6 Green Lies Threatening to Starve You
Unprepared Man says, "The wilderness kind of sucks."
6) Wilderness Has Intrinsic Value
Don’t let the countdown throw you off. While this lie is number six on our list, it is the fundamental lie upon which the following are built. That is why we are addressing it first.
One of the NRDC’s priorities is to “defend endangered wildlife and wild places.” The essential questions arising from that goal are: defend from what, and why? The what is clearly man, whose nature as a rational agent distinguishes him from the wild. Why the wild must be defended from man eludes objective explanation. Consider the NRDC’s summary of their effort:
Across the Western United States, oil and gas companies are trying to turn our last wild places into industrial zones. NRDC is fighting with local partners and through the court system to protect stunning landscapes, rich history, critical wildlife habitat and outdoor recreation areas before they’re lost forever.
There is a sense of collective ownership here which seems to be an inverse of the tragedy of the commons. Whereas the tragedy is that when everyone owns a thing, nobody does, here the assertion is that when nobody owns a thing, everyone does. “Our last wild places” are at risk of being turned into “industrial zones,” as if you and I have some claim upon “stunning landscapes” which entitles us to prohibit others from acting industriously to produce the value needed to survive and thrive.
In order to think clearly about this issue we need an objective definition of value. Ayn Rand defined value as “that which one acts to obtain and/or keep.” Wilderness does not have intrinsic value. Only when man identifies a productive use for wilderness does it take on value. And to the extent it is altered to suit man’s purpose, it is no longer wilderness.
While it is true that untouched natural environments can be of value to people, that alone is not a claim of ownership. The fact that I like my neighbor’s plot just the way it is does not grant me the right to control his use of it. To the extent one wishes to preserve land in a particular condition, they must first own it.
Government owns much of the land in the United States and therefore controls its use. However, government should only own that which it needs to execute its proper function, which is the protection of individual rights. Public parks and wildlife reserves do not protect rights, and the land which constitutes them ought to be sold to private interests.
Whether a byproduct of human activity may be rightly regarded as pollution depends upon the context of both its production and disposal.
I’ve noticed eco-fascists are oddly silent about the birth-control estrogens in the water supplies, messing up the fish, even as they screech about other medications that the human kidney filters but sewage-treatment facilities dont.
Rational,thorough, brilliant
Bravo
great piece
I look forward to reading more from you
The ghost of Julian Simon is smiling
Keep on preaching it
Well said. It really just boils down to intentionally reducing our standard of living. While living in forced poverty may seem romantic to the ecofacist trust fund snobs who have never had to struggle a day in their life, to those who have, it is nothing but a slap in the face. God knows the academic elites pontificating about this bull are not living without. They can afford all of the prime real estate close enough to bike to work, while they enforce green zoning which reduces development, makes housing unaffordable, and pushes people either into limited affordable housing or further into rural areas, all while they want to make gas and cars necessarily unaffordable.
Sorry, but I care about my children more than polar bears. They do know that polar bears can swim and the earth is a rock, right? Life is quite amazingly adaptable too. I bet they don’t like that I will be countereducating my children against their antinatalist propaganda. Come and get me UN busibodies, nothing is going to stop me from teaching my children to embrace life, never to feel guilty for surviving and thriving.
Do remember that they all think the forced poverty won’t happen to themselves because as “guardians of the planet” they’ll have exalted status and thus special privileges to the “rare resources” available.
Think of who was impoverished and who prospered during the Dark Ages.
Same STUFF, different EPOCH.
To get a feel for the superiority of the elitist environuts, take a look at the parking lot of any AGW seminar. SUV’s as far as the eye can see.
Restrictions for thee but not for me is the mantra.
…and they say Liberals have no religion…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_JPcBwYGmo
An average family of four squanders $2,275 in food each year, or 20 pounds per person per month, according to the nonprofit and nonpartisan environmental advocacy group.
Color me skeptical on these numbers. While a percentage of food is wasted in the production and distribution pipeline, I seriously doubt that the average family of 4 throws out 80 pounds of food a month. If they’re trying to say that the amount of food waste per year divided by the number of families averages out to 80 pounds per family per month, then say so. Food is expensive and money is tight. If my wife and I are in any way representative, I’d put the amount of food per person per month at less than 5 pounds. Maybe we aren’t representative examples but how many people have that much money to waste?
There is a proven technology that can go a long way towards both reducing the amount of food wasted in the distribution system and also reducing illnesses caused by food borne bacteria. These illesses result in 3000-4000 deaths in the US each year. That technology is to use gamma ray irradiation to kill the bacteria, which also reduces the need for refrigeration. Typically, green extremists also oppose this technology because radiation is scary and they’re luddites.
