More on Environmentalism

(This is especially for Nicole. I've been thinking about your comment regarding friends condemning you and your little CO2-emitters.)

I came across this interesting global warming quiz and recommend you take it. You should know that many (perhaps most) scientists are not drinking Al Gore's kool-aid just yet. In a nutshell, average temperature change is real, but it's not very drastic, and we humans really don't have anything to do with it. Not only did we not cause it, we don't have the power to change it either. It's just part of a natural cycle. There have been climate changes throughout geological history, well before man-made emissions came into being. We're taking too much credit!

Now, there's an argument that I believe I heard from John McCain awhile ago that went something like this:

We should do everything we can to increase our miles per gallon and use less energy. Because if we were right about man-made global warming, then we've saved all of humanity. And even if we were wrong about man-made global warming, then we've done a good thing by keeping the air clean.

It sounds harmless, right? Why wouldn't we want to "err on the side of caution"? But the part that liberals always forget is that there are costs associated with the choices we make. And when the government is enforcing, the costs tend to be even higher. More efficient building materials for homes cost more. More efficient cars cost more to design, build, and eventually purchase. It's common knowledge that hybrid cars take about 10 years to break even on the fuel savings. If you are a stay-at-home mom who doesn't commute to work every day, that time period grows.

If you need a quick, smart-alecky response, remember this little factoid: the fuel economy of Al Gore's private jet is measured not in miles per gallon, but in gallons per minute! One trip from Los Angeles to Europe to collect his Nobel prize burned enough gas to run the Llama family SUV for seven years!

Why not let every person and family conduct their own cost/benefit analysis and make their own choices? If there is something clearly dangerous and unsafe (lead paint, exploding Ford Pintos), then regulation is needed. But there is not sufficent evidence to support the man-made global warming hysteria, and when they force us to be "green" it costs all of us a lot of money that we may prefer to spend elsewhere. If you like those compact fluorescent bulbs and enjoy saving a few bucks on your electric bill, then go ahead and use them. But it's not a priority for me, and I don't want to pay $4 a bulb. And I hate the color of that light anyway. I work in it all day, it's not what I want from the lamp on my night stand.

I've also read somewhere that recycling kills trees. Wood is a completely renewable resource. Before recycling, lumber companies would plant as many trees as they cut down, because they didn't want to go out of business. But with recycling, they don't have to replace as many as they used to. Fewer plants to breathe in our CO2!

Again, we should be good and responsible stewards of the earth. But we have been given dominion to use the earth for our own good purposes.

Next, I'll share some info I've discovered about another dogma of the Church of Liberalism - Evolution.