Damn Hippies

UPDATE: Here's a link to an outstanding article by a professor at MIT criticizing the global warming alarmism -> Critique of Scientific Alarmists

UPDATE 2: If you have not read State of Fear by Michael Crichton, do so immediately.

There were back-to-back stories on NPR this morning as I was driving into work that I thought were rather ironic.

The first was about California making greenhouse gas 'target' levels into laws. Everyone interviewed said this had to be done for the sake of the environment and future generations, well, everyone except the companies responsible for creating the greenhouses gases, that is.

The second was about sea lions on the Pacific coast that were wreaking havoc with the salmon and sturgeon business. You see, sea lions had become a protected species in the late '70s and now that their populations have returned to normal levels they're hungry. And guess what sea lions normally eat? That's right, fish! So now folks were planning to start sea lion 'management' programs, i.e. hunting and killing, in order to protect the fishing industries.

If you don't see the irony, I'll spell it out for you. The greenhouse piece was about hippies facing what they considered to be a terrible, current environmental problem in the present. The sea lions piece was about hippies that had faced and dealt with what they considered to be a terrible, current (in the late '70s) environmental problem and how that had come back to bite them in the ass and will lead to the same end result that got them here in the first place.

My point? Hippies are morons and should not be able to make decisions that affect people outside their hippie communes. Seriously though, people always seem to think we know what's best for the environment and that without our intervention the whole world will go to shit. Guess what? The Earth has been around a lot longer that humans have and will be around a lot longer after we're gone. We don't really have a solid grasp of the long-term repercussions of our environmental initiatives and "protection" policies. And even though we may have policies in the United States, they don't elsewhere. You think some Chinese farmer gives a shit about greenhouse gases when he's driving a car and has his own television for the first time in his life? America wouldn't be the prosperous, powerful country it is today if we hadn't screwed the environment for the past 100+ years. And now that we've "learned" the folly of our ways we try to force restrictions on other countries in the name of saving the environment and are aghast when they give us a big "F#$% you!" and take the money instead.

Bottom line: "saving" the environment won't make a squat of difference for our kids, for their kids, for their kids or for their kids. When it may make a difference is 1000 or so years from now and frankly, I couldn't care less about people 1000 years in the future. What it will do is cost a buttload of money now and drive prosperous business and industry out of the United States and into countries that are more realistic about their living conditions today.

Oh, and the Reds won 9-2 yesterday. Six(6)! home runs including a grand slam and another by Arroyo. Arroyo is currently on pace for 62 home runs this season. Suck it, Cubs...