The other day, I received a timely reminder of what is unique about America.
One of my friends, with whom I have played squash, is a Pakistani-born medical doctor living in the US. He still has family in Pakistan, and travels there periodically with his family.
I saw him Saturday morning, and asked but his feelings regarding the recent events in his homeland. Did it bother him? With whom were is allegiances? Does he have any family members now in prison?
He said, simply,
'The ruler there is like Castro. The people don't like him. But the lawyers being thrown in jail are paid by another politician, not Bhutto.'
That's why I'm here.'
His remarks made me think, after a week of seeing the dollar fall further in relative value among other currencies. And here some Chinese official remark that they will diversify out of dollars soon.
For all America's faults, someone like my friend, the Pakistani medical doctor, will choose to live here, rather than in his own country. He doesn't trust the political climate of the land where he was born.
For all we hear about Chinese coming here for education, then returning to China to compete against us, how many stay here, for our political freedoms?
It doesn't take much to see how China is viewed in the world. They manipulated Yahoo in order to identify and imprison a Chinese journalist. Who has forgotten Tienemman Square?
When people around the world look for one economic and moral haven, it's always the US. Our freedom of speech, despite Robert Redford's increasingly cantankerous and addled mumblings, remain second to none. In a crisis, our economy provides more safety and capacity for investment than any other one.
People from other countries battle to come here. Investors from other countries bid to buy our government's securities.
Things in America are not as bad as they might occasionally seem.
You could be living in Pakistan- or China.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Monday, November 5, 2007
Peggy Noonan On Hillary's Revelations
Peggy Noonan redeemed herself with a great article in the Weekend Wall Street Journal concerning Hillary's behavior in the recent Democratic candidates' debate. She articulated clearly something I've felt about Hillary all along.
Noonan writes,
"The story is not that Mrs. Clinton signaled, in attitude and demeanor, who she believes is her most dangerous foe, the great impediment between her and an easy glide to the nomination. Yes, that would be Tim Russert.
The story is that she talked about policy. Not talking points, but policy. In talking about it she seemed, for the first time, to be revealing what's inside.
It was startling. It's 1993 in there. The year before her fall, and rise.
But the larger point is that her policy approach revealed all the impulses not of the New Centrism but the Old Leftism. Her statements were redolent of the 1990s phrase "command and control." They reflect a bias toward the old tax-raising on people who aren't rich, who aren't protected, the old "my friends and I know best, and we'll fill you dullards in on the details later."
The problem for Mrs. Clinton is not that people sense she will raise taxes. It's that they don't think she'll raise them on the real and truly rich. The rich are her friends. They contribute to her, dine with her, have access to her. They have an army of accountants. They're protected even from her.
But she can stick it to others, and in the way of modern liberalism for roughly half a century now, one suspects she'll define affluence down. That she would hike taxes on people who make $150,000 a year.
But those "rich" -- people who make $200,000 and have two kids and a mortgage and pay local and state taxes in, say, New Jersey -- they don't see themselves as rich. Because they're not. They're already carrying too much of the freight.
It seemed to me she made it quite possible to assume you know who she'll be making war on. And this -- much more than the latest scandal, the Chinatown funny money and the bundling -- could, and I think would, engender real opposition down the road. The big chink in her armor is not stylistic, it is about policy. It is about the great baseline question in all political life: Whose ox is being gored?"
It pleases me to see someone else also finally feel that Hillary's basic tax-the-middle-class-and-spend policy is the problem. It's such a throwback to the old, losing ways of her party that you wonder how she can believe she'll win with that message.
This is where I think that content can trump form. As I wrote here recently, of an acquaintance who reminded me of Howard Dean's fall from front-running grace four years ago, money and momentum in no way assure victory- either for the nomination, nor for the Presidency itself.
In their own self-interest, Hillary's largely-hapless or worn-out competitors are at last beginning to chip away at her Teflon coating. The inconsistencies are showing through, as are the megalomaniac projects and dreams of vast new Federal programs, paid for with vast new tax revenues from ever-less-wealthy Americans.
Call me naive, or too simple, but I think that Americans instinctively protect their wallets when threatened with such a free-taxing and -spending politician.
