Why do there have to be "sides"? Why can't we just let the market do its thing? When the economic balance tilts toward renewables we will switch to them no matter how much carbon is easily available. Eliminate all the special government rewards/penalties associated with any and all energy producton and the law of supply and demand will elegantly elevate the current best solution at any given time.
If our rights were being so easily dissipated, would we be able to sit at our computers and publish so much skepticism, suspicion and second-guessing?
The people who are really losing are the one's who see a spook around every corner and in every news story. They have already surrendered their freedom by giving into their fear.
DDT is a good example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. When it was used indiscriminantly 40 or 50 years ago it led to major problems (the near loss of bald eagles is the most striking example). However, it could play a huge, and relatively safe role in reducing deaths from malaria and other mosquito born diseases in the tropics. Now that we understand its unintended consequences better, they can be largely avoided.
As is typical of people when they are frightened by environmentalists, or dieticians, or politicians, they overreacted. Consequently we lost a potent, and potentially dangerous, but useful pesticide.
Any sort of extremism has a high probability of leading to bad ends--religious, political, environmental. People need to learn to view environmental extremism with the same skepticism with which they view religious or political extremism.
Slashdot Mirror
That was my question exactly. Odd that a link wasn't provided.
Why do there have to be "sides"? Why can't we just let the market do its thing? When the economic balance tilts toward renewables we will switch to them no matter how much carbon is easily available. Eliminate all the special government rewards/penalties associated with any and all energy producton and the law of supply and demand will elegantly elevate the current best solution at any given time.
If our rights were being so easily dissipated, would we be able to sit at our computers and publish so much skepticism, suspicion and second-guessing?
The people who are really losing are the one's who see a spook around every corner and in every news story. They have already surrendered their freedom by giving into their fear.
DDT is a good example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. When it was used indiscriminantly 40 or 50 years ago it led to major problems (the near loss of bald eagles is the most striking example). However, it could play a huge, and relatively safe role in reducing deaths from malaria and other mosquito born diseases in the tropics. Now that we understand its unintended consequences better, they can be largely avoided.
As is typical of people when they are frightened by environmentalists, or dieticians, or politicians, they overreacted. Consequently we lost a potent, and potentially dangerous, but useful pesticide.
Any sort of extremism has a high probability of leading to bad ends--religious, political, environmental. People need to learn to view environmental extremism with the same skepticism with which they view religious or political extremism.