Hear, hear! We have a family of 5, with 3 kids under 6–prime food-wasting age, although they’re all good eaters. We don’t throw out ANY food, really. It’s eaten, composted, or the dog gets it.
You’re dead wrong about the irradiation thing, though. There is actually sound research out there that it alters foods, regardless of what the government claims. So do microwave ovens. Broccoli cooked in a microwave loses more nutrition that it does if you boil it into mush on the stove top, even. Irradiation tends to be a difficulty with herbal medicine, as imported herbs are often irradiated (unless they are organic)–and irradiated herbs can’t be counted on to have the proper effects anymore.
Please back up your claim that “…there is actually sound research out there that it alters foods, regardless of what the government claims. So do microwave ovens. Broccoli cooked in a microwave loses more nutrition that it does if you boil it…” with credible sources. Thank you.
NASA has used irradiated food for decades. It works and is safe. If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it.
One legitimate concern I’ve heard is that by killing all microbes present, helpful as well as harmful bacteria would be destroyed, potentially leading to compromised immune systems.
That’s a problem? Easy solution, become a locovore – eat some dirt. You’ll get lots of bacteria to exercise your immune system. And finish off any biology experiments you may have in the back of your refrigerator. Plenty of bacteria to challenge your immune system there too.
I’m just too Aspy to see the joke you’re making, I guess.
I think they are including the amount of edible food that regulations require food vending services (cafeterias, soup kitchens etc) to dispose of anything older than 3 hours or some such nonsense. And they can’t even give it to someone to feed their chickens or other livestock.
At our house, we waste nothing. All of our scraps, trimmings etc go to the chickens, which in turn provide eggs. Barring that, it goes into the compost pile for the garden.
But when I saw a convenience store attendant throwing out a tray of breakfast sandwiches that were “expired” I asked her if I could have them for my chickens and she said the law requires them to toss it in the trash.
The problem here is government, not the wasteful American citizen.
It’s one thing to say that the average amount of food waste nationwide is 20 pounds per person per month. Given how much food is wasted at restaurants, schools and in the food supply pipeline, that number could possibly be accurate.
It’s another to say that the average family wastes that much food. Perhaps they were imprecise with their wording or perhaps they were being deceptive.
Youre 100% right….
Its like when they say “every person USES one hundred gallons of water a day”
Really?
5 minute Shower, teeth brush, coffee, three cups from the Water Cooler at work.
Flush the john twice. I’m saying fifteen at the MOST.
Oh, you mean TOTAL WATER CONSUMPTION divided by POPULATION?
Well, why didnt you SAY that?
I don’t waste food. What the dogs can’t have or won’t eat goes to the compost heap and back to the garden with a portion going to possums and coons along the way.
I don’t use any water on a net basis, either. It all comes out of a well on one side of the property and what doesn’t evaporate is eventually returned to the aquifer through the septic field at the other end of the property.
Yes, 15 gallons, maximum, sounds about right, for personal use.
They must be counting the water used for (renewable energy) hydropower.
…and other manufacturing uses. Canneries, for instance, use a lot of water. So do semiconductor manufacturers. High-tech of all sorts is a major consumer, much more so than older tech industries.
While a nice goal, unfortunately the parsing used to establish these positions is as bad as that used by the Green Devolutionists.
6) By the definition being used of value, wilderness does have an intrinsic value even if there is nothing developed there because it is still land and thus has all the potentials for use, whether it be exploitation of visible or known natural resources or conversion to production of other natural resources, manufacturing, or housing.
Further, it is a rather nasty bit of circular reasoning to accept that the land has value for ecotourism then deny that creates a justification for asserting an existing collective claim. You may not like the tragedy of the commons that creates, but that does not change its existence.
If you are going to attack this principle then attack it on direct capitalist and limited government principles – the land has value, whether for ecotourism, natural resource exploitation, or conversion. If you wish to reserve it for ecotourism then purchase it and use it for ecotourism, but do not force others to “purchase” it with you through government fiat and reserve it only for the purpose you support. If you do so then you accept that the community can vote to exploit the natural resources or convert the land to some other purpose.
5) No, not anything released is a pollutant, only those byproducts that are harmful. That does not however grant an exemption because the direct result is beneficial. Toxic waste is still toxic waste, no matter how much we love the gold that is left behind by the processing. To suggest otherwise is once again just as absurd as the Gree Devolutionists claiming carbon dioxide is as innately destructive as nuclear waste. Just because it is not compassionate to douse a freezing man’s fire because it releases smoke does not justify pumping industrial amounts of smoke through your building because hey, someone needs that elevator to get up to the 30th floor.
