We've probably reached "peak environmentalism" in the West, as the new cause-de-jour seems to be "racism". Here are two data points for my belief that environmentalism is on the way out:
Only a few years ago, global warming seemed like a sure winner to Yale’s then-president Richard C. Levin, when he announced in 2009 the establishment of the Yale Climate and Energy Institute and secured Rajendra K. Pachauri as its first head. Pachuari was the head of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the major force pushing global warming as a central battle to be fought to save humanity, and he was to serve both the U.N. and Yale at the same time, locking them together as leaders of the fight to rescue us all from doom.And
That was then; this is now. The Yale Daily News announced three days ago:
After a University decision to cut all its funding, Yale’s Climate Energy Institute will close by the end of June.link
California will need to double down on support of the bullet train by digging deeper into the state's wallet and accepting a three-year delay in completing the project's initial leg, a new business plan for the 220-mph system shows. linkA train whose first leg would go from nowhere to nowhere, with no riders, can only happen in California--and even in California it's having difficulty.
Is there a wind farm somewhere the greenies can support?
If they truly cared about the environment as well as modernity (in other words, progress) they'd support relatively clean, safe, plentiful, reliable, inexpensive nuclear power.
Nothing wrong with being a good steward of the earth. To this day, I applaud Nixon for his courage with Clean Air/Water. And, the growth of "fracking" still makes me uneasy, as does a dependence on fossil fuels. At the very least I'd really appreciate it if more people stopped dropping their garbage all over the trails I'm hiking.
ReplyDeleteI agree, there's nothing wrong with being a good steward of the earth. That's why I consider myself a conservationist.
ReplyDeleteBut today's so-called environmentalists wackjobs? Count me out.
I love how the LA Times fudges the truth right at the end of the first paragraph: "220-mph system". The state long ago had to fess up that it won't come close to that speed.
ReplyDeleteLater in the article, it says the minimum time from LA to San Fran will be 3hs 14min; doing the math, that come out to only about 120mph, and that's without any stops anywhere along the line. Add in a couple 20-minute stops for passengers to come and go, and that will be down close to the car speed limit before they're done.
And a flight takes a little over an hour. Even with time in the airports, it's going to end up faster and probably comparable price.
I just read a recent article discussing the fact that dead whales are being found on the shores of the English Channel, near offshore wind farms. Official comments express puzzlement but no mention of the possibility that the constant noise messes up whales' sonar navigation ability. After all, these wonderful "green" things can't possibly have any negative aspects, right?
ReplyDelete"they'd support relatively clean, safe, plentiful, reilable, inexpensive nuclear power."
ReplyDeleteWe shall call it Fukushima II.
Nuclear is not safe. And the radioactive waste is radioactive forever. Not a sustainable option. Nice for creating vast expanses of cheap real estate in Japan and Russia, though.
The sun showers us with more energy than we know what to do with. That's the way out.
Wait for thorium reactors. We went with uranium ones during the cold war because we wanted the bomb material. No one looked at thorium for decades, but it's getting serious study now, and the Chinese are moving ahead quickly with it.
ReplyDeleteWe don't even need to wait for thorium. We could get safer, more efficient reactors today if they didn't have the requirement to be able to make fuel for bombs.
ReplyDelete