Want To Save The Environment In 30 Years? Ignore Environmentalists Now

There are basically three kinds of environmentalists: Type 1. The most avid environmentalists I have ever met are not Sierra Club employees or people in the middle of protests, they are sportsmen and sportswomen who appreciate the environment because cultivating a clean environment means they can continue to enjoy it. They basically pick up after themselves and leave things the way they found them. This is the great majority of people who spend time in the outdoors but you don't find them in magazine articles or on TV. Type 2 are the political activists. They seem to care about the environment as a platform for lots of other political issues. The environment is part of a much larger agenda they have. They camp out in trees and prevent responsible logging from occurring which leads to out-of-control wildfires, or they file lawsuits about levee improvements in Louisiana until a hurricane comes through and they get to pretend the fault lies with some politicians in Washington, D.C. Type 3 are the well-meaning but misguided. These are people who genuinely care but are lulled into believing that because a scientific theory is current it must be accurate. People in the throes of fad science will invariably use one of these two arguments: Argument 1. "Doing something is better than nothing." Argument 2. "If we can save even one fish/plant/owl/mollusk/seal/insert_your_favorite critter it is all worth it." Argument 2 is easily dimissed, and evolutionary biologists are first to make the case that dying species don't wreck the planet, they optimize it. This is why you never hear evolutionary biologists talking about global warming. They know mankind survived the last Ice Age with nothing except a few furs and some sticks to rub together for fire. Surely mankind can survive being a little warmer. Argument 1 is the worst reason to make environmental decisions because there are no do-overs with the environment. A methodical, proven approach is the safest course. But people often want to do something to show they care and they often rely on evidence they like to rationalize their decisions. What they forget is that scientists are human and humans are fallible. It may be quaint today to think that leeching was once valid science but it was still practiced 100 years ago. Environmentalists could learn a lot about rushing into bad ideas by reading the history of medicine. The history of science is fraught with current ideas that turned out to be very bad. 30 years ago, an environmental group thought it would be good for the environment to make a coral reef out of discarded tires they buried on the ocean floor. Did they mean well? Of course they did. Television is always filled with earnest environmentalists who mean well. Heck, I live in California where environmentalists once convinced our Governor ( Jerry Brown ) that windmills would pay for themselves in no time at all. $15 Billion later they are a visual blight and a lot of wasted money. And don't even get me started on MTBE. The people of Florida now have a similar issue. The entire state is going to have to spend millions to clean up the damage caused by a small environmental group who meant well and relied on scientists and studies that provided evidence they liked. How do you clean up 2 million tires on the ocean floor? The hard way, my friends. And those tires can't be recycled now. So they will end up in a landfill - exactly what well-meaning environmentalists did not want. Lots of money. Tires in landfills. The environment worse than it was before. This is what happens when hasty decisions are made based on convenient evidence rather than proof. Environmental evidence takes time. Three decades ago a coral reef made of tires was a good idea. Today people who can't even predict the weather more than 10 days from now are trying to tell us we need to spend trillions to prevent a disaster that may not be coming. A science fiction writer* once wrote that if we sent a spaceship to a distant star today whoever still lived to arrive 100 years from now would be greeted by people from Earth who had passed them in transit. Technology moves that quickly. Sometimes the best way to save the environment is to leave it for the future and more advanced technology. Or else we could end up with the future equivalent of a coral reef full of tires. *Huge Contrarian Scientist bonus if you identify that author.