4) Once again you fall into the trap of trying to justify the existing destructiveness instead of taking the fight to the presumed alternatives. Never mind that existing energy sources are not “perfectly” “green”, the reality is that the alternatives are worse. Wind and solar in particular are significantly more environmentally destructive than coal or oil, and even hydro power has severe eco-issues compared to nuclear. Forget “we will switch when those alternative sources can produce the same amount of energy”, it should be “we will switch when those alternative sources do not cause worse devastation than existing sources”!
3) Natural resources are finite. That is a relatively simple concept that is rather easily demonstrated by the very diagram you present. What they are not is as finite as the Green Devolutionists assert, nor is the rate of usage as they suggest. Further, while they may be finite, we have no way of being sure the extent to which they can or cannot be replaced. Passenger pigeons were “infinite” – until they were extinct; at which point people started eating something else. It is once again as silly to assert that a finite earth can somehow have an infinite amount of anything as it is to assert that we have an absolute spread sheet of the fully contents of the earth, the absolute rate of use, and the final sum of technology and adaptation to alternative resources.
2) While essentially true, this entire point is ruined by the sheer logical fallacy inherent in this statement:
“Just drive around town. Cruise through an affluent neighborhood, then tour a poor one. Which is clean? Which is dirty? Enough said.”
You mean the affluent neighborhood can afford to export their waste while the poor neighborhood cannot?
Yes, that is quite true.
It does not however mean that that affluent neighborhood produces less waste than the poor neighborhood, or even disposes of it more efficiently. All it means is that they dispose of it further from their neighborhood.
If you wanted to play into Green Devolutionist complaints of Third World garbage dumping you could not do better than to say something so utterly absurd, especially since you acknowledge the problem immediately after.
1) So we do not need a new tangle of bureaucracy because the existing tangle of bureaucracy is sufficient to resolve the legal issues.
Huh?
Well that’s what is written – we don’t need criminal laws to control global warming because civil laws could do it if needed.
So essentially your ideological solution is superior to their ideological solution “because”.
That certainly makes the case!
No wait, it doesn’t.
Of course you have the case there, that the Green Devolutionists want a devolution of technology, and population, and culture, and everything else. That still leaves the actual scientific rebuttal missing except for a link, completely bypassing that if there was a warming trend it would lead to increased crop production and global development as it has every time in the past. Instead of fighting the lie on the scientific and historical level we have just an ideological rebuttal. That’s great for people who already support your position, but of little use in winning the greater debate.
I appreciate the time and effort you’ve obviously put into your comment. Unfortunately, a format like PJ Media is inadequate to fully explore the principles underlying my points. If you’re interested in a deeper analysis, I recommend the resources provided by the Center for Industrial Progress, particularly The Power Hour podcast with Alex Epstein, also available on YouTube. There are hours of clear, provocative discussion with experts in the energy and industrial sectors. It’s like a free education. You won’t regret it, and you’ll have a better understanding of what I’ve attempted to summarize here, even if you continue to disagree with it.
I would suggest also a visit to the web site of the Rocky Mountain Institute ( http://www.rmi.org ). RMI is the premier alternative energy / energy conservation organization in the country and has also a strong international following. RMI takes the position that there is good money to be made in energy conservation & efficiency and it can be done without government regulation.
I wonder how much food waste comes from the USDA certified school lunches. My kids are not yet in school, so I often eat the food that they do not finish (I too am not a big fan of wasting food). If they were in school, their leftovers would be dumped in the trash. Wouldn’t you know it, another reason to homeschool my kids. Dee dee lee dee dee dee dee dee. Getting back to my crunchy granola roots afterall.
Most of it’s restaurants and cafeterias, though this is substantially because the government does not grant them safe harbor against being sued if they donate their leftovers to homeless shelters, soup kitchens, et. al. Much of the household food waste is spoilage, which, as mentioned above, can be countered with Co-60 irradiation.
I work in a federally funded pverty preschool. The kids don’t eat much of the food and it goes in the garbage.I do see them in McDonalds at the end of the day however.
Definitely home educate your kids. Nothing granola about it.
There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who “love Nature” while deploring the “artificialities” with which “Man has spoiled ‘Nature.’” The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of “Nature” — but beavers and their dams are. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers’ purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the Naturist reveals his hatred for his own race — i.e., his own self-hatred.
