Current ViewYou know I believe global warming is real - and also that it's a good thing, otherwise we'd be hip deep in polar bears and penguins in Panama.Newt Gingrich seems to have signed on to "doing the right thing" by preserving the environment, but no actual program to do anything that would make a difference as opposed to making Al Gore richer.
At the moment the entire Global Warming crisis seems largely intended to keep Al Gore rich. It may or may not do something else. It does seem to be good at creating famine.We can't use nuclear and now Obama says we can't use coal. We can't drill offshore. There is no proof that Global Warming is real, lots of proof that we don't know enough and before we spend a lot on a "remedy" we need to get more data on what the problem is; and accepting Pelosi's premise that we need to be involved in this "debate" on "what to do about Global Warming" is already to concede that which ought not be conceded.
Apparently Newt has stopped reading me. I'll have to see if I can fix that.
We should not be spending a nickel on doing something about Global Warming. We should be spending a good bit on gathering data about just what is happening to the climate; and until we are certain what the problem is, "doing something" is silly.
So in order to drop carbon emissions, we're switching to ethanol, which is devouring food grain like crazy, driving up the prices, and setting up the conditions for worldwide famines with little to no hope of relief.
I'm thinkin' the Greens know exactly what they're doing - a Malthusian reduction of the population worldwide. That millions may die of hunger isn't important - it's much more important to worship Gaia properly... and I'll bet there's not an ecofanatic in the folks who're promoting this stupidity that'll go hungry while millions starve.
J.
Comments (4)
Those We Must Act commercials by the Al Gore machine are some of the most chilling things I have seen. The black and white nature, the 'extreme sides' sitting together and telling us what we *must* do... Riefenstahl would be envious!
Life that adapts to a given climate is *always* at danger for climate change and there is no way to 'lock in' any given climate. Human impact is highly over-rated until we get to doing some serious terraforming, which I expect to be a few hundreds of years away if we survive our current political culture.
Now if you want to see how 'free trade' can create an organized crime insurgency, you need only look to the increasing problems in Mexico. They had a pre-existing economy that protected (even subsidized!) their poor, working farmers as that was seen as the first step in the economic ladder upwards. From the 1970's to early 1990's, poverty was *decreasing* using that system, and Mexicans were able to slowly move upwards to better jobs and pay. NAFTA subjected that system to US agribusiness (also subsidized!) which is highly mechanized and efficient. Suddenly poor, rural, undereducated Mexicans couldn't sell excess crops at a decent price to move upwards... they shifted to industrial jobs or moved into the US as illegals.
Forward a few years and the displacement had become widespread and got hit by the second part of 'free trade': the US lack of commitment to jobs *anywhere* (not just in the US). Border factories in Mexico began to lay off workers as jobs moved to China, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and, generally, to Asia. Those workers could not easily go back to farming (no real incentive there) and so either went north or joined the employer of last resort... organized crime.
Go forward a few more years and you get the US moving into ethanol and shifting to corn production for that... not food. Food prices in Mexico skyrocket, and as the local farming communities are in total disarray after a decade of being outcompeted, they can't easily start up as the working capital has been sold off and the physical capital is going northwards. Now even illegal US jobs don't pay enough to support families and so where do you go to get decent pay for work? Yes, more organized crime.
Northern Mexico is starting to look like Iraq and the next COIN work the US may need to concentrate won't be Afghanista, Colombia or the Philippines... but Mexico. And the money coming in to fuel this from Russia and the narcotics cartels and kingpins down in South America is huge. The old Mexican cartel system has been broken and is now outside backed violent gangs.
But 'free trade' did such wonders, no?
How about honest trade with Nations protecting their markets to help their poor succeed as *they* see best and the US letting that be? Put friends and allies at the top of the free trade list and understand *their* needs to sustain society trump *ours* for an expanded market. But that, alas, is 'protectionist' and 'isolationist'... for all the fact it backs sustaining liberty and freedom at home and abroad so that we may be stronger with our friends and allies than without them.
When 'global warming', 'biofuel' and 'free trade' mix, you get a disaster.
And if we *meant it* we would stop subsidizing companies and agriculture in the US which, apparently, is huge and highly efficient and very profitable.
Posted by ajacksonian | April 25, 2008 8:59 AM
Posted on April 25, 2008 08:59
I suspect some of the GW support from Repubs is a result of recognition of the 'peak oil' factor. Stating that the possibility of no oil sometime in the future would start the harangue of "blood for oil" again, and raise resistence for any oil conservation program, so jumping on the GW bandwagon makes Repubs look like "good guys" and gets people worried about oil without raising the "blood for oil" factor.
At least, that's my speculation - I can't believe they're really swallowing the global warming idea... Maybe I'm just optomistic...!
Posted by suek | April 25, 2008 2:01 PM
Posted on April 25, 2008 14:01
AJacksonian - I'm getting the feeling that subsidising the global poor with no requirement for output is counterproductive.
And I agree - "When 'global warming', 'biofuel' and 'free trade' mix, you get a disaster." - Right now, it's a slow-motion one. But like an avalanche, it's starting to pick up speed...
J.
Posted by JLawson | April 28, 2008 7:10 AM
Posted on April 28, 2008 07:10
Suek -
So it's a kind of camoflage?
I wouldn't bet they DON'T believe it. Politicians excel in one thing only - the ability to get into office and stay there. All other talents and intelligence have been suborned to that one purpose. They may not believe in GW/Peak Oil - but that's not the way to bet.
J.
Posted by JLawson | April 28, 2008 7:14 AM
Posted on April 28, 2008 07:14