Thursday, April 22, 2010

Where Do These People Come From?


By Alan Caruba

Whether it’s on television or in the newspapers or the endless stream of news releases I receive, the message over and over again is that people believe such stupid stuff about the planet and their environment that I keep asking, where do they come from?

People who think they can save the planet by bringing a cloth bag to the supermarket instead of using a plastic one, even though plastic is part of just about everything they will use that day, from their car to their kitchen’s countertop,

People who insist that turning corn into fuel instead of building more refineries to process more oil makes no sense at all because wasting corn in this way forces up the cost of food,

People who think that Green jobs are anything other than temporary, low paying menial work, entirely dependent on government subsidies and handouts,

People who think that it’s wrong to eat meat even though they have a mouth full of teeth whose purpose down through the millennia of mankind is to chew meat,

People whose ancestors survived by hunting long before agriculture was developed, yet think it is cruel to hunt or to cull a population of animals that endanger people or property,

People who think solar or wind energy can even begin to compete with coal, natural gas, or nuclear energy when both require traditional plants to back up “alternative” energy sources. Why? Because the sun doesn’t shine 24 hours a day and the wind doesn’t blow all the time,

People who think that polar bears are going extinct when, in fact, the polar bear population has been growing for twenty years or more,

People who believe “global warming” is real even though the “theory” was based entirely on seriously flawed, often deliberately false computer models,

People too dumb to realize that the Earth has been cooling for a decade,

People who think all of Nature is “pristine” when much of the Earth is desert or otherwise uninhabitable and inhospitable,

People who do not know that there are countless active volcanoes under the oceans of the world, spewing all manner of “pollutants” or leaking barrels’ worth crude oil,

People who think all chemicals are a danger, but whose bodies are literally mobile chemical processing factories,

People who spend their lives taking chemicals in the form of medicines with specific dose levels and not only do not feel threatened, but are happy to be cured,

People who think chemicals are bad without every realizing they live in a world where chemicals are integral to the manufacture of every device they use whether it’s a computer, a cell phone or something as simple as a spoon,

People who think coal is bad without realizing the U.S. sits atop enough coal to keep the lights on for centuries if we can just mine it,

People who think oil is bad without realizing that oil is a component of everything from asphalt to Vaseline, and that we have millions of barrels of untapped oil the government will not permit Americans to access,

People who pass through twelve years of elementary and secondary schools without learning how to spell or do fractions or ever once reading the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution,

People who go onto college and spend their freshman year in “remedial” classes without realizing they were cheated of a good education by a union more interested in their teacher’s pensions than their ability to function in a complex world,

People who think all religions are equally valid when one of them believes that, if you are an “unbeliever”, you can be killed or robbed with impunity,

People who are anti-war protesters without once thinking that it was a Revolutionary war that made America possible,

People who worship the Earth like Stone Age pagans, but lack the imagination and the faith to conceive of a higher power, a moral one, that sees in us, the image of Himself.

Where do these people come from?

© Alan Caruba, 2010

18 comments:

Travis sez said...

As one can imagine Demosthenes at a pivotal moment, I pray that there are more people like you, Alan. You've got it right, in spades. The answer lies in communicating this message in our daily lives.

Nighmom said...

I have just discovered your post. It was purely by accident, for it is not something that I normally do. (Looking for blogs, that is.) I was sent one of your articles and it was attributed to another author. I liked it and wanted to send it on, but decided to verify its source. Thanks to Snopes, I found that it was yours and that led me to your blog. Thank you for insightful, common sense thinking. You made my day. I am guessing that you will do it again!

Have a great day!

Nighmom said...

I have just discovered your post. It was purely by accident, for it is not something that I normally do. (Looking for blogs, that is.) I was sent one of your articles and it was attributed to another author. I liked it and wanted to send it on, but decided to verify its source. Thanks to Snopes, I found that it was yours and that led me to your blog. Thank you for insightful, common sense thinking. You made my day. I am guessing that you will do it again!

Have a great day! Leslie

Nighmom said...

I have just discovered your post. It was purely by accident, for it is not something that I normally do. (Looking for blogs, that is.) I was sent one of your articles and it was attributed to another author. I liked it and wanted to send it on, but decided to verify its source. Thanks to Snopes, I found that it was yours and that led me to your blog. Thank you for insightful, common sense thinking. You made my day. I am guessing that you will do it again!

Have a great day! Leslie

Unknown said...

I think you got #2 backwards. You said:

"People who insist that turning corn into fuel instead of building more refineries to process more oil makes no sense at all because wasting corn in this way forces up the cost of food,"

Did you mean instead,

"People who insist that turning corn into fuel instead of building more refineries to process more oil makes sense, even though wasting corn in this way forces up the cost of food,"

Alan Caruba said...

Mike, even I thought that sentence was convoluted...that comes from writing this post in the evening when I was a bit tired.

nobody said...