In the case of “Naturists” such self-hatred is understandable; they are such a sorry lot. But hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them; pity and contempt are the most they rate. – Robert Heinlein
Meanwhile, in re your #4 Clean Energy…
The environuts always bleat about how “clean” solar and wind are, but they never address:
* The mining required to obtain the raw materials for the solar cells and wind turbines
* The refining of these raw materials
* The manufacture of the components
* The infrastructure necessary to use these systems (construction, access, maintenance)
* The fuels/energy necessary to power the aforementioned activities (not forgetting the various vehicles/transports used in the process)
* The end-of-life recovery/recycling of the components of the solar/wind farms, many of which contain toxic materials
I submit that solar/wind isn’t as “clean” as they like to think.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. – Inigo Montoya
much of the food “wasted” is from companies- restaurants, food stores, vendors, etc., who are prohibited by the epa and fda to keep goods on hand lest they “spoil”- they are required, by law, to get rid of it
Amen to that. My brother used to run a cold storage warehouse, and a major producer of ice cream left some product in storage too long, and he was required to take the lot to the dump, witness its destruction, and sign an affidavit certifying that it was destroyed. About a dozen quarts ended up in his freezer somehow, though. They were perfectly fine to eat.
Yeah, what nonsense.
I especially love how every Starbucks I’ve ever been in will, without warning, open up that glass display case full of 5-dollar Cookies and 7-dollar Brownies, and throw them all in the trash…
All while folks are standing in line waiting to buy those very things…
Only to be disappointed that there ARE NO MORE Certified Free Trade Sustainable Organic Aztec/Myan Coco Infused Soy-Scones with Macadamia Nut Sauce and White Chocolate Candy Bows that look more like Wrapped Christmas Gifts than any Food I’ve ever eaten…..
Never seen them once announce a “last call” to the Hungry Yuppies in line before dumping them.
People must go there for (Political) Appearance and Preening Reasons, their Business Savvy certainly seems lacking.
And their Coffee aint THAT great either.
Remember the eugenics movement from the 1920′s and 30′s? The ones that wanted to create a super-race and eliminate everyone else? The followers of Hitler were big fans of that movement and quite involved in it. That was what finally made the majority of the world turn against them and their evil plans. The world learned to scorn and condemn them.
Well, they didn’t go away. When the green movement began to become popular they saw an opportunity. They joined and eventually became the controlling faction. The goal of the eugenic/green movement now is to reduce the human population of the world to a number they’ve “scientifically” determined to be the ideal, which is about 800 million persons.
The eugenics/green crowd sees humans as a plague on the planet which must be eliminated (except for themselves and those needed to maintain their lifestyle). When you look at what the environmentalist movement is for and against in terms of the above, everything makes sense.
Their first great success was the worldwide ban against DDT, which experts estimate has caused the deaths of approximately 50 million people, mostly poor women and children in Africa from malaria. These poor Africans are among the “undesirables” the eugenicist/greenies want exterminated, but that is not the full extent by a long shot.
After that success they’ve enjoyed many others, but none as sweeping or successful in terms of deaths and population reduction as the original, until they came up with the idea of Global Warming. What could be better? Technology is what has allowed the world’s population to prosper and grow and it is fueled entirely by abundant, cheap energy. Cheap energy comes from burning fuel. Burning anything produces CO2. If they could legislate reductions or the virtual elimination of CO2 emission they could, in one fell swoop, practically eliminate all cheap energy and thereby all the technology that maintains the current world population. If billions of people starve, or freeze, that is their goal. They, of course would be exempt, and have their own private generators and power systems.
The only viable forms of commercial-grade electrical generation that don’t produce CO2 are nuclear power and hydro-power. They began a campaign to eliminate nuclear, working on people’s natural fear of atomic bombs, which in this country was highly successful.
They’ve since begun attacking hydro-power and are actively campaigning to destroy existing hydro-power dams.
They pushed for the mandatory use of ethanol, which diverts food to fuel creating famines.
They claim they’re for “green energy” like wind farms, but then litigate to stop power lines that would deliver what little power is produced to where it’s needed. Same with solar. Investing in wind and solar projects, which can never produce more than a tiny percentage of the electrical power required for our modern world, helps to bankrupt economies. This causes more starvation and deaths.
Organic food and farming is another of their schemes. There are efforts to mandate that all food be produced using only organic methods. This would result in massive famines, not just in the third-world countries, but everywhere. They also want to eliminate GM food, with the same results.
Without a doubt the original premise of this article, that we throw away too much food, is an attempt to legislate lower levels of food production, which will cause more famine and deaths.
I could go on but the goal is always the same, kill as many “undesirables” as possible, with the ultimate goal being reducing the world’s population by about 90%.