I think that reality is at last beginning to catch up to Hillary's campaign. And money won't protect her when it does.
Noonan writes,
"The story is not that Mrs. Clinton signaled, in attitude and demeanor, who she believes is her most dangerous foe, the great impediment between her and an easy glide to the nomination. Yes, that would be Tim Russert.
The story is that she talked about policy. Not talking points, but policy. In talking about it she seemed, for the first time, to be revealing what's inside.
It was startling. It's 1993 in there. The year before her fall, and rise.
But the larger point is that her policy approach revealed all the impulses not of the New Centrism but the Old Leftism. Her statements were redolent of the 1990s phrase "command and control." They reflect a bias toward the old tax-raising on people who aren't rich, who aren't protected, the old "my friends and I know best, and we'll fill you dullards in on the details later."
The problem for Mrs. Clinton is not that people sense she will raise taxes. It's that they don't think she'll raise them on the real and truly rich. The rich are her friends. They contribute to her, dine with her, have access to her. They have an army of accountants. They're protected even from her.
But she can stick it to others, and in the way of modern liberalism for roughly half a century now, one suspects she'll define affluence down. That she would hike taxes on people who make $150,000 a year.
But those "rich" -- people who make $200,000 and have two kids and a mortgage and pay local and state taxes in, say, New Jersey -- they don't see themselves as rich. Because they're not. They're already carrying too much of the freight.
It seemed to me she made it quite possible to assume you know who she'll be making war on. And this -- much more than the latest scandal, the Chinatown funny money and the bundling -- could, and I think would, engender real opposition down the road. The big chink in her armor is not stylistic, it is about policy. It is about the great baseline question in all political life: Whose ox is being gored?"
It pleases me to see someone else also finally feel that Hillary's basic tax-the-middle-class-and-spend policy is the problem. It's such a throwback to the old, losing ways of her party that you wonder how she can believe she'll win with that message.
This is where I think that content can trump form. As I wrote here recently, of an acquaintance who reminded me of Howard Dean's fall from front-running grace four years ago, money and momentum in no way assure victory- either for the nomination, nor for the Presidency itself.
In their own self-interest, Hillary's largely-hapless or worn-out competitors are at last beginning to chip away at her Teflon coating. The inconsistencies are showing through, as are the megalomaniac projects and dreams of vast new Federal programs, paid for with vast new tax revenues from ever-less-wealthy Americans.
Call me naive, or too simple, but I think that Americans instinctively protect their wallets when threatened with such a free-taxing and -spending politician.
I think that reality is at last beginning to catch up to Hillary's campaign. And money won't protect her when it does.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Hillary On The Defensive
The Wall Street Journal's recent piece on the Democratic Presidential candidates' "debate" on the Drexel University campus in Philadelphia, portrayed Hillary Clinton as beginning to exhibit the behaviors which I personally believe will ultimately deny her the White House.
For example, the Journal piece read, in part,
"Indeed, each of her rivals condemned Mrs. Clinton's vote on the Iran resolution as unnecessary saber rattling. Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware voted against the measure; Mr. Obama missed the voted. Several of the Democrats said the nonbinding resolution harked back chillingly to the march to war in Iraq. Mrs. Clinton said she considered the vote -- essentially for economic sanctions against Iran's elite military -- to be a part of diplomacy, not a prelude to battle.
Instead of pushing back, though, Mrs. Clinton turned her criticism on President Bush, condemning his administration on nearly every level as one that needed to be junked. She noted that if she were on board with the Republicans, "I don't think [they] got the message that I'm voting and sounding like them." A few minutes later, she referred to "the Republicans and their constant obsession with me."
Mr. Edwards couldn't let this last bit of rhetoric pass by. "Maybe they want to run against you," he said."
Two things seem apparent to me from this recounting of the Hillary's conduct during the debate.
One is that she is already becoming what I would call "brittle." It's a characteristic I have been expecting to come out sooner or later. Guess it's sooner, after all.
Hillary combines her desire to be and continue to be front-runner, with a sort of presumption that this means she is unassailable. It's almost as if thinking and acting it, will make it so.
