Friday, January 15, 2010
Al Gore is not a mass murderer. But only because to be guilty of murder you require mens rea or a guilty mind.
But he is a killer.
By now some of you have probably heard, via facebook status updates, about the tragic earthquake in Haiti. It's mostly tragic, however, because as an impoverished nation they were unable to afford strict building standards, and they are unable to mobilize heavy equipment and relief supplies to rescue survivors and assuage the misery.
Which brings me to the subject ofglobal warming climate change. Ignoring for now the fact that researchers had to lie and manipulate data to get their models to predict climate change will occur, I don't think anyone really disputes that there's really nothing we can do about it. The most drastic solutions cut carbon emissions by a few percentage points far down the road. Without some fundamental breakthrough in energy, or abandoning modern lifestyle, our carbon emissions will march on. There's no getting around it.
But what we can do is severely damage our economy and the world economy by imposing draconian taxes on carbon and massively distorting the market for energy.
Thankfully the global cooling scientists were predicting a few decades ago never materialized and I'm confident the warming will likewise not come to pass, however, if they are accidentally right, and global warming happens, and it turns out to be on a net basis more harmful than beneficial -- would we rather deal with the consequences as a Haiti or as a Northridge, CA?
But he is a killer.
By now some of you have probably heard, via facebook status updates, about the tragic earthquake in Haiti. It's mostly tragic, however, because as an impoverished nation they were unable to afford strict building standards, and they are unable to mobilize heavy equipment and relief supplies to rescue survivors and assuage the misery.
Which brings me to the subject of
But what we can do is severely damage our economy and the world economy by imposing draconian taxes on carbon and massively distorting the market for energy.
Thankfully the global cooling scientists were predicting a few decades ago never materialized and I'm confident the warming will likewise not come to pass, however, if they are accidentally right, and global warming happens, and it turns out to be on a net basis more harmful than beneficial -- would we rather deal with the consequences as a Haiti or as a Northridge, CA?