These are ultimately evil people masquerading as do-gooders. It’s time we recognized them for what they really are and give them the scorn, condemnation and rejection they truly deserve.
” working on people’s natural fear of atomic bombs, which in this country was highly successful”
I do so love the mentality of the American Lefts Anti Nuke position!
If there was ever a place I would give simple 100% Carte Blanche to ban all “nuke-U-lar” power, for purely irrational EMOTIONAL reasons, it would be JAPAN.
But they, the only civilization to actually SUFFER an atomic blast, don’t seem to have a problem with it.
And the hysterical nut-bar Left HERE here does?
What a joke!
Walter-
Great summary. Interdisciplinary gets pushed in education as a metaphor for no one knowing much so that they must accept the presupplied conceptualizations instead of creating our own from our own store of knowledge. This essay is a reminder that to truly grasp all the statist schemes being pushed that do in fact fit together, we have to study lots of different sectors.
I have been explaining how all this comes in through education where systems thinking and pedagogy and new values change the belief system itself. The mindset that filters perceptions consistently regardless of reality. And it is global and very much tied in with the levelling and Green Energy and post-industrialization and Bioregionalism. But somehow it always starts with the assault on mental consciousness through the schools and higher ed.
And I saw the connection to Julian Simon as well months ago.http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/learning-to-learn-or-how-to-replace-old-minds-with-sustainable-new-ones/
Julian won the bet but with the aid of Science Czar John Holdren Paul Ehrlich seems to be winning the war. Partly because not enough people know about his Newmindedness initiative and its current relevance or appreciate what is special about an Axemakers Mind. And why it is officially under attack from government planners and their business cronies.
We used to have a way of reducing food waste to a very low level. Years ago, we had separate garbage pickups, and the garbage was taken to local hog farms. Probably some law against that now.
My personal solution is chickens. They eat nearly everything,and produce better eggs than the supermarket variety. I’m glad to see that backyard chicken coops, once common, are rising in popularity again.
Eggs?
Cholesterol, fat!…Heart clogging poison!
You cant produce your own supply of EGGS, how will the Government control how many you decide to eat?
And eggs will become CHICKENS if left unmolested, how DARE you destroy the “children” of those poor suffering hens?
Why, its absolute POULTRICIDE!…the Government must recognize EGGS as CHICKENS, and only FDA certified euthanasia techniques, observed and documented AT THE FRYING PAN, should be allowed in Domestic Omelet Production by Private Citizens….
My God, don’t you realize only the Police and Military should have access to those kinds of Food?
For an in depth expose of the fallacies of green economics google: The Chevelon Alliance-”Green” Energy: A Deliberate Quest For Poverty
I volunteered for a couple of months in the cafeteria at our local middle school, and was sickened by the vast amounts of food thrown away by the KITCHEN STAFF. As a satellite kitchen (a large kitchen that prepares and delivers meals to other local schools), they prepared three thousand meals each day. When the food containers were returned at the end of the day, most had items still packaged in them including hundreds of pounds of raw vegetables, fruit, potatoes, and salads. I watched in horror as the staff would unpackage these things and feed them down the industrial garbage disposal! When I inquired about the waste with the supervisor I was told that the “extra” food was planned for in the budget and purchasing by the school board and was required by law. WHAT??! I can understand disposing of the leftover lasagna or the questionable meat, but this was fresh produce never touched by human hands after the initial preparation. What homeless shelter or church sponsered food bank would turn down fresh produce every day?! But, alas, this was “not allowed or encouraged” by the powers that be. Now for the real clincher in this drama. I requested to take this “disposal” food to the local kids raising 4H animals including rabbits, pigs, cows, sheep, goats and horses, all that thrive on these offerings. Many of which are purchased by local businesses then donated to local food banks. This too was denied citing “possible contamination issues”. Can we all say “probable bureaucratic issues”!
When you see this occur, offer to take it to the trash…AND TAKE IT HOME. Screw that lot of wasteful idiots. If they won’t eat it, you eat it.
Its the same old scam…
Create “business” where there is no market.
Anybody you know really WANTS corn in their gasoline?
Nope. No market for that.
Buy you CAN charge a premium, for something thats otherwise “unsellable”,
IF you get The Government involved.
They probably pay 50 bucks a pound for some fancy Moochelle Obama Organic Broccoli, KNOWING the kids wont eat it.
Contractor donates to School Board Candidates (always Democrats) and the circle is complete.