Environmentalists Applaud Richard Branson's Hypocrisy

Environmentalists applauded Richard Branson's generous contribution to the global warming issue. Speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual conference of business, political and nonprofit leaders hosted by the former President, Branson said he would invest about $3 billion to combat global warming over the next decade. Clinton praised Branson, calling him one of the most "creative" and "committed" people he had ever known. Ummmm ... okay, it's no secret I think most environmentalists are sub-literate sock-monkeys who will believe almost anything if it sounds like it's for the environment. I usually let them go because they are basically harmless and the people who make those rubbery clogs have to feed their families too. But I have to take a stand here. Branson's Virgin Group does $8 billion in revenues per year, the bulk of that from fuel-guzzling transportation divisions. Devoting a $300 million per year tax write-off and getting all that free publicity for supporting R&D into alternative fuels helps who exactly? The Virgin Group. Exxon-Mobil pays for R&D and then has to pay taxes on its profits. Virgin Group pays for R & D and now gets to write off $300 million per year of its profits to support the environment by investing in ... R & D, which it will own. Yet Exxon-Mobil is the bad guy and Virgin is the good guy. Which means environmentalists care about the environment? No, it means they care about whoever is giving them money, even if he is tanking the environment while he does it. That's not good for anyone. Branson as much as admitted it a month ago, when he said was considering building his own refinery to combat higher oil prices ( no environmental concern last month, it seems) but then said, "It became apparent to me that far from investing in conventional forms of refining, the more sensible thing for Virgin to do was to invest considerable sums in alternative fuels and refining." Again, nothing about environmental concern. And he makes no secret that he won't go into any business where he can't make 40%. You know what that means, right? Your tax dollars are making Branson richer.

Health Mullahs Ecstatic Over Shaky Thread Between Smoking And AIDS

Statistics are funny things. In the 19th century, when tuberculosis was more common, doctors recommended that patients move to Colorado for the drier air. Critics of Colorado could rightfully cite that the state had the highest tuberculosis rates in the country, and the most deaths from the disease. Cause and effect meant that Colorado caused TB. Now a British study is claiming that the data they have analyzed states that smoking increases the chance of catching HIV. Seriously, people, is there anyone out there who doesn't know that smoking is bad for you? Next they'll be saying some criminals smoke so smoking causes crime. Dr Andrew Furber, of the South East Sheffield Primary Care Trust, and his colleagues, who reported the findings in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, said tobacco smoke may increase susceptibility to HIV infection by modifying a variety of immune system responses. This is not cause and effect at all, this is creating a hypothesis and then interpreting data to support what you want to prove. What the study is finding is that people most likely to catch AIDS - and those people have always been and remain predominantly people who engage in promiscuous, unprotected sexual conduct and IV drug use - are also more likely to smoke. The same study interested in alcohol would find most of them drink. Another study interested in the link between HIV and driving would find most of them don't pay their parking tickets. Nearly 5 million people contracted AIDS in 2005, even with all of the money spent on awareness programs and prevention. Almost 30% of Americans still smoke, even though we simultaneously raise the taxes on cigarettes and advertise against their use. You can't regulate that kind of voluntary conduct. Citing one of those as cause and effect is bad science. Clearly they need a few contrarians in England.

Afarensis 2006

Evolution advocates are all atwitter about a skeleton uncovered in Africa that has finally become ready to begin examining. First, let me qualify; I say 'evolution advocates' and that sounds contentious but that's not to say I disbelieve evolution. However, I wouldn't be a contrarian scientist if I believed every popular piece of pop science that came along. Instead, I would be an anti-religion, anti-Republican, anti-non-scientists scientist. In effect, I would be every single Associate Professor who writes for scienceblogs.com, the science communities' answer to Slate Magazine. Biologists in the evolution camp have become so entrenched in wanting to believe anything that might be more evidence for evolution, they tend to miss the big picture. And when they aren't missing the big picture, they are redefining it so that their evidence only leads to the conclusion they like. This is arcane stuff, people, and if you try to argue the point, they will give you a list of books citing why evolution is a law. Conveniently these are the only books that are worth reading to them. Sounds like religious fundamentalism, right? Indeed. They're not as bad as environmentalists, of course. Any time an environmentalist makes a claim, you should reach for your wallet ... and hope the grain of salt replaces the money you are about to lose. You only have to live in California a little while and see the windmills that environmentalists claimed would pay for themselves immediately to see what $15 billion in waste looks like. Biologists that are on the fringes of the evolution argument are along the same vein as the abortion groups on both sides, the homosexuality groups on both sides, or any other group which morphs its hypotheses into its religion. They need to convince you and they desperately want to live in important times. Sometimes that means overstating evidence ... for your own good. NATURE Magazine ( sorry - journal, it sounds more scientific if you say journal ), coming out next week, will have all the latest details on this find - at least the details they like, in carefully crafted language. NATURE is nothing if not biased in its articles but they don't claim to be objective so we gauge them accordingly. Does this new find really gain any ground for either side? No, so beware people who will insist it does. When people are looking at data through a political prism, they tend to see what they want to see. I'll link the article when it comes online. In the mean time, get your hysteria and evolutionary claim-jumping at scienceblogs.com