The second thing is that she reacts to criticism and challenges from her fellow candidates by attacking our current President, for whom she has obvious hatred.
But she isn't running against him. Initially, she's running against Obama and Edwards. Next, perhaps, she'll run against Giuliani, Romney, McCain, or Thompson.
In this regard, I have to believe George Bush is having a laugh even now. After all, only 16 people have won two terms as President of our Republic. He has no need to prove himself again.
I cannot help but believe Hillary is running against the wrong adversary. In a sense, it's as if she wants to run against a defenseless candidate. And this retiring two-term President is defenseless, in the sense that he secure in his philosophy and accomplishments.
Could Hillary be making a major mistake by doing this? I think so. Even Democratic voters must realize that the next election doesn't feature Bush. And railing against him is not at all the same as advancing a positive vision of the future.
So many of Hillary's positions are taken in opposition to the current administration's actions and doctrines. Will that sell when she has live, active opponents challenging her for the nomination of her own party for President?
Her cavalier attitude regarding the release of documents informing us about her role in her husband's administration was captured by this Journal passage,
"Mrs. Clinton dismissed criticism of a ban, which her husband sought, that would keep the National Archives from releasing Clinton administration papers until 2012. Asked by the moderator if she would lift the ban, she replied, "That's not my decision to make." But Mr. Obama called the Clinton ban "a problem," saying Democrats need to open government after "one of the most secretive administration's in our history," Mr. Bush's."
Both by her dismissal of her opponents in favor of President Bush as her adversary, and her rather haughty, dismissive attitude regarding most criticisms of the few detailed plans she has put forth, Hillary seems to be assiduously cultivating an image of arrogance.
As if she naturally will win the Democratic nomination, and, of course, the Democrats have to win, because Bush is so...well....un-Democratic.
In the past few days, and especially after reading this account of the recent debate, I've come to believe that Hillary has caught that most dangerous of Presidential candidate diseases.
I call it the "I've waited long enough, it's my turn, dammit!" disease, and I wrote about it here, in March of this year.
Bob Dole had the disease. I think John McCain contracted it, as well. Now, it looks like it's infected Hillary.
Is it merely coincidence that all are or were US Senators? I think not.
And for this reason, as well as my belief that an accomplished executive- governor, mayor, CEO, etc.,- will beat a non-VP or incumbent former- or sitting Senator, I don't believe Hillary will win the White House in 2008.
Monday, October 29, 2007
More Inconvenient Truth About Ethanol
Holman Jenkins' Wednesday Wall Street Journal article about the far left castigating Toyota for its stand on CAFE standards. Standing with other auto manufacturers who rely on large, less fuel-efficient, profitable cars that people actually want, to fund the sale of the "profitless Prius," Toyota is catching flack from the same greenies who buy its hybrid car.
To provide us with a better understanding of the issue, Holman distills it thusly,
"As car companies do, it sold Prius customers a car that met their needs and/or flattered their vanity. For other customers whose hot buttons lie elsewhere, Toyota has the Tundra, its giant, fuel-consuming pickup. Auto companies only achieve efficient scale by appealing to different consumer appetites. The profitless Prius wouldn't exist if not for the non-hybrids that keep Toyota in business. Indeed, Toyota supports the House bill over the Senate bill only because it would let auto makers continue to make big vehicles that happen to be the ones Americans, with their dollars, show they actually want.
But the 32-year-old CAFE rules have become a fetish of environmental groups, a talisman of their clout, a ticket to a seat at a table in Washington. The policy itself has no value: It doesn't reduce oil imports. It doesn't meaningfully curb fossil-fuel use.
In the nature of things, auto buyers amortize their forced investment in fuel economy by driving more miles, burning more gas. The impressive reliability gains of the auto makers over the past 30 years are in part a reflection of this consumer demand for more miles. Ditto the conspicuous increase in vehicle size and comfort, partly a function of the increased time motorists spend in their cars."
To illustrate an as-yet unrealized hypocrisy, Jenkins notes, further down in the piece, this tasty little morsel concerning what converting to ethanol will do for total greenhouse gas emissions,
"A recently passed Senate bill would require motorists to buy 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, up from 7.5 billion gallons under current law.