It’s the “Jersey Way”, sometimes called “The Chicago way”
Thin Crust, Deep Dish…It’s all Pizza
In my home state, the collection of leftover food for animal feed has been illegal since the early ’70s. Spreads hog cholera. Donation of food to shelters is also illegal, when the food handling regulations are properly enforced. Sometimes the authorities look the other way, sometimes they’re rather nasty about it. Actually, I really can’t think of anything that isn’t against the law in one way or another.
Green really is the new “Red”. Actually, it’s the “old Red” using different tactics.
So people call them water-melons: Green on the outside, red on the inside.
When the econazis came for the gas in my car I said nothing because I was not a car, when they came for the food in my fridge I said nothing because I was not a fridge and when they came for me…
Eat granola, produce methane. Trust me. I ate some last night and I’ve been farting like a horse all day.
Hell, in the Brave New World, I’m a filling station!
10 quintrillion cubic feet of methane is produced every time Obama opens his mouth. Now if we could use THAT for energy…
Or else, if that isn’t allowed, see what happens when it gets into the atmosphere. As a gas that is 20 tines more potent than CO2 that would really warm up the world!
I heat my home with wood, all of which is waste of various sorts, and which I take and “process” for nothing. It produces smoke (carbon and carbon-inclusive particles, which settle to the ground, returning said carbon to the earth for future production of organic material by plants), and carbon dioxide, which is released into the atmoshpere to feed plants, which die without it. I’ve done some research, and haev learned that if this same wood, which I “middle” by combustion, is left lying on the gruond to rot and be eaten by insects and other creatures, will actually release MORE carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (through the metabolism of its direct consumers) than is released when I burn it for heat. Silly greenies.,… they don’t use the half of the brains they claim to have. Good job, that, as they’d be twice the danger they are presently should they begin to do that.
Much of the food wasted is, as mentioned in the article, the result of government meddling.. farm subsidies, which pay people to grow what they only grow to get the subsidies (and otehr subsidies which pay people to NOT grow what they otherwise would not grow on their own volition, but that does not lead directly to the waste of FOOD, only of capital. Howeve,r since they are interrchangeable, I will posit they are identical). Other regulations, imposed by special interest groups through our so-called legislative process, require the destruction of tonnes of food.. a large semitrailer capsises, some of its food content being damaged by having its packaging compromised, or cosmeticallly altered (as in the carton or tin being dented, but contents remaining uncompromised), by law the entire contents must often be destroyed. Twenty thousand tins of edible produce destroyed simply because they were in proximity to some that were ripped open in the crash.. THIS sort of thing is what is insane… but these greenies won’t address that waste, no, they will ONLY address the waste they imagine at the point it is ready to go onto the family table. How many families will have a large cut of meat (yes, MEAT.. some people have no problem eating THAT) not be quite all consumed at the first go at it… and use the remains (deliberately chosen word, accurate but with extrinsic meaning targeted at the squeamish) in a pot of stew or spoup for the next meal? Same with the vegetables left untouched on LIttle Sister’s supper plate… they go into the same soup. bacterial contamination? Identical to that affecting (or not) the others left in the serving dish.. and all of which is surely sterilised as the stew cooks for a few hours, and assisted by the wise use of natural herbs that kill bacteria.. oregano, black pepper, rosemary, to mention a few….
yup, these greenies have a serious problem with these matters, but it all stems from a different matter…. the warped grey matter alledgedly held within their crania.
Good article. I myself have a strict policy: I never vote on the side of people who want to see me dead. Selfish, I know …
Funny, that this study was released when food inflation has been about 10-12%/year. Last year the federal government spent nearly $1 trillion on poverty remediation programs. That comes to $60,000 per family below the poverty line. This year farm bill, which thankfully languishes in Congress, includes nearly $850 billion for Food Stamps for the next 3 years.
You want to start a civil war in the Democrat Party? Go after the Food Stamp Program. You want to see a split between the effette, over-credentialed, neo-fascist and the working poor? Assing a food police officer to each person receiving food stamps.
So there will be SWAT teams assigned to breaking down doors to enforce the food laws. Or weighing of garbage cans and non-compliance fees (taxes) for exceeding the allowed garbage weight? No thank you to more enforcement agencies, please.
When I lived in Seattle the waste authority provided each housing unit with a huge recycling bin, and a tiny trash can, no bigger than a standard kitchen one. Extra trash had to be paid to be disposed of. The result? Any vacant lot or other patch of open land was littered with old couches and TVs and trash bags and all the other stuff that nobody was going to pay big bucks to get rid of. As for us we routinely burned whatever we could to reduce volume. Ah the predictable results when the “good intentions” of greenies run up against the cold hard wall of reality.
This article is particularly offensive to anyone who survived the Great Depression and World War Two on the home front.
In the thirties it was, if you don’t have it, do without.
