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Newsweek piece on the Global Warming "Denial Machine"

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Beaker, Aug 8, 2007.

  1. 6toe --
    So what do you do? Dump the quote or change the structure of the sentence? (The reason it's attributed to Boxer, I'd almost guarantee, is that the rules of objective reporting prevent the writer from talking about the well-financed movement. But put it in the mouth of an Important Person and it flies.)
     
  2. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    We haven't had a 100 degree day down here yet this summer.
     
  3. PeteyPirate

    PeteyPirate Guest

    Ah, never mind then.
     
  4. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    I think he'd prefer it be written like this...

    "I realized there was a movement behind this that just wasn't giving up," says Boxer.
     
  5. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    I guess I'm not sure why we have to be stuck on Kyoto "as written." Are these the only kinds of choices humanity is left with? For or against? Have we no imagination left? No ingenuity beyond some ridiculous left/right argument over which restrictions on which emission credits do the most good for GM and Exxon?

    My post was basically a joke, in that our robust economy seems to consist these days mostly of burger-flipping, shopping at Wal-Mart and defaulting on our mortgages.

    A couple of thoughts, though -

    - Most internal combustion engines are about 30% efficient relative to the amount of energy per unit of fuel they take in. Even the best of them. That technology is now 110 years old. Is this the best we can do? Even if they run on corn? Or fry grease? Wouldn't it make more sense for these dying companies - and I include Ford and Chrysler and GM in that evaluation, as their quarterly reports prove - to be be out at the cutting edge of alternative energy research? Not as a sop to global-warming, but as an economic imperative?

    - When I was in grade school in the mid-60s, we were shown a movie called "Our Mr. Sun." It was made in the mid-50s. In it, they showed us a carbon-wafer solar cell, the precursor to the modern solar panel. Free energy, without pollution, from the sun. Fifty years later, we're no closer to a broad, cost-effective application of this clean, free technology.

    - Relative to mass transit in this country, we are worse off than we were 80 years ago. And if you want to understand how corporate greed and singlemindedness can undermine public welfare, study up on how the car and rubber companies unmade the Los Angeles public transportation system. The "free market," so lauded as the disinterested arbiter of economic outcomes, does not exist in a vacuum. It is greasy with human thumbprints.

    - Does it not make sense, given clear economic imperatives on the one hand - as we fall behind virtually every other developed country in the search for new technologies - and the fact of human impact on the planet (however measured) on the other, that we stop arguing over which short-term solution better lines the pockets of dinosaur big business? Over which half-measure assuages the restless conscience of the bond market? Over which exigent stopgap takes the least effort? Should we not instead be using the occasion of the debate over the environment as a powerful incentive toward some national intiative on sustainable energy?

    It seems to me that arguing the red state/blue state position over Kyoto does nothing but briefly prolong our inevitable descent into global irrelevance.

    But that's just me.

    And don't get me started on the state of our world fisheries.
     
  6. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    Well what data has convinced you that global warming really exists?
     
  7. pallister

    pallister Guest

    What is wrong with shopping at Wal-Mart?
     
  8. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    Almost everything. But having said that, I have to admit I used to live in the Wal-Mart parking lot. And solar panels made it all possible!
     
  9. pallister

    pallister Guest

    So you're saying Wal-Mart saved a homeless man?
     
  10. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    Not really. Saving a homeless man has the whiff of nobility about it. Rather, WallyWorld often saved a man who spent a year on the road doing book research in a motorhome.
     
  11. pallister

    pallister Guest

    "Homeless man," "whiff" and "nobility" within seven words of one another make for a nice sentence.
     
  12. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    Many of the same folks who are now pushing for global warming initiatives are the same folks who fought against nuclear power plants in 70's and 80's.

    Companies who invested in nuclear power lost millions in battles lost against environmentalists.

    Ironically now we find out that nuclear power is the cleanest most efficient source of energy.

    It would be much better if there was a middle ground on a lot of these issues.
     
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