Global warming is obviously in the news quite a bit and once again, the Law of Unintended Consequences is responding in force.
It's terribly unfortunate that such an important topic has been ripped out of the hands of scientists and been usurped by politicians. As soon as that happened debate was squashed, common sense went out the window, and even bigger - possibly global - government is being discussed. The UN wants to start taxing the world for CO2 emissions.
Former VP Gore has made it his mission to try and be the leading advocate of the end of world predictions and has only succeeded in further raising the white noise with his doom and gloom slideshow. But that slideshow, and his movie, has been show to be full of errors and assumptions that no scientist would have the stones to claim as pure fact. He is, as a politician, trying to sway the world to his point of view and will discount anything that offers a counterpoint. This is what politicians do. I applaud him for his passion and fervor - but an issue that has such global effects - whether it's the warming itself or the unsustainable costs associated with his solution - really deserve further study by the scientific community without any political interference or sway. Otherwise it's not science and we get shortchanged and coerced into a solutions that may not be right.
I'm not implying that Mr Gore (or any of the Global Warming advocates) is evil - I do believe that he is all worked up because he truly believes in his quest. I do believe that his personal investment in this cause, and his background in politics and how to get things done in that realm, is what drives his overstatements and efforts. And he's been successful in furthering his position.
My position on this is that we should be much better stewards of the earth. Reducing pollution, properly overseeing the reasonable use of our natural resources, and finding alternatives to our use of fossil fuels should be the tasks laid before us. We shouldn't be destroying economies in the chase to solve an issue that is badly misrepresented by the politicians and has no guarantee of success. The fact that reports are now coming out that the global temperature has stabilized since 1997 shows that we just don't know enough. My personal opinion is that 10 years is not enough to prove or disprove anything - and neither is 30 years - nor 100 years. Thirty years ago these same "Climate Change" folks were talking about an upcoming Ice Age - 15 years later it turned to Warming. How can we possibly think we know enough to make such potentially devastating solutions as spelled out by the Mr Gore or the UN IPCC.
In his books and lectures, Bjorn Lomborg talks extensively about man-made global warming but also discusses a less fanatical and rhetorical response. Common sense solutions to solving problems and the expectation that innovation will be the answer is a foundation of his arguments. He's not a global warming denier - he does disagree with the solutions proposed by the politicians. The doom and gloomers always seem to account for increases in population and pollution but leave out other factors such as reduced emissions and other technological innovations that change the equation dramatically. He gave a talk at Google as part of their Authors at Google series. It's worth a viewing.
So how does any/all of this apply to my first law of politics? Well, if you've been paying attention to the news lately you'll see that food prices are increasing and it's being tied to the increased use of food for fuel. The Law of Unintended Consequences knows no mercy……..suddenly, now that ethanol is becoming popular the price of corn goes up, thereby making the production of ethanol no longer cost effective. The old “if gas goes to $3 it’ll make sense” axiom is no longer valid since it assumed corn prices would stay stable……and who wants to base their energy policy on something that is completely out of their control…..a couple of years of drought/floods/etc, which we have NO control over, would cause much greater problems than oil “shortages”…which are really refining shortages. Not to mention, if we’re going to do ethanol we should be doing it with sugar cane. The fermentation process that produces ethanol is all about the natural sugars and, well, sugar cane by its very nature should produce more ethanol per acre than corn would. But once again, relying on the mercy of mother nature to not screw with crop production (and by extension our energy sources) is a really bad idea.