In the forties it was, Don’t you know there’s a war on? The troops need it at the battlefront.
If anything, it is the reaction to the reaction to the two situations above.
After twenty years of not having enough, the fiftys, sixtys and seventys were a time for catch-up, fueled by a generous availability of credit, and a prosperous outlook. Throw in the Boomers with no remembrance of hard times or shortages and politicians wanting the good times to roll on forever and you have a perfect recipe for a wasteful, consumerist bubble, piling up refuse at an astronomical rate.
The officious arrogance of the efete! Telling me that I still need supervision from a nameless, faceless, moral-less, class-less coven of ego-centric bureaucrats who owe their jobs to political affiliations without regard to competence. Drones who will expend most of their efforts on expanding and defending their fiefdom.
Past history has shown that if you want something really screwed up ask for federal help.
Look at what Medicare did to the index of health care COSTS, rising at ten times the rate of care service.
Look at what Federal Education policy has done to education, costing more to dumb down students.
Look at flood control TVA hydro-electric project which turned out to be the largest consumer of coal in the Americas.
Even the latest socio-economic engineering hype of ‘Greening’ everything. Methanol for gas uses more petro based BTUs than corn based Meth additive produced.
Time for everyone to reread that pesky constitution, especially the ‘Reserved to the States’ section.
Hear a lot about Too Big to Fail. Too Big to Fail is a misbegotten belief that some organizations are so essential to the overall economy that they are critical to future survival. To the contrary, failure is vital to a healthy economy! Failure is the only way to prune the deadwood and rotten parts and improve the health of the tree.
The way this Federal government and many state governments have accumulated, grown, like Topsy are indicative that much of the ‘growth’ is parasitic and should be clipped off.
While I have no great love for eco-nazis, your opinion is not automatically the truth! The byproducts of living that cause health and comfort issues for people are by definition pollution, and I accept that definition. The fact that nothing can be done about it at the time is irrelevant. Through out history pollution in towns was mitigated or the town stopped thriving. Point, at the turn of the 20th century every major city in the US was filthy and unhealthy. Smoke choked the citizens, diseases of the lung rampant. Some 50 yrs later, at the time of my birth, the sky over Chicago were clear of soot and remained so through my youth and adolescence. Government had no hand in the transformation, it was engineering and economics. A clean machine is more efficient, and an efficient machine generates more profits.
The wonders of nature have intrinsic value! Standing on the north rim of the Grand Canyon as the the sun sets should convince just about everyone that it should be preserved. Your view that the value of the land is only in its development is just a bogus as the prevention of development everywhere.
I believe that the EPA needs to reined in radically.
I earn my money and will spend it how I like. If I choose not to spend my money on Hollywood liberal propaganda, drug pushers turned music “artists”, clothes made in countries that hate us and instead spend it on food I waste, So what? It’s my hard earned money. Years ago my cousin”s response to eat your food there are starving kids in China was “If I eat it will they be any less hungry?”
Youse guys is brilliant!
The essay and comments establish a highly intellectual level for discussion.
Just as soon as I chop all the vegetable waste from our dinner and mix all the compost, separate all the re-cyclable trash from the “garbage”, police the yard to tidy up after the ducks and sheep (more compost), collect the twigs to use in my handmade Rocket stove, mill enough wheat berries into flour for tomorrow’s bread, chew for an hour on the sheepskin to soften it for the wifie’s moccasins, and run in the giant hamster wheel for a while to work up enuff of a charge for the next visit to PajamasMedia… I’ll drop off to sleep on top of a pile of fresh leaves.
After all that, you have to be very systematic in checking for TICKS. Helps to have a partner who is not disgusted at the sight of your nekkid body.
I save all the metal cans with their carefully “side-cut” lids so they can be re-sealed to store spare Swiss Army knives, matches, marshmallows, Jordan Almonds, and a few pair of socks & unawares.
The great thing about a lathe powered by a treadle and a springy sapling is that the only critical part is the quality of steel in the chisels. Otherwise it is an extremely low tech setup. Couple of old cast-iron treadles from turn-of-the-century Singer Sewing machines and you can make a fine jigsaw and bandsaw, taking advantage of the most current metallurgical technology.
An earthen oven in the backyard – mud & straw – “cob” – a vernacular technology with a ten-thousand-year pedigree – and you can bake bread, stews in a Dutch oven, or even a pansy-ass goat cheese, arugula and sprouts PIZZA.
Don’t need no stinking lectures from pus-brain academics. Screw those lying ecofanatic bastards in the EPA. I went to college with a battalion of those robots, and they were idiots then, too. Facts and experience have failed to penetrate their indoctrination. They are so deeply enmeshed in their delusions, they are beyond saving except by a higher power than any human can offer.