At least this would benefit the atmosphere, right? Think again. A research team featuring Paul Crutzen, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on ozone depletion, recently showed that the intensive cultivation of biofuels in the U.S. and Europe produces up to 70% more greenhouse effect than the fossil fuels they displace (nitrous oxide, a byproduct of the fertilizers used, has nearly 300 times the heat-trapping properties of carbon dioxide).
Passenger cars can burn fuel consisting of 10% ethanol. If our goal were really to displace conventional gasoline, we'd open our coastal markets to sugar-cane ethanol from Brazil and other Southern Hemisphere countries, produced by less intensive methods that result -- irony alert -- in a genuine reduction in greenhouse emissions.
But Washington blocks imported ethanol with a 54-cents-a-gallon tariff to protect domestic ethanol profits. So let's sum up the ways you're paying to prop up an industry that's bad for energy security and bad for climate worries: higher taxes, higher gas prices and higher food prices. Did we mention the 3% mileage penalty that comes from burning gasoline with a 10% ethanol content, thanks to ethanol's inferior BTU value compared to gasoline?"
I have to admit, I love the naive hypocrisy of the populist environmentalists.
They want less oil usage. They want to buy expensive hybrid technology cars cheaply, even though the cars still don't make economic sense to operate. They want fewer greenhouse emissions while also advocating ethanol.
But, as Crutzen's work demonstrates, there's a contradiction. Moe ethanol means more greenhouse gases to cultivate the biofuels, not to mention soil erosion and forest depletion, as mentioned here. In fact, I've read an article, the exact location of which escapes me just now, that more widespread use of ethanol is likely to lead to the accelerated disappearance of South American rainforests, the better to be replanted with biofuels.
Call me crazy, but isn't it nonsensical to use a lot of a major food source to replace a more efficiently-burning fossil fuel? We can't eat oil.
Between the water-intensive nature of ethanol production, its relative inefficiency for power generation, compared to petroleum-based products, and the devastation of more land to plant corn for ethanol, the green lobby and its citizen-followers are likely to wake up to an environmental mess sooner, rather than later.
Then there's the inflation in food costs that will result from this switch of a major consumable, corn, from foodstuff to auto fuel.
Hitting voters hard in their wallets is never a good way to secure their long term support for a still-unproven 'crisis,' i.e., scientifically proven, human-caused global warming.
To provide us with a better understanding of the issue, Holman distills it thusly,
"As car companies do, it sold Prius customers a car that met their needs and/or flattered their vanity. For other customers whose hot buttons lie elsewhere, Toyota has the Tundra, its giant, fuel-consuming pickup. Auto companies only achieve efficient scale by appealing to different consumer appetites. The profitless Prius wouldn't exist if not for the non-hybrids that keep Toyota in business. Indeed, Toyota supports the House bill over the Senate bill only because it would let auto makers continue to make big vehicles that happen to be the ones Americans, with their dollars, show they actually want.
But the 32-year-old CAFE rules have become a fetish of environmental groups, a talisman of their clout, a ticket to a seat at a table in Washington. The policy itself has no value: It doesn't reduce oil imports. It doesn't meaningfully curb fossil-fuel use.
In the nature of things, auto buyers amortize their forced investment in fuel economy by driving more miles, burning more gas. The impressive reliability gains of the auto makers over the past 30 years are in part a reflection of this consumer demand for more miles. Ditto the conspicuous increase in vehicle size and comfort, partly a function of the increased time motorists spend in their cars."
To illustrate an as-yet unrealized hypocrisy, Jenkins notes, further down in the piece, this tasty little morsel concerning what converting to ethanol will do for total greenhouse gas emissions,
"A recently passed Senate bill would require motorists to buy 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, up from 7.5 billion gallons under current law.
At least this would benefit the atmosphere, right? Think again. A research team featuring Paul Crutzen, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on ozone depletion, recently showed that the intensive cultivation of biofuels in the U.S. and Europe produces up to 70% more greenhouse effect than the fossil fuels they displace (nitrous oxide, a byproduct of the fertilizers used, has nearly 300 times the heat-trapping properties of carbon dioxide).