I suggest that those people are chronological adults who have not given up their childhood let's pretend play. Likely even when they were children, they thought let's pretend was real and that reality was simply an ugly story made up by adults who wouldn't give them what they wanted.

Ronbo said...

When I was stationed in Berlin, Germany in the 1970s and came to know many intelligent, educated and hard working Germans - I couldn't understand how Hitler had been able to become dictator and lead Germany to ruin.

Now I know....

Moondancer said...

Bravo Alan!..Well said!!

Alan Caruba said...

Thank you, everyone, for your feedback. It is appreciated.

Ron H. said...

>"People who pass through twelve years of elementary and secondary schools without learning how to spell or do fractions or ever once reading the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution"

That's one of the scariest things, in my opinion, and this may be one of the reasons why this can happen:

The February 18 John Stossel program on Fox Business channel was entitled "Killing School Choice in DC", about the very successful school voucher program in Washington DC for which Pres. Obama recently killed funding.

This Video is segment 3/6 from that program, and at 01:13 shows White House Press Secretary Gibbs struggling hard to find words to explain why something so successful would be killed. Apparently, his boss hadn't explained to him that since it threatened the teachers union, it couldn't be allowed to live. At 04:05 is a really infuriating exchange between George Parker, President of the Washington DC Teachers Union, and Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform, as union hack Parker attempts to explain why a successful voucher program was a bad idea.

Caution! Be sure you have taken your blood pressure medicine before watching this. I found my self shaking with outrage. My fists were clenched and I wanted to scream.

Incidently, for those interested, the entire program is available in 6 segments on Youtube.

Ron H. said...

>"People who think they can save the planet by bringing a cloth bag to the supermarket instead of using a plastic one..."

(snicker, snicker) This is one of my favorites. I get a smile on my face, but try not to actually laugh when I see people with these in the store.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the "environmental cost" of producing one cloth grocery bag is equivalent to producing 100 plastic bags. So, if I shop once a week, it will be almost 2 years before I will start "saving the planet". Before then, I have done more harm than good.

Also, many people, including me, use plastic grocery bags as trash can liners. If those aren't available, I for one, will buy...plastic trashcan liners.

But we are saving the planet.

I remember some years ago, when the PC choice was plastic instead of paper. One day a woman in line ahead of me at the checkout was asked if she preferred paper or plastic. Without hesitation, she proclaimed

"Oh, plastic, of course; I want to save trees from being cut down to make paper bags."

On that occasion, I couldn't contain my self, and actually laughed out loud.

"What about that extra oil well that was drilled to make the plastic one?" I asked her. "Trees are renewable, but oil isn't.

Today, for Earth Day, I plan, as I did for Earth Hour, to celebrate human achievement. In fact, I may ask for double plastic bags when I go to the grocery store later.

threecollie said...

Best post I have read so far on Earth Day and all the fallacies it brings forward every year.

Ellen Shipley said...

Hear, hear. I agree with everything except the last one. Some of us pagans are enlightened conservatives.

Brock Blither said...

They come from Planet Post-modern.

Unknown said...

Gosh, It's so refreshing to find someone out there who is an expert on absolutely everything.
I know there's basically zero chance of this comment actually being posted so I might as well let you know, you've just listed a huge number of excuses for never changing.
I would also like to point out that due to the fact that we live on a globe, the sun actually does shine 24 hours a day it's just a matter of time zones. (also I would encourage you to google 'Alaska' where, for a large portion of the year the sun actually does 'shine all day'.
It's incredible to me that you're actually listing the *Sun* as a finite resource, and then trying to bolster Oil, which is the most extreme definition of what a finite resource is. Facts aren't a matter of opinion, dumbass, and people like you are exactly what's wrong with the world. Do a little more research than watching Fox news, you hillbilly.
There's practically no difference between you and the people you criticize, you're just drinking a different flavor of punch.

Alan Caruba said...

Scott:
If you take the time to read the other comments, you might conclude that you are alone in your contempt for my viewpoint.

Then you might stop being so literal in your interpretation---no the sun does not shine all the time on solar panels in most locations---then you could actually begin to shake loose of the many errors that crowd your brain with so much misinformation.

The U.S. is a virtual Saudi Arabia of coal in terms of how much we have (and can't get at) and this is true as well of oil.

What we're running out of is common sense and that's a personal problem you will have to work on.

Rachel Pohli said...

I agree with you on 99% of what you say here, and always. And as always, you expressed it all so succinctly and eloquently! Thanks for spelling out what so many of us are thinking about this ridiculous mess we're in.

Having said that, I do have one question for you...do you really think that all recycling, driving better gas mileage cars, etc, is pointless? I am by no means a green freak, but I do choose to drive a Hybrid vehicle (mostly because I like how little it costs me in gas!) and to recycle what can be recycled in our waste management's recycling bin, as well as returning those plastic shopping bags to Walmart. These are mostly things that I consider to be realistic and reasonable ways to responsibly use consumables, and they are a far cry from the ridiculous and detrimental policies the EPA has enacted & is trying to enact.

What do you think?