Reaping What You Sow In Science And Business

Pundits, engineers and economists are wringing their hands over the Freescale Semiconductor leveraged buyout - at $17.6 Billion it is the largest privatization of a high-technology company in history. Why is this a bad thing? I don't think it is, but I am not doing the hand-wringing. However, if you are one of the people who thinks less corporate accountability and more outsourcing is bad, blame Democrats. I don't mean for that to be a Rush Limbaugh versus whoever Democrats have thing, but that's the way this one worked out. If you make a big stink about something small, you have to be accountable later. The Sarbanes-Oxley regulations might as well have been called The Enron Provision. As a result of them, it has become so difficult to run a public company, much less take one public, that financiers are instead taking them private and abandoning IPOs. Okay, taking one company private is not a big deal. Or two, because now Philips Semi is private also. But the bad thing is that the new government regulations, enacted because politicians wanted to paint President Bush with Enron strokes, prohibit IPOs also. In private companies, only the investors get rich. In an IPO, employees make money too. They have stock options which they can sell. So these new government regulations, ostensibly designed to protect the little guy, do nothing of the kind. The little guy can never go through an IPO and get that bonus. Small companies with cutting-edge technology have relied on sweat equity. Sweat-equity made Silicon Valley great. Today, if I see "pre-IPO" on a company's blurb about itself, it hits 8.3 on the Bullshit Richter Scale for me because I know how difficult it is to do an IPO. Pre-IPO is marketing hoopie for private. Your dry cleaner is "pre-IPO" in that sense. A loss of sweat equity means it costs more in salaries and bonuses to get good employees, which is precisely the kind of cash-burn young companies don't need. What is the solution? Rescind Sarbanes-Oxley? Sure, but aside from Prohibition, when has the government ever rescinded legislation? The Enron guys didn't tank the company because they were unregulated, they tanked the company because they were crooks. Sarbanes-Oxley, and its ceaseless regulations and accounting restrictions, is the kind of meddlesome, innovation-choking tax that American high-technology doesn't need in a competitive global environment. The only thing that could make things worse is meddling with stock options accounting. Oh, wait ...

Consume Less

Some monkey at Scienceblogs.com actually wrote that as a response to what individuals can do about global warming. Yes, consume less. Not 'think about a way to solve global warming' or 'create ways to turn potentially bad things into good things.' With that kind of thinking we would never have; *Penicillin, because it came from mold. A bad thing. And *Domesticated livestock, because the Al Gore running the ancient tribe when hunting got difficult would have created birth control for population reduction and told people to 'consume less.' Which would have been fine, until a smart tribe that raised its own cattle grew to 10x the size of Al Gore's tribe and overran them. I can go on but the topic is too silly to spend much more time on. I should go back to ranting about Laurie David. She is as bright as the guy who wrote that 'consume less' drivel. I swear, I am often baffled why the 'scientists' over their get paid at all. Granted, it is only $70 a month, so in line with what they are worth, but it's still too much. Not a single other person had anything to offer beyond the 'consume less' mantra. No interesting concepts like "take some of the money you want to lose in consumption and production and invest it in solving the problem" or anything even close. Because we wouldn't want to burden those people with being actual scientists. 'Consume less.' And send scientific progress back to the Stone Age.

