Extinction we can believe in

With the tribe that continues its deadly journey up the tailpipe of a car, Myron Ebell continued his miserable blogging over the election moment. On November 3, he wrote:

Washington remains quiet as everyone awaits the election returns. Environmentalists are talking about making any second stimulus bill that may be taken up by Congress in its lame duck session (scheduled for the week of November 17th) into a "green stimulus" package. Lots of new money for make-work "green jobs," new and higher subsidies for "green energy," and so on. It should be fun to watch the pushing and shoving at the trough, but the outcomes of these spending sprees are always depressing. It’s hard to see how wasting money and replacing lower-cost energy with higher-cost energy can revive the economy.

To most people it's known as preparing the infrastructure for a future where energy will be more expensive, as well as establishing the possibility for the human race to take steps to avoid its tragic fate incurred by the self-destruction of its own habitat.

All evidence suggests that the so-called "free market" social system, which Myron's squirming brain is wedded to, is practically and theoretically incapable of preparing for future challenges. It's a me-now mechanism, a continual duelling economic fight, and anyone who puts something aside for the future becomes weakened in the present, beaten down and asset-stripped.

On November 4, Ebell wrote:

Energy issues have figured in the presidential campaign, but global warming has seldom been mentioned. That shouldn’t be surprising: sky high gasoline prices this summer made Americans angry, while global warming remains a yawner for most people outside the bi-coastal elite and the chattering class...

Higher electricity prices will lower spending on other things, thereby putting people out of jobs, and drive energy intensive industries to other countries, again thereby putting people out of jobs. Since utilities were having a hard time keeping up with increasing demand until the economy started to slow down, it is also almost certain that discouraging new coal plants will lead to regional blackouts if the economy does pick up again.

It is not clear whether Senator Obama has enough basic economics to understand this. Or maybe he believes what he’s been told by environmental pressure groups, namely that there are plenty of cost-competitive alternatives to replace the coal that provides over half of our country’s electricity. Or maybe he doesn’t care or indeed thinks it’s a good thing to reduce economic growth.

It's hard to count the contradictions emerging from the Myron doctrine in these two quotes. But let's try:

• Higher energy prices are now inevitable - Myron believes that the free market economy will have more difficulty responding to this challenge, than to more frequent storms and droughts. The insurance industry believes otherwise.


• "Higher electricity prices will lower spending on other things, thereby putting people out of jobs" - Do none of the dollars that get spent on higher electricity prices go into jobs