Passenger cars can burn fuel consisting of 10% ethanol. If our goal were really to displace conventional gasoline, we'd open our coastal markets to sugar-cane ethanol from Brazil and other Southern Hemisphere countries, produced by less intensive methods that result -- irony alert -- in a genuine reduction in greenhouse emissions.
But Washington blocks imported ethanol with a 54-cents-a-gallon tariff to protect domestic ethanol profits. So let's sum up the ways you're paying to prop up an industry that's bad for energy security and bad for climate worries: higher taxes, higher gas prices and higher food prices. Did we mention the 3% mileage penalty that comes from burning gasoline with a 10% ethanol content, thanks to ethanol's inferior BTU value compared to gasoline?"
I have to admit, I love the naive hypocrisy of the populist environmentalists.
They want less oil usage. They want to buy expensive hybrid technology cars cheaply, even though the cars still don't make economic sense to operate. They want fewer greenhouse emissions while also advocating ethanol.
But, as Crutzen's work demonstrates, there's a contradiction. Moe ethanol means more greenhouse gases to cultivate the biofuels, not to mention soil erosion and forest depletion, as mentioned here. In fact, I've read an article, the exact location of which escapes me just now, that more widespread use of ethanol is likely to lead to the accelerated disappearance of South American rainforests, the better to be replanted with biofuels.
Call me crazy, but isn't it nonsensical to use a lot of a major food source to replace a more efficiently-burning fossil fuel? We can't eat oil.
Between the water-intensive nature of ethanol production, its relative inefficiency for power generation, compared to petroleum-based products, and the devastation of more land to plant corn for ethanol, the green lobby and its citizen-followers are likely to wake up to an environmental mess sooner, rather than later.
Then there's the inflation in food costs that will result from this switch of a major consumable, corn, from foodstuff to auto fuel.
Hitting voters hard in their wallets is never a good way to secure their long term support for a still-unproven 'crisis,' i.e., scientifically proven, human-caused global warming.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Observations On Hillary's Lead Among Democratic Presidential Candidates
A seasoned newsman and political reporter, now writing for other purposes, was discussing the two party's Presidential contenders with me at a dinner party last Saturday night.
We agreed that Obama Bim Baden is too green and immature to win his party's nomination. Then, again, we also agreed that Hillary is too brittle.
As I mused about how much money she has raised, my colleague noted what happened in the 2004 Democratic Presidential race.
Not being a registered Dem, I don't recall the details. He asked me to remember Howard Dean's lead in Iowa, followed by, I believe, his victory in New Hampshire? He was the guy to beat.
Then he did that roar thing on camera. And his campaign began to unravel, losing momentum. To be candid, I had quite forgotten this.
My colleague's point was, despite Dean's money and momentum, he managed to critically, mortally wound himself while in the lead, and lost the nomination to Kerry.
That's probably why, when asked about running a near-perfect campaign to date, Hillary found some wood nearby to knock on, smiling that silly, forced grin of hers.
There's still a lot of time and uncontrollable events to unfold before the last primary vote is counted.
Wouldn't it be wild if someone like Edwards or, even less likely, Richardson, actually makes a fight of the Democratic nomination?
Most Presidential races feature a few surprises, and I have this feeling that, with everyone already expecting Hillary in the Oval Office come 2009, that's just what won't occur.
We agreed that Obama Bim Baden is too green and immature to win his party's nomination. Then, again, we also agreed that Hillary is too brittle.
As I mused about how much money she has raised, my colleague noted what happened in the 2004 Democratic Presidential race.
Not being a registered Dem, I don't recall the details. He asked me to remember Howard Dean's lead in Iowa, followed by, I believe, his victory in New Hampshire? He was the guy to beat.
Then he did that roar thing on camera. And his campaign began to unravel, losing momentum. To be candid, I had quite forgotten this.
My colleague's point was, despite Dean's money and momentum, he managed to critically, mortally wound himself while in the lead, and lost the nomination to Kerry.