Should You Take Science Advice From This Woman?

I liked SEINFELD. I thought it was a funny show. And I guess I therefore like Larry David, even though he would annoy the bejeesus out of me in real life. This does not mean, however, that just because some sub-literate harpy is sleeping with Larry David that her opinion should be foisted off on an unsuspecting public. Now, I am not one of those elitist scientists who insist only people with degrees from schools I like ( not many ) should have an opinion. That sort of arrogance is for evolutionary biologists to use when you ask them how the elements evolved. But this Laurie David person is something special. I stumbled across her on a blog called The Huffington Report and she had this bit of scientific sophistry: Dear Mr. Blitzer, How is it possible, after a year of extensive media coverage, numerous scientific studies, and An Inconvenient Truth, you are still offering global warming reports that mislead and confuse the American public? Most people only commit one logical fallacy in a sentence. It isn't easy to commit two, but I have never, ever, ever seen someone commit three. She wants to convince us by ad hominem attacks, convince us by appealing to authority and convince us by appealling to popularity - ALL IN ONE SENTENCE. Anyone doing so much damage in so few letters deserves my respect so I thought I would share her credentials with you: ... Yeah, that's it. Again, I am not saying the lack of a college degree invalidates her opinion. Nor does her experience as a mother and producer of shows her husband makes. But it doesn't give her any special qualifications either. So why is she on this Huffington Report thing? It apparently gets a great deal of traffic. Is she on there because she is so smart? No, she is on there because they only hire people who can generate a great deal of traffic because they are famous - or at least know someone famous. I did a little more digging and her primary contention seems to be that Republicans caused Hurricane Katrina. Or they caused global warming. I'm not sure. She's like Custer at Little Big Horn, attacking everywhere at once and thinking she will win. I read through her archives and among various posts she tells three of the foremost authorities on hurricanes in the world that they don't know what they're talking about because they disagree with Al Gore's movie. I don't agree with Al Gore's movie. Maybe she can write me up too? Those guys are pretty smart and I bet all that new traffic would bump my AdSense traffic up to $8 a day.

Good News For Science Education

Science education is in the tank. If you ask teachers, they will insist they need more money. If you ask sociologists they will say science needs to be more fun/creative/interesting/appealling/whatever. I don't know the answer in the classroom but I know the answer - fewer classrooms. I was on one forum and some crazy woman insisted George Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program was at fault. She must have been a teacher because she griped that it wasn't "fully-funded." I am not a teacher so it seemed to me that not increasing the percentage each year by the maximum amount allowed by law is something different than not fully funded. Plus, I know it's fashionable but isn't it a little soon to blame "No Child Left Behind", I asked? You'll probably say that about the Iraq War too, she replied. Yes, she found a way to compare science students impacted or not by "No Child Left Behind" with Baathist terrorists angry because they are out of power in Iraq. As you might guess, this was on scienceblogs.com where there's never more than one degree of separation between science and Bush-bashing. So what is the solution? I have always thought the solution to science, engineering, math, etc. participation was showing young people how they impact the world. At the National Instruments Week, NI Vice-President Ray Almgren and the panel he chaired discussed some excellent options. The EPICS ( Engineering Projects In Community Service ) is the most exciting to me ( read other options for yourself here ) because it intends to deal with real-world problems. Want to get young scientists excited? Show them how to make a pump that goes inside a well that pumps water that helps people grow plants. Show them how to make a crystal radio. The issue they will face implementing this is what you would expect. An array of advocates for the poor, along with lawyers, government officials and educators are waiting on the sidelines to crush such a program. Who's going to want a well built by students? Why should poor people be guinea pigs? What about the regulations? What if it fails in 20 years? The only solution is to build these projects in a sterile, inconsequential environment where it doesn't matter - which is the same classroom full of political leanings and social engineering that we have today. A student who gets thanked for doing something terrific is going to be inspired. There are some students who will be inspired by working in a lab too - they would be inspired anyway because of their natures - but if America is going to compete scientifically with much larger countries putting out scientists and engineers, we have to find a way to get America's best and brightest thinking about science again.

