQ weren't going to just, you know, get real jobs that produce goods or services people will voluntarily pay for. So, they had to come up with the latest religion of Gia scare, global warming. Now, if they had just stuck with "Hey buddy, clean up your trash or you'll make Indians cry", then I'd cool with that.
Anyway, poor George II will get no credit for this, alas. As we all know it's who ever is at the top that has the levers of power. No, I mean real honest levers. There is one that is marked "Jobs", and one that is marked "Cheap Health Care", and one that is marked "Pollution" and one that is marked "War" and one that is marked "Kittens". The mean ol' Re-thug-licans always pour on the "War" and pull back on "Jobs" and "Kittens". Jerks. The "Cheap Health Care" lever you ask? Heck, who knows how to work that thing.
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Before I comment, how do yoy feel about global warming? Beyond it being the latest religion of Gia scare.
You must be armed... with info...
You asked how I "feel" about it. I feel that it's horse pucky. My feelings hardly require info.
But, if your question is about what I think about global warming, I would say that it's group think backed up by Enviro-Religious concepts. The earth has been around a long, long time. During that time, temps have fluctuated a great deal. There were even times without glaciers! But to say that the environment that we have right now should be stable is nonsense on stilts. We can’t make the ocean levels change if we wanted to. The south western united states was a ocean once. Was that “climate change”? Heck yeah it was, but it wasn’t caused by cave men and sport utility dinosaurs. The earth is in a constant state of flux. Is the earth getting warmer? Most likely. Are we causing it or is it a natural state of events that the earth goes through? There are plenty of people that will give you yes answers to both, and both sides have a dog in the fight (i.e. money). However I can’t side with people that are want to cripple the US economy for the sake of “maybe” lowering the temperature of the planet 2̊. What I think that it comes down to is the “religious” aspect of environmentalism. What are “carbon offsets” if not “indulgences”. Paying to assuage your guilt? Environmentalism (greens for short) is based about the idea that there was this mythical time when we (people) where in harmony with the earth. We only took what we needed, and mamma Gia gave with love and happiness. Well, that’s bull plop. We have been at war with nature from day one. And now that we have a roof over our head and cheap meat in the fridge we are told what monsters we are to the earth. Nuts to that. Aside from direct pollution, which is obviously harmful, I don’t buy it. And hey, relgions don’t need to make sense, it’s all about faith. That’s fine by me as long as they don’t try to pass restrictive and coercive laws based on a wacky faith. They don’t like it when EVC’s try to do it for gay marriage, but they wail if they can’t do it for theirs.
So, if your looking for facts, I guess I don’t have any numbers for you. But as a premiss it seems flawed to me.
Yes the earth has been around a long, long time and there has been a multitude of changes. The simple premise to me is that we are evolved and we are knowledgeable about the situation. That may be a difference (or at least I hope so) from the caveman and sport utility dinosaurs. Being humane how can we ignore the fact that certain indulgences harm the earth and the habitat that we live in? I am all for change as a general rule of thumb, but can you see that we may be helping the earth change more rapidly than other living things can handle? I feel that we should use the knowledge that we have instead of ignoring it so that we may enjoy such luxuries as driving a Hummer to get groceries. I say leave the Gaia theorists and the EVCs to get bent on what floats their boat, but as far as the Earth is concerned we are all responsible, period.
And as I said, I agree with that as far as pollution goes. I don't want mercury in my rivers any more then anyone else. But, if it's going to cripple our economy, while other economies don't have to do anything (China), then I can not in good faith support it.
What you just said is very insturctive. You are discussing the "morality" of using a hummer to get groceries. The person who drives that hummer pays way more in gas, as they should. But it's not "immoral" to do that. You and I may define it as wasteful, but what of it? Should we have a local coucil that determins who should get what size of car? I know I don't want to ask permission to drive a V6 Buick when I could drive a 4 cylinder Honda. Also, as gas prices go up, your going to see less and less of that "Hummerness" about. The market will solve this problem, not gov't.
To your second point. Did species die off before the industrial revolution? Of course. Are they going to die off long after we have? Certianly. In all honesty I'm not clear on why we need "bio-diversity". What does that do for us? I don't want spotted owls to be extinct, but who is to say they wouldn't have died off anyway. I thought that is what evolution was all about, survival of the most fit. I think there are several better ways to save animals from exticntion then gov't mandate, however I'm all for not killing them off directly.
If you get a chance check out Penn and Teller's show on environmentalists. They really take it to the Watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside).
It's freaking brilliant. And aside from just pointing out how stupid hippies can be, they've got some great interview segments with one of the founders of Greenpeace who is now one of their biggest critics b/c of their political agenda.
Plus they go to a rally and convince the hippies to sign petition to ban dihydrogen oxide (water) - after all, it causes sweating, inhaling it will kill you, drinking too much of it will kill you, it's a major component of acid rain and many chemicals.... ha ha ha ha. They got a lot of signatures.
Global warming Is Not a Threat but the Environmentalist Response to It Is
Adam,
That aricle clearly makes some good points that I was trying to make. The problem here is not the discussion over pollution or global warming as far as I'm concerned. It is the fact that 98% of greens want to "fix" things using government mandate and coercion. It is at this point I part company with them. In all honesty I find the "discussion" about global warming boring. We might as well discuss angels and pins. Everyone is too entrenched at this point to convince anyone else of the others view. The discussion we should have is about property rights and how the gov't may not be the right tool to fix every ill.
I am certain that I will not change either of your thoughts about this subject. I think we will just have to leave it at having a difference of opinions or perhaps chat in person about the subject.
BTW, the hummer comment was just an example. People are entitled to their luxuries. I can not argue with that. Certain things like driving a military vehicle for grocery getting is a little over the top for me. Hey, I own a Mountain Bike, and I ride it on the road 99% of the time. I am not coming from an entirely green life either. I love the sound of it and I do what I can, but I can not claim to be a true greenie.
We all have to live with the choices we make (including China).
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