That's probably why, when asked about running a near-perfect campaign to date, Hillary found some wood nearby to knock on, smiling that silly, forced grin of hers.
There's still a lot of time and uncontrollable events to unfold before the last primary vote is counted.
Wouldn't it be wild if someone like Edwards or, even less likely, Richardson, actually makes a fight of the Democratic nomination?
Most Presidential races feature a few surprises, and I have this feeling that, with everyone already expecting Hillary in the Oval Office come 2009, that's just what won't occur.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Some Global Warming Observations
Last Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal printed an editorial entitled "Global Warming Delusions," by Daniel Botkin, a scientist with 40 years of experience working in environmental sciences, and currently president of the Center for the Study of the Environment.
In this piece, Mr. Botkin describes the delusional fixation some of his brethren have developed for causing near-hysterical concern about global warming. He writes, in part,
"And contrary to the latest news, the evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin. Most evidence suggests the contrary.
Case in point: This year's United Nations report on climate change and other documents say that 20%-30% of plant and animal species will be threatened with extinction in this century due to global warming -- a truly terrifying thought. Yet, during the past 2.5 million years, a period that scientists now know experienced climatic changes as rapid and as warm as modern climatological models suggest will happen to us, almost none of the millions of species on Earth went extinct. The exceptions were about 20 species of large mammals (the famous megafauna of the last ice age -- saber-tooth tigers, hairy mammoths and the like), which went extinct about 10,000 to 5,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, and many dominant trees and shrubs of northwestern Europe. But elsewhere, including North America, few plant species went extinct, and few mammals.
Instead, like fashions that took hold in the past and are eloquently analyzed in the classic 19th century book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," the popular imagination today appears to have been captured by beliefs that have little scientific basis.
Some colleagues who share some of my doubts argue that the only way to get our society to change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe, and that therefore it is all right and even necessary for scientists to exaggerate. They tell me that my belief in open and honest assessment is naïve. "Wolves deceive their prey, don't they?" one said to me recently. Therefore, biologically, he said, we are justified in exaggerating to get society to change."
Mr. Botkin describes an article in which the author explains the melting of the snows on Mount Kilimanjaro as due to radiant heat, not air temperature. Because his conclusions did not fit the global warming views of many other scientists, Botkin writes that the scientist's paper "is scorned by the true believers in global warming."
Botkin goes on to provide examples of significant environmental changes that are not due to the earth's air temperature. He bemoans his colleagues obsession with raising consciousness on the subject at any cost,
"My concern is that we may be moving away from an irrational lack of concern about climate change to an equally irrational panic about it.
Many of my colleagues ask, "What's the problem? Hasn't it been a good thing to raise public concern?" The problem is that in this panic we are going to spend our money unwisely, we will take actions that are counterproductive, and we will fail to do many of those things that will benefit the environment and ourselves."
When someone who is both a scientist and an environmentalist holds these views, you know the global warming craze has gone too far.
In this piece, Mr. Botkin describes the delusional fixation some of his brethren have developed for causing near-hysterical concern about global warming. He writes, in part,
"And contrary to the latest news, the evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin. Most evidence suggests the contrary.
Case in point: This year's United Nations report on climate change and other documents say that 20%-30% of plant and animal species will be threatened with extinction in this century due to global warming -- a truly terrifying thought. Yet, during the past 2.5 million years, a period that scientists now know experienced climatic changes as rapid and as warm as modern climatological models suggest will happen to us, almost none of the millions of species on Earth went extinct. The exceptions were about 20 species of large mammals (the famous megafauna of the last ice age -- saber-tooth tigers, hairy mammoths and the like), which went extinct about 10,000 to 5,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, and many dominant trees and shrubs of northwestern Europe. But elsewhere, including North America, few plant species went extinct, and few mammals.
Instead, like fashions that took hold in the past and are eloquently analyzed in the classic 19th century book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," the popular imagination today appears to have been captured by beliefs that have little scientific basis.
Some colleagues who share some of my doubts argue that the only way to get our society to change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe, and that therefore it is all right and even necessary for scientists to exaggerate. They tell me that my belief in open and honest assessment is naïve. "Wolves deceive their prey, don't they?" one said to me recently. Therefore, biologically, he said, we are justified in exaggerating to get society to change."
