Protecting the Environment

[August1991]

There are few subjects that disturb me more than environmental protection. The Left is seriously clueless and in response, for partisan reasons, the Right becomes dismissive. This bothers me because the environment is ignored.

While the Left and Right get into shouting matches about "Bush lied, kids died" vs. "Flipper Liberals" or "Tax and Spend" vs. "Thatcher, Milk Snatcher", the environment has no owner/stakeholder to defend its rights.

As a result, we get this kind of nonsense: A CBC story from "progressive" California.

The California Air Resources Board said the changes are expected to add more than $1,000 to the cost of producing a car. But the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers pegs the extra cost at more than $3,000 per vehicle.

IOW, Californians will get $100 of environmental protection at a cost between $1000 and $3000. There are much, much better ways to protect the environment but they don't fit into the Left vs. Right debate.

That's sad, and possibly catastrophic for our great-great-grandchildren.

[Cartman]

I test drove one of those Smart cars (really awesome) and it was very cheap. The dealer told me I would have to pre-order and wait several months before I could get my hands on one though because demand has been much better than expected.

My point is that most Canadians are willing to make sacrifices for the environment. Under our Kyoto plan, the government could give individuals incentives (tax cuts) for buying a vehicle with such high mileage. That would give other companies incentives to make smaller, more efficient cars. Government has to catch up with people.

[Big Blue Machine]

I'm willing to make some sacfirices for the enviroment. We should move to solar power and wind power, these sources of power are plentiful and can give forever (Well maybe not the sun).

[Pateris]

Big Blue Machine,

Wind and Solar are not climate benign... Significant wind power generation will remove energy from the atmosphere and alter the redistribution of heat from the tropics to the poles.

Solar will take up energy that current heats the earth. This is better than wind because at least most of the energy will eventually be returned to the planet as heat (except for the small amount tied up in reducing the entropy of manufactured goods). The question though is where does the heat get redistributed?