“Killer robots could become the weapon of choice for militants, a British expert said on Wednesday.”
I’m serious – the article is here.
Usually the hype and overreaction to the terrorist threat is depressing; car crashes kill twenty times more people. But this is hilarious.
Comments Off on Beyond Satire
Posted in Mankind's Doom, Security Theater
A new study getting a lot of press says that ethanol is actually worse for the environment than gasoline. A lot of experts have been saying just that for years.
Seems a lot of people get sucked into an “anything but oil” mentality. I too look forward to the day when we have a cleaner, cheaper energy source. But we’ve known for years that ethanol isn’t it. It only has 2/3 the btu’s of gasoline, so it only gives 2/3 the mileage. Emissions are roughly the same. Now we know that the manufacturing process causes more emissions than oil’s. Oh, and it’s more expensive, too. Not a good deal.
Strange that ethanol still commands widespread support. I can think of two reasons: politics (farm state politicians courting votes), and the anything-but-oil mindset.
I’ve sensed the tide turning against ethanol in the last year or so, ever since it started making food prices go up. This study only adds to the trend. Maybe soon companies can pour their R&D resources toward a more useful end.
Seems a lot of people get sucked into an “anything but oil” mentality. I too look forward to the day when we have a cleaner, cheaper energy source. But we’ve known for years that ethanol isn’t it. It only has 2/3 the btu’s of gasoline, so it only gives 2/3 the mileage. Emissions are roughly the same. Now we know that the manufacturing process causes more emissions than oil’s. Oh, and it’s more expensive, too. Not a good deal.
Strange that ethanol still commands widespread support. I can think of two reasons: politics (farm state politicians courting votes), and the anything-but-oil mindset.
I’ve sensed the tide turning against ethanol in the last year or so, ever since it started making food prices go up. This study only adds to the trend. Maybe soon companies can pour their R&D resources toward a more useful end.
Comments Off on Ethanol Adds to Global Warming?
Posted in Economics, The New Religion
Dave Lindorff has a piece in the Baltimore Examiner about a “silver lining” to catastrophic global warming: his preferred political party would benefit.
Funny how partisanship can make normal people say absolutely vicious things.
Lindorff is a global warming alarmist who sees massive flooding and epic catastrophe coming soon – “not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats.”
Not bloody likely. But let’s accept his premises for the sake of argument and see where he runs with them.
The decimation of red state regions rings with “poetic justice,” because many people there disagree with Dave Lindorff on climate change policy. They are “troglodytes.” More revealingly, wants them “gerrymandered into political impotence” after the apocalypse hits.
What a vicious, petty world view. Lindorff sincerely believes in a coming Book-of-Revelations-style apocalypse. He should be concerned with how to help people survive it. Instead, he first thinks of how he can hurt his political opponents.
Grow up, child.
Comments Off on Partisanship and Mankind’s Doom
Posted in Mankind's Doom, The New Religion, The Partisan Mind
Special report from the AP:
Victims of climate change, real and potential, appealed Tuesday for a vast increase in international aid to protect them from and compensate them for rising seas, crop-killing drought and other likely impacts of global warming.
Where to begin? Al Gore says sea levels will rise by 20 feet. His co-Nobelist IPCC’s number is less than that by a factor of ten.
Consensus!
Other impacts? John Brignell has about 600 of them. Highlights: “Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty, bananas destroyed, bananas grow, billions of deaths, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink…” and that’s only a sample of A through C. More consensus!
The article goes on to advocate a replacement for Kyoto when it expires in 2012, “aviation taxes or direct taxes on all fossil-fuel use,” and so on.
I might suggest actually identifying the problem before prescribing a solution.
These people have what I call The Certainty. They are Certain of the problem, and Certain of its solution. If you are not also Certain, or (worse!) disagree, well then you just have to be wrong, no matter your reasoning. Almost sounds like a religion…
Comments Off on Climate Fund
Posted in Certainty, The New Religion
A researcher at Michigan State says that divorce is contributing to environmental degradation:
“People have been talking about how to protect the environment and combat climate change, but divorce is an overlooked factor that needs to be considered,” Liu said.
Nobody disputes that divorce is a painful thing for everyone involved. But seriously, come on. This guy’s scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Comments Off on Divorce: Mother Nature’s Enemy
Posted in Mankind's Doom, The New Religion
Rousseau is something of an intellectual godfather to today’s environmental movement. This is a shame; his philosophy was vicious and anti-human to its core.
Like Locke, he thought that man in the state of nature was basically good. Locke also thought man was better off in civil society than in the state of nature.
Rousseau, on the other hand, thought man better off in nature than in civil society. He denounced civilization itself and had a distaste for any technology, even as fundamental as fire, fishhooks, or bows and arrows.
His ideal man was solitary, meeting others only as necessary for procreation. Higher thought was to be avoided, as it may lead to dangerous ideas like property rights and civilization. Rousseau’s ideal man isn’t much different from any other animal, except that some primates and birds are known to use tools.
Despite all this, Rousseau chose to live most of his life in major cities such as Paris, Geneva, and Venice.
Nobody, not even Rousseau, denies the material and medical benefits of civilization. Knowing all this, he still placed humanity beneath his personal ideal of nature. People still believe this today; the more hardcore environmentalists advocate technological regress, and would gladly pay the price of a lower standard of living.
This also assumes that progress and technology are bad for the environment; not so.
Most people who consider themselves environmentalists haven’t thought this through. They should. This new religion of theirs can be dangerous for our health.
Comments Off on Speaking of Rousseau…
Posted in Great Thinkers, Philosophy, The New Religion
San Francisco might ban fireplaces, since they are believed to contribute to global warming.
Seriously, fireplaces?! The new religion is going too far. Even Rousseau would be embarrassed.
Comments Off on Fireplaces: Mankind’s Doom
Posted in Mankind's Doom, The New Religion
The AP has a gem of a story entitled “Fighting fat and climate change,” where the author combines two of today’s more popular scare stories.
The science doesn’t seem very rigorous: “The average person walking half an hour a day [instead of driving] would lose about 13 pounds a year.” Were I to follow this advice, I would apparently disappear from the face of the earth after about 13 years.
Alas, the piece is pessimistic about the people using their cars less and eating less red meat. Scientist Kristie Ebi laments that “It turns out changing people’s habits is very hard.”
She’s right. And I’d appreciate it if she’d stop trying. Thousands of people still die of malaria every year. Over a billion people do not have access to clean water. And Ebi gets worked up about… using less gasoline. Priorities, please.
Comments Off on Global Warming and Obesity: Together at Last
Posted in Nanny State, The New Religion
Inertia Wins! 