Envirinsanity

A new little word I made up to represent the current state of rhetoric, especially as it relates to Global Warming.

Al Gore gets the Nobel Peace Prize for his mostly false and misleading global warming advocacy movie. What does his movie possibly have to do with peace? What does this say about the Nobel prizes in general?

So a huge segment of the population takes it on faith that the planet has a fever. And it's our fault. Not only the general us, as in the earth's human population, but specifically us, as in pampered, energy-hogging Americans.

I'd be willing to make a bet that 10 years from now, serious scientists, if there are any left, will look back on these times of global warming hysteria and laugh at how stupid and naieve we were.

The creatively offensive term for people like me these days is "global warming denier". Notice it evokes "holocaust denier", which of course is a roundabout way of calling anybody who questions the global warming religion or its high priest Al, a Nazi. Real friendly folks out there on the left these days.

Hey, I'm all for practical and responsible conservation. Clean air and water are important to me. I just don't subscribe to the notion that we must turn to a lower living standard and socialist government control to accomplish them.

I could respect the greenies if they were advocating little ways we all can help reduce pollution. If they want to encourage everybody to voluntarily conserve energy wherever they can, no problem. Where they run off the rails is with their advocacy of setting up energy quotas, or "carbon footprints", and essentially levying big taxes on people who use more than their allotted quota. That's government oppression.

Then there are the other popular measures being advocated. They sound good on the surface, but not so good if you do just a bit of research.

Energy Independence: What does that mean, really? That we no longer need to import oil from countries that hate us? OK, so how do we do that? The same people shouting loudest about this topic won't allow any more oil exploration in US territories. We've got plenty of coal, but they won't allow that because it's dirty. Nuclear is a very clean energy option, but they hate nuclear technology out of fear of a Chernobyl event.

So what are they pushing instead? Wind? Not all that terrific an alternative - check it out. Solar? We've been trying that for 40 years, and still can't get it to work. Ethanol? Tell me what makes sense about taking our food and converting it to fuel that isn't really that efficient and doesn't actually reduce pollution all that much.

Don't get me started on the hybrid cars. It seems to be a hugely successful marketing campaign that has tricked a huge segment of the population into paying more for vehicles that do nothing to improve the environment.

I'm struck by the lack of curiosity among most people on this and nearly every other important topic of our age. Why are so many happy to accept whatever they're told by celebrities and a politically orchestrated news media without so much as checking to see if there's another side to the story?

That's the bigger question.