“Peace, Out” y’all. Be safe.

http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/kstrasselpw/?id=110009578

What a shocker, their grandstanding had nothing to do with moral reasons … its just a simple con job … just like all the greens …

let’s remember that Wikipedia is NOT peer reviewed, nor should it be considered a research-grade information source.

It certainly has its place in the modern world - however, anybody can publish anything on Wikipedia at any time, and we need to bear that in mind when we get our information there.

For information about the way Wikipedia publishes information, read below:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Peer_review_and_the_Wikipedia_process

Rightmom seems concerned about asthma. Is increasing air pollution causing a rise in asthma? In 1900 businessmen would bring a clean suit to the office because the air was so dirty from all the coal being burned and from horse manure dust that the suit they were wearing became dirty just going to work. It would seem that the air has actually become cleaner since then. Pollution from cars has been reduced drastically and factories are simply vanishing from this country. Take a walk through any cemetary and look at grave sites from circa 1900. It is quite striking how many graves are filled with dead children and adults who barely made it to middle age. A child dying now is tragic but relatively rare. Back then it was routine. The problem with enacting pollution controls is that the environmentalists and EPA bureaucrats belive that any human activity is destroying Earth and this destruction must be stopped at any cost. I do not have a problem with pollution control per se, but the question must be asked: What do you want to accomplish and how much are you willing to pay? It must be realized that the cost of mitigating pollution rises asymtopicaly with the amount of reduction. Cars are a perfect example. For a few hundred dollars more we got catalytic converters and air pumps which significantly reduced pollution. Now we have OBD II which costs thousands of dollars more plus millions more in NRE which makes less and less of a reduction. Was this worth the cost? I recently spent $100 for a silver dollar sized electronic part for my daughter’s car ignition system. $100 would have bought the entire ignition system in the days of breaker points. I wont even go into how bigh business uses government regulation to throttle competition or create markets for themselves.

As to Bryan, I have read Peak Oil and have heard the “whats the harm in playing it safe” argument before. Oil is not just going to suddenly run out. As it becomes scarcer, prices will rise and consumption will fall and other fuels and technologies which become more cost effective will replace it. This happened to the railroads when they burned wood, and again when they switched from coal to oil. Chronic coal shortages caused by striking miners forced a huge segment of home owners to switch to oil heat. And now we have an airline looking at fueling its planes with ethanol. CAFE laws and such are counterproductive because they delay the inevitible. Of far greater importance is the fact that we buy our oil from people who want to kill us.

As to the play it safe argument, if mankind had always followed that strategy we would still be living in caves. For years people have screamed how we are destroying Earth and us with it. Yet we manage to live longer, live better, invent technology which was unfathomable just decades before and learn countless new things in science. Show me proof that we are causing global warming, what harm, if any, it will cause and then I will be concerned. The only way we will solve our energy and pollution problems is to continue to produce enough wealth to be able to afford scientific research. This can only be accomplished if we are a free and educated people in a free market economy.

Simply google Sun & global warming and there are plenty of articles that support this hypothesis. Certainly this argument has more validity and offers a greater explanation for the earth’s warming and cooling cycles over the centuries than the current CO 2 from fossil fuels arguement. Simply because CO 2 from fossil fuels does not explain any other warming period in history and they are too numerous to list.

The problem is those that scream the loudest get heard. Those scientists that scoff at the current global warming theories have their credentials questioned and are intimidated by those that demand it fact.

As for the cap and trade approach, it is a scam that will be lining certain pockets, probably those who posture it as a solution. It leads to arbitrary payments enforced by government, but the beneficiary is usually some murky group with connections. A good example would be the current state of wetlands mitigation in the U.S., which is a a complete fraud, in my opinion. It operates like this, you own a piece of land, you decide to build a home, uh-oh problem there is a puddle on that land that the State or Local Government has designated as wetlands. You can solve this problem, make a payment to such and such land bank and they will restore a portion of their land to comply with what was once native vegatation! How the heck is that a solution! You will also find that members of these local land use committees live in what are established environmentally sensitive lands, with an alterior motive that the land near them is never developed and push Government agencies to purchase the land by them, so they have it all to themselves and the value of their land increases. I have seen this hypocrisy first hand.

How will this play out with fossil fuels? Not sure, but the few will have their hands in the pockets of the many!