How To Tank Your Economy

Seed Magazine, internet science's version of The Sierra Club, NARAL and whatever groups hate religion the most, is all atwitter that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign yet another aggressive, anti-business piece of legislation. Now, of course, it won't harm California industry if someone finds an expert that says it won't. No, more legislation will help industry in California. You and I know that is always true. Wait, maybe that is true. Ohhhhh ... only in the case of utilities because, as Barry Abramson, utility analyst at Gabelli Asset Management Inc. points out, utilities can simply pass the additional costs on to consumers without them ever seeing it. So California can institute its own mini-Kyoto protocol, even though 80% of the countries that signed it don't meet their targets and have no intention of doing so, and if it only hurts poor people with higher utility rates, that is okay. No wonder Seed Magazine is so happy. Lots of liberals working in New York skyscrapers are happy when someone else does something. Actual manufacturers are not so happy. "We have put the California economy at risk by addressing the risk of global warming," said Jack Stewart, president of the California Manufacturers & Technology Association. "This just moves the problem somewhere else." Indeed it does. Like Nevada. No one in their right mind will stay in California much less move here once the place gets even more expensive for business. Much like manufacturing jobs will move to exempt countries like India, China and Mexico if America were to institute the job-killing strategy. I live in California so I will tell you what I see. When an environmentalist makes a claim, reach for your wallet. We have billions of wasted dollars on windmills in this state. Yes, I said windmills. But they said it would save money. They always say that. How do they make that claim? Here is the process for justifying your ridiculous cause: 1. Take your cause and its current cost and say it will becomes much cheaper. Say something like, "When this catches on, it will drive the cost per unit to 1/10th of what it is today." State that as fact. Get a law passed. This is why in a very few years people with hybrid vehicles are going to be alarmed when they are spending thousands of dollars to replace their batteries. "But environmentalists said popularity would make the price drop", they will say. If only it worked that way. Yes, environmentalists think all manufacturing is like computers, where old technology becomes cheaper. What they fail to recognize is that unless you are manufacturing millions of something it never works that way. This is why hospital care has not gotten cheaper, people. Or cars. 2. State that business is the friend of your idea. Yes, insist that it is good for business and that entrepreneurs and capitalism will solve the pesky cost dilemma. In this case, insist that new businesses will spring up to cater to the new legislation you just impemented. In fact, say it will be a Gold Rush of new business. California people love to hear that. Has this ever happened? California people ran nuclear power out of the state and then made sure no new refineries can be built, so California ends up getting whiplash every time OPEC raises prices even though the Alaska Pipeline runs right into the state. What businesses sprang up to replace nuclear power? None, of course. Who would dare? The only new 'business' that will spring up is more government agencies to enforce the new laws and do inspections. 60% of the California economy is already controlled by the fed and state governments. I am not sure more of that is the answer. "This is confirmation of a state that knows an economic opportunity when it sees it," said Fred Krupp, president of advocacy group Environmental Defense. You remember Environmental Defense, right? They're the ones suing an MIT professor for disputing some of their facts about global warming. Who is in the chair beside them in that complain? The state of California. That's a surprise. But, wait, there is a study by The University of California at Berkeley. You know, Berkeley. Long-time friend of business. THey published a study that said California's global warming legislation will add US$60 billion to the US$1.5 trillion economy and 17,000 jobs annually. But if the state also offers innovation incentives to business, the boost to the economy will be US$74 billion and 89,000 new jobs annually, the study said. Incentives? You mean tax rebates? Who pays for that? Oh yeah, everyone else ... and poor people more than anyone. But don't expect the University Of Californa system to speak against the California Legislature. When the state was compiling a $30 billion deficit the U of CA system got 30,000 new employees while community college students got tripled tuition. Guess which of those two overwhelmingly votes Democrat? We'll give SEED Magazine a break for their naivete. They have a big corporate venture capital investor ( in Canada, naturally ) who wants to make some money ... and global warming is big business these days. Just visit the Sierra Club headquarters some time. Hint: it ain't that log cabin in Yosemite they show in brochures. Though they have a nice multi-million dollar mutual fund you can invest in. That always says 'we care about the environment' to me.

