I couldn't help it. A few things happened today that snapped me back to politics. I hope the stay is brief because I have been having so much fun with cosmology.
In order to be successful, conservation must be a function of the free market, not government mandates issued by people who intend to exempt themselves from those mandates. (Note the ideological paradox that it is the liberals who are claiming to be conservative with the environment, and you will have most of the answer right there.)
Conservation works when you decide that, due to the cost of printer ink and paper, you are going to become selective about what you print out - preferring to keep documents stored electronically and print them only at need. Conservation works when, in order to be more competitive, you make your farm so efficient that you feed twice as many people with half as much land.
It is not regulation that has turned around forestry in this country, it is industry. In the 1800s our country's forests reduced at tremendous rates. In the 1900s this trend slowed to a stop, despite population explosions, and since 1985 our country's forests have actually grown. This was not due to the government mandating that forests must grow, but to the fact that industries are using less wood to achieve the same goals. They had to - competition required it. The company that could reduce its overhead could lower its prices, increase its profits, and leap ahead.
Environmental movements face one major, underlying problem. They cannot get people to change their hearts and minds, and therefore their habits.
They discovered this at their conception, and began with attempts to argue with the individuals. This is, frankly, the only place where they can be ultimately successful, but when they were not, they did not face the fact that perhaps they were wrong, they chose the explanation that people were too ill-informed, outright stupid, or malicious to accept environmental "truths".
They left the attempt to change the hearts and minds of the masses on the back burner, and turned instead to institutions. Institutions affect many people, but are run by few. Target those few, and you can affect the many. Institutions such as governments and schools have a vast effect on the populace. This has had alarming success, despite the fact that environmentalists would still claim it is too little. What they have done, however, is create environmentalist-dependent careers, a whole industry of people whose very livelihood requires the environmental movement. With money behind them, they forge ahead. Still, however, they meet resistance. Not enough of the people's hearts and minds were changed, and as a result, there have been just enough politicians to retard (though not eliminate) their agenda.
The latest attack has been the logical outcome. Change of heart and mind did not occur when the appeal went to individuals. Change did not occur 'enough' when the appeal went to leaders, certainly not enough to keep up with the new dependence on this movement - now environmentalists have more mouths to feed, more offices to support, more jobs that require funding. Change of heart and mind is now being attempted through Celebrity.
The latest weapon in the arsenal of the environmentalist is to pick popular personalities, get them to spread the message, and hope that hearts and minds of the people will follow. This is having even more alarming effect than going through political leaders (though, in many cases, the celebrity is a political leader or tries to become one).
It can only be hoped, however, that the seeds of environmental-movement destruction are finally beginning to bear fruit. As each level of attack has been ramped up, more exposure to the fallacy of Enforced Environmentalism has been risked. I bear your attention to three high-profile examples:
1) It turns out that Al Gore's family, while he put on his biggest push for us to change our lives, used, consistently, more electricity in one month than the average American household used in one year. Under tremendous pressure, he is having solar panels installed at his mansion. We'll see how helpful that is, and if it has any affect whatsoever on his use of large, private jets, SUVs, and other carbon-emitting tools. When it was uncovered that he uses much more than his "carbon footprint" allows, he claimed to be purchasing carbon offsets from a brokerage firm that buys them from companies and individuals who use much less than their carbon footprint. Not only is this concept ludicrous (you conserve or you don't, and he wasn't - meaning no matter how well other people did, he was still going to have his big impact on the environment) it turns out he owned the carbon-offset brokerage firm.
2) John Edwards' mansion proves the concept of the Two Americas. The breezeway between his "house" and his "recreation center" has more square footage than the typical, large, suburban home. Two typical apartments could fit inside the breezeway. Why we call it a breezeway I'm not 100% sure. It is fully enclosed, heated, and air conditioned. Perhaps it's the breeze of the ventilation system that keeps out the fresh air that allows us to call it a breezeway? I would have called it a hallway or a corridor, but perhaps that sounds too industrial. I can't imagine the power consumption comparison between his family and mine.
3) Sheryl Crow came out in the last few hours and proclaimed that we should use only one square of toilet paper per visit to the bathroom. I have heard that she amended her statement to say we could use three squares for "pesky" visits to the bathroom. While I would love to say that this statement itself needs no comments, there are some I cannot keep myself from providing (though I bet any reader could outdo me on this one). First, when I was in college there was a joke sent around campus (we actually had "eco-heads" in many of the student houses) that one eco-head wrote up suggesting that we could do a lot to help the environment if we used only three squares of toilet paper per wipe. The flack this girl got was astounding, and it came from the very granola-heads that established the eco-head position in the first place. The fact that she had to explain it was a joke is just sad. But look what we have come to. Not three squares per wipe, but one square per visit. The other comment is, of course, that Sheryl Crow's own "rider" (the list of demands she has for her touring conditions) is on display on the internet. It hardly reads like someone who uses only one square of toilet paper per visit to the bathroom.
All the while, average people like you and me, and yes, our President, use less electricity and fewer resources to go about our business, whether that be to account for corporate taxes, make candy, deliver packages, or run the whole damned country than the self-appointed leaders of the environmentalist movement.
It can only be hoped, as I stated above, that the seeds of destruction for this movement have finally begun to flower and the full blossom will be revealed as we examine just who is leading this movement, how they behave in their own life compared to how they want everyone else to behave, and how they intend to exempt themselves from the very regulations they would like to impose upon us.
If not, I fear we are going to have a rather bloody revolution. And no offense, we have the guns.
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