The author made a mistake by relying only on the posturing of one organization, the NRDC. That organization’s record in terms of wanting government mandates is not good; remember the Alar scare? There are better groups and ones that even take a conservative approach; http://www.ConservAmerica.org as just one group.
The author’s apparent position that wilderness has no intrinsic value was successfully rebutted in the 1980s by President Ronald Reagan, While he was president, Reagan signed more wilderness bills into law that any president since passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964.
In June, 2012, the Western Governors Association released a study showing the value of outdoor recreation to be over $255 billion in the West and creating 2.3 million jobs (no one ever successfully accused the WGA of being a bunch of “flaming liberals”). In the West, most of this recreation takes place on federal public lands; even ski areas are on land leased from the US Forest Service.
If American citizens; all of us; already own all this public land, what is the value to the country in selling all the land off to private interests. As one example, those who participate in hunting season can spend thousands of dollars to hunt on private ranches here in the West. Or, they can hunt for free on the federal public lands, with just the cost of their hunting license to bear. Which is preferable? And perhaps the author is not aware that hunters & anglers are the original conservationists. One can’t have a successful hunt without good habitat for animals, or successful fishing without clean water for fish to thrive.
Depends on the part of the country you are in, and the way the laws are written.
Here in South East Alaska, we have had to fight off organizations who want to keep humans entirely out of some areas. You see, most of our land is totally inaccessable. It is physically impossible for humans to walk through some areas, the land is too steep and covered with moss. Maybe there would be the sort of recreation you are talking about it we could put in trails or roads, but we cannot and the culverts are being removed from old logging roads, resulting in steep sided ravines humans (and animals) cannot cross. Excuse is “fish”, even though there are no fish that far up. Real reason? Boils down to “people might go out there and use them”. The North Douglas Highway extension, 30 years ago? Shut down because people might drive on it. The “environmentalists” want to keep airplanes from flying over low enough to see something other than a carpet of trees indistinguishable from a lawn. Some ocean waterways (we are a mass of islands here, look it up on Google maps some time), are in danger of being closed off to the extent that boats and ships would need to go hundreds of miles around “the other way”. That is not hyperbole. Hundreds of miles. Waterways only open to kayaks, no sail boats, and carry your body wastes out. (50 gallon honeybucket per kayaker?) No, the USFS would not put in port-a-potties, not even they could use motors.
If the Government would stop making laws like you cant have chickens in your back yard
And Goats and things
We would be able to grow our own food at home
Instead of having to buy it
Well, normally I’d just dismiss this as more Objectivist propaganda, but this is about my specialty, so I’d like to take a crack at this Randroid.
First, value is not objective. We determine the subjective value of something via consensus or by order in a non-democratic, non-capitalist state. Wilderness is seen to be of value to people, who support it with their tax revenues. Until you can persuade the majority of people that
Second, only madmen claim that any release into the environment is pollution. Otherwise, a plant would be guilty of polluting the air by supplying oxygen. Before the climate change BS took over the environmental movement, pollutants were compounds that adversely affected human health or various critters we cared about. Smoke and soot were known to cause harmful health effects in the industrial revolution, and people wanted to avoid those effects. Just because pollution is deemed acceptable does not mean it is not pollution. It’s like saying that soldier who die in a necessary war are not actually dead.
Third, Clean energy exists. It is called nuclear power. The fact that the current environmental types are not falling over themselves to start building nuclear reactors is a sign that they aren’t actually interested in climate change.
Fourth, Cheaply attainable natural resources are finite. Sure, there will always be petroleum production. That doesn’t mean it will always be affordable to most people. You could also run into a situation where a natural resource runs into the high-cost region, without a readily available backup. Human ingenuity is awesome, but it isn’t a magic wand.
Fifth, Tragedy of the Commons. I’d foresee it fairly rapidly in an Objectivist utopia. It’s not that people want to live in a disaster zone, it’s that without someone to look after the commons or a robust culture of respecting the common, everyone will have an interest in taking as much as they can.
Finally, the greatest tragedy of the environmental movement was the change from preserving the environment FOR human civilization (Teddy Roosevelt setting national parks to preserve wilderness so future people like us could see it, setting standards for clean air and water, developing ways to mitigate pollution) to preserving the environment FROM human civilization (climate change, anti-human sentiment)
It appears that a large part of the green agenda is predicated on man verses nature argument. This is nonsense as humans are a part of nature. Who is to say humans are not doing what nature has required of humans at this time?