The Gold Medal for Absurdity: 2012 Olympic Torch Not Low Carbon

“Global Warming Panic Inducer: 2012 Olympic Torch Not Low Carbon,” Doug Powers writes at Michelle Malkin’s blog:

Massive construction projects are taking place in preparation for the 2012 London Olympics, when athletes from a couple hundred countries will jet in from every corner of the globe, as will countless spectators. With that in mind, this latest eco-concern is a little like worrying about the carbon output of the Zippo you’re using to light Burning Man.

Doug links to this passage at the conclusion of an article in the Australian:

The gold, baton-shaped torch is 80cm long and weighs 800g, so it is light enough for the youngest runner taking part in the 70-day relay. Each bearer will start with a fresh torch lit from the Olympic flame and will be able to buy it as a souvenir. Mr Playfoot still has his torch which, he said, burnt like a blowtorch powered by naphtha.

The relay will begin at Land’s End on May 19 and the torch will be carried to every corner of Britain, including the Channel Islands, Northern Ireland and the Outer Hebrides.However, the failure of designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby to produce a low-carbon torch was criticised. “We tried really hard to do that. We were very close, but we just ran out of time,” Mr Barber said.

The Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 said that was a poor excuse. “The promise of a low-carbon torch was made in 2007 and so the excuse of ‘we ran out of time’ is not acceptable,” chairman Shaun McCarthy said.

But this is simply another version of NBC turning off its studio lights during a self-designated “green week,” but still broadcasting a Sunday night football game between the Cowboys and Eagles. In both cases, if you were really serious that the earth was in the midst of a man-made climatic crisis, you’d cancel something so meaningless as a sporting event. You wouldn’t tinker around the edges by dimming a handful of fluorescent studio lights or a symbolic torch; you’d eliminate the actual event, which uses zillions of watts of electricity for the stadium lighting, the concession stands, the television equipment, not to mention all of the gas used in transporting the players, the gear, the food and drink et al to the stadium.

But as with the German government deciding they can arbitrarily end nuclear power, and generate electricity with fairy dust, this is the logical output of a century or so of very illogical thinking. So by all means, lose the Olympic Torch, or make an athlete carry a Bic lighter instead, and show the world how absurd you’ve at last become.