Is There No Opposing Science To Global Warming?

You'd think there isn't. One politician says there isn't. Heck, he went further, saying if you hear any doubt, ignore it. "There is no science on the other side." Well, there is opposing science, but what happens when there is so much money tied up in making sure there is global warming that you're going to get sued if you say anything else? Ask M.I.T.'s Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen; he's being sued by the state of California, Environmental Defense, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Why? "We know that General Motors has been paying for this fake science exactly as the tobacco companies did," says Environmental Defense attorney Jim Marston. Fake science is a pretty serious charge. Scientists are, by nature, skeptics. Or they should be. Yes, there are segments of the scientific population that lock-step with whatever the popular theory is, like evolution and global warming, but most scientists just need proof. But Marston has an interesting strategy. Lump the guy in with evil tobacco companies. To be frank, most scientists don't understand the whole tobacco controversy either. Of course tobacco is bad for you. Who didn't know that? They knew that in the 1700s. Heck, cigarettes have only been around 130 years or so. Before that it was all cigars and pipes ... and people inhaled them. It's like me suing KFC if they do a study that says their chicken tastes good - or finding ways to make it better. If they don't publish that study are they "suppressing" it? I guess so. I'm neither a smoker or a crazed anti-smoking zealot so my thinking is too clear to get in the newspapers about it. Why is Lindzen in so much trouble? He acknowledges that global warming is real, and he acknowledges that increased carbon emissions might be causing the warming -- but they also might not. Yes, that is the big threat to the environmental lobbysists and Al Gore's Presidential candidacy. There is opposing science but they will sue to make sure you never hear it. `We do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change" is one of Lindzen's many heresies, along with such zingers as ``the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940," ``the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average," and ``Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why." Now, I can find a scientist to say almost anything. I can find a scientist to come out against clean water if I look hard enough so no one should be bothered if it's one person saying global warming is exaggerated. If the evidence is overwhelming there is no harm in letting him be heard. But suing a scientist because he doesn't believe circumstantial evidence?? I think science will have to take a stand on this one. Article Here.

Glaciers Shrinking For 100 Years

This study says glaciers were shrinking long before George W. Bush got into office. We're physicists, not glaciologists ( though it sounds like the kind of cool, non-specific, government-funded title that could be a lot of fun ) so we're inclined to look for the opposing view as well. We should receive that via email, with accompanying hate-filled invective, shortly after this hits the internet. Danish researchers from Aarhus University studied glaciers on Disko island - you know, western Greenland - from the 1880s until now. "This study, which covers 247 of 350 glaciers on Disko, is the most comprehensive ever conducted on the movements of Greenland's glaciers," said glaciologist Jacob Clement Yde, who carried out the study with Niels Tvis Knudsen. Using maps from the 19th century and current satellite observations, the scientists were able to conclude that "70 percent of the glaciers have been shrinking regularly since the end of the 1880s at a rate of around eight meters per year," Yde said. I don't think anyone disputes there is global warming, I just think politicians and their scientists of similar bent disagree on whether over-politicized CO2 emissions are the cause. This study said it comes from plants. It's a little silly for politicians on one side to be blaming politicians on the other side for too many plants. Again, we're physicists and we have poor grasp of things we know nothing about so correct our logic in thinking that, if 90,000 out of every 100,000 years of world history have been ice ages ... and it's been 12,000 years since the last one ... we had better hope that global warming thing sticks around.