Mr. Botkin describes an article in which the author explains the melting of the snows on Mount Kilimanjaro as due to radiant heat, not air temperature. Because his conclusions did not fit the global warming views of many other scientists, Botkin writes that the scientist's paper "is scorned by the true believers in global warming."
Botkin goes on to provide examples of significant environmental changes that are not due to the earth's air temperature. He bemoans his colleagues obsession with raising consciousness on the subject at any cost,
"My concern is that we may be moving away from an irrational lack of concern about climate change to an equally irrational panic about it.
Many of my colleagues ask, "What's the problem? Hasn't it been a good thing to raise public concern?" The problem is that in this panic we are going to spend our money unwisely, we will take actions that are counterproductive, and we will fail to do many of those things that will benefit the environment and ourselves."
When someone who is both a scientist and an environmentalist holds these views, you know the global warming craze has gone too far.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Ethanol's Water Problems
Last Wednesday's Wall Street Journal's main editorial was entitled "Ethanol's Water Shortage." That title says it all.
It turns out that a Cornell ecology professor has determined that each gallon of ethanol requires 1,700 gallons of water.
As a result, Kansas and Nebraska are near a lawsuit over water rights. A North Dakota ethanol plant application was withdrawn when, according to the Journal,
"it became clear that the plant's million-gallon-a-day appetite would drain too much from a local aquifer."
Another method of measuring various energy sources, power density, finds oil to be more efficient than, say, solar, because it merely requires a hole in the ground, rather than acres of panels.
Solar power, which is 1,000 less dense than oil, is still 10x denser than ethanol. Peter Huber, of the Manhattan Institute,
"predicts a world-wide leveling of forestland as farmers turn vegetation into fuel,"
according to the Journal article. Even worse, the article cite two scientists, Renton Righelato and Dominick Spracklen, who wrote in Science magazine,
"in order to replace just 10% of gasoline and diesel consumption, the US would need to convert a full 43% of its cropland to ethanol production. The alternative approach- clearing wilderness- would mean more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than simply sticking with gasoline, because the CO2-munching trees cut down to make way for King Ethanol absorb more emissions than ethanol saves."
But, wait! Wasn't greenhouse gases and carbon footprints why we are going from oil to ethanol in the first place?
Let's hope, as the Journal editorial notes, that Congress figures this out before the last, big ethanol legislation pushes through. It's just too awful to contemplate- water shortages, more CO2, runoff, water pollution, higher food prices, etc. All in the name of replacing a very efficient fuel source- oil.
It turns out that a Cornell ecology professor has determined that each gallon of ethanol requires 1,700 gallons of water.
As a result, Kansas and Nebraska are near a lawsuit over water rights. A North Dakota ethanol plant application was withdrawn when, according to the Journal,
"it became clear that the plant's million-gallon-a-day appetite would drain too much from a local aquifer."
Another method of measuring various energy sources, power density, finds oil to be more efficient than, say, solar, because it merely requires a hole in the ground, rather than acres of panels.
Solar power, which is 1,000 less dense than oil, is still 10x denser than ethanol. Peter Huber, of the Manhattan Institute,
"predicts a world-wide leveling of forestland as farmers turn vegetation into fuel,"
according to the Journal article. Even worse, the article cite two scientists, Renton Righelato and Dominick Spracklen, who wrote in Science magazine,
"in order to replace just 10% of gasoline and diesel consumption, the US would need to convert a full 43% of its cropland to ethanol production. The alternative approach- clearing wilderness- would mean more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than simply sticking with gasoline, because the CO2-munching trees cut down to make way for King Ethanol absorb more emissions than ethanol saves."
But, wait! Wasn't greenhouse gases and carbon footprints why we are going from oil to ethanol in the first place?
Let's hope, as the Journal editorial notes, that Congress figures this out before the last, big ethanol legislation pushes through. It's just too awful to contemplate- water shortages, more CO2, runoff, water pollution, higher food prices, etc. All in the name of replacing a very efficient fuel source- oil.
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