Before we get started, let me state for the record, that I am not a scientist (nor do I play one on TV). I am, however, a thinker (with apologies to Glenn Beck), and I have been trained almost since birth (thanks, Dad!) to think things through. I don’t like to take things at face value, and I prefer to question conventional wisdom.
That’s why I believe that all this talk about “global warming” and “climate change” is complete and utter bull.
(I’d use a much more explicit word, but this is a family blog.)
The problem I see here is that the green crowd have combined a rush to judgement, bad intel, skewed data, hidden agendas, and a sense of hysteria into a perfect storm. If these nutjobs only hurt themselves, it would all be simply amusing. Unfortunately, they are not content to play Chicken Little to the world. No, they’re doing their best to screw up everything they can, all in the name of an imaginary problem over which we’d have no control, even if we DID cause it.
I don’t want to get too far into this nonsense, but if you were to take AlGore’s premise at face value, and have the USA sign onto the ludicrous Kyoto Protocol, by their own admissions, we would only change our global climate something like 2/10ths of one percent. That means we’d be just as well off doing nothing, for those of you keeping score.
Here’s a prime example of the kind of twisted thinking that will kill us all: some idiot professor (with waaaaay too much time on his hands and probably looking for some big research grant) has unilaterally decided how much it costs (in carbon footprint terms) to execute a search on Google’s servers. Said professor (who shall remain nameless because I think he’s a pinhead and deserves no further publicity…let’s just mention that he’s on the staff at Harvard, seemingly a magnet for pinheadedness) claims that a Google search burns as much energy as boiling a kettle.
Let’s pause for a nanosecond and consider this. First of all, who cares? Unfortunately, the answer will be “the green fanatics, the eco-Nazis, and the PeTA crowd. You know…the ones busy screwing up our lives in so many other ways. Second, how did said professor arrive at this information? What did he use for metrics? Does he have any way to prove his assumptions? (I seriously doubt this.) Third, why is this even a story? I’ll tell you why. Because all it takes nowadays, is one idiot, screaming loudly about carbon footprint this, or global warming that, and all of a sudden you’ll see some bunch of other idiots proposing taxes for web searches, blogging, or even using the net, all in the name of “preserving our planet.”
Want more? Here’s a swell one: The Obama administration is considering if they should push back the great changeover from analog to digital TV signals. Seems like no big deal, right? I mean, after all, virtually all TV stations are running both digital and analog transmitters, and have been for months. Why force us all to buy digital tuners? Why convert at all? Well, here’s an angle you might not have considered: If the Obama administration delays the shutdown of digital signals past February 17th, take the number of every TV station in the country, multiply it by $10,000, and then multiply by the number of additional months they delay the transition. That’s the amount of money they will spend on electricity to power the extra transmitters.
Think about that. It costs stations in Amarillo about $10K per month to power their transmitters. Double it when they have to broadcast on both digital and analog frequencies. There are an estimated 1290 broadcast TV stations in the USA (I tried to get more specific info, but after a half dozen Google searches, I gave up. Oops.) So let’s see…an extra $10K per month times 1,290, makes $12.9 million simoleans. at an average price of 10 to 17 cents per kilowatt hour, that would make somewhere between 75 million and 129 million kilowatt hours that are being WASTED by broadcasting the same signal on dual transmitters.
Call it a waste of energy or a waste of dollars, you don’t have to be Everitt Dirksen to know that we’re talking about REAL money, here. And why? All because the folks on the left value symbolism over logic and reason.
At the heart of the ecology movement was originally a worthwhile goal – clean up the planet. Pollute less. Waste less. Use less. Reuse more. I have no problem with any of that. It’s when these goals are taken to extremes that I take issue. So regardless of some stupid study on the energy used to search Google or a plan to waste massive amounts of energy in the name of the people, I object. And I ask one, very serious question:
What would be the savings in CO2 admissions if the greenies would just stop flapping their gums and shut up? Inquiring minds want to know…
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