And now the cost of FOOD is going up because the demand for a base product (corn) is rising. The ripple effect (increases in prices for meat and other corn based products) will cause a demand that our government do something about it as the poor can no longer afford to eat the basics. More food stamps. More taxpayer funded subsidies to corn producers/distributors to attempt to drive the price down (a bad idea to set this precedent but a quick fix that’ll score politicians points). They’ll fiddle with the commodities/futures market which will only delay a real solution and make the problem nearly unfixable in the future. Once again, treating a symptom instead of finding a cure. What the government needs to do is review the farm subsidies they already hand out for NOT growing crops and eliminate them. Because of US Agricultural production being greater than the global need for that product, the US Government has been paying farmers to not farm as much as they can…this was their first (and continuing) effort at fiddling with the market so the price of a bushel of something doesn’t get so low that no one can afford to be a farmer. Now we don’t have enough production (because those subsidies are still there) and to properly fix this it’ll take a couple of growing seasons…..but no one wants to wait for that. If I’m a farmer and have the choice of getting guaranteed money to not farm all of my land or I can farm it and hope that nothing bad will happen (drought, insects, etc) and that the price will be right come harvest time…..I’d take the guaranteed money…..thus keeping prices up and we all take it in the shorts at the gas pumps and the grocery stores.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080403/corn_at_6.html?.v=6
It didn’t take long for the UN to start blaming the US……of course, 6 months ago the US was being vilified for not doing enough environmentally………
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/04/14/ccview114.xml
(Of course, I could get into an entirely new rant on the UN, it's corruption, it's impotence, and it's obvious distaste for the US - but I'll save that for another day and attempt to stay focused.)
I recently heard a statistic (although I don't recall the source so this may be wrong) that the US has somewhere around 1000 years of oil within it's reach. But we can't get to it because of the success the environmentalists are having in the political world. It seems to me that reducing our dependence on foreign oil sources and having the economic boost that the oil industry would bring to OUR SHORES in the form of jobs, oil exports, and reducing the price at the pump would be worth a few thousand acres of land to get to it. Not to mention, using Mr Lomborgs line of thinking, we would be ever improving technology in the meantime to reduce our demand for fossil fuels. I sometimes wonder that if the environmental groups would spend more money on funding research into alternatives fuels, instead of launching yet another lobbying effort, would get us to the new solutions quicker.
So we all just need to chill out a bit - not get hysterical and jump at solutions offered by whomever shouts the loudest, and shouts down those that disagree. There is still much discussion, research, and innovation to be had.
Thanks for reading and have a great day....
Here We Go Again ...
3 years ago
1 comment:
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe if my grade school education was correct. When combined with another hydrogen atom and an oxygen atom, you get heat and water. One expert said that many people may be slow to adopt hydrogen as a fuel because it is explosive. So....Gasoline isn't explosive?
I love the statement law of unintended consequences. We all fall victim to that from time to time in our own little universes. When we try to apply some of these simple solutions to large problems we sometimes create bigger problems. Using predators from other continents (both plant and animal)to control local pests has proven that humans know too little about our environment to be dabbling in it. The reality is that we should probably be trying to impact it as little as possible and let it chart it's own course.
You are exactly correct when you mention that 10 years isn't enough time to determine environmental trends. We just know too little about the Earth's and Sun's natural cycles. What we do know is that we have the capability to do great harm and that we should be looking for ways to reduce the harm we are currently doing. Even something small like a rain barrel can save lots of water. Driving less can save emissions. The little things each one of the over six billion people on the planet does will create huge change without the UN or other globally ambitious entities having to do anything.
Scientists can have agendas too. And scientists are often wrong. In fact, scientists are almost always wrong. If they were right more often then we would know so much more by know. Even Stephen Hawking has had occasion to admit a mistake every now and then. Even geologist that believe every rock formation they see was formed over thousands and thousands of years has had to admit that somethings may only take a few minutes to make instead of millions of years. Many of the facts we have been taught were actually assumptions that failed to account for every possibility. Instead of teaching evolution or creation in school, why not teach good solid science. Why try to mold young minds with political, philosophical, or religious opinions when we can teach them how to truly think for themselves. I'm not afraid of anything good science can produce, but I am very afraid of scientists that have preconceived notions of what the outcome will be. Even Mendel fudged his genetic results when they didn't match his predictions. Einstein said you can't solve problems with the same thinking that created them. Why are we continuing to teach students theories over solid scientific methods for finding facts. Some of the most important scientific accomplishments have occurred by accidents or through unintended outcomes. If you believe an outcome must be true before you can even prove it, then you are not a scientist. Science fact or science fiction? Carbon isotope dating, commonly used to determine the age of organic material, is based on up to 14 assumptions. Predominantly that the Carbon isotope ratios have remained constant over millions of years and are the same today. Science is too often subverted and perverted to suit the needs of politicians and shamans and scam artists. The same goes with finances and the economy. We need to educate ourselves so that when we are getting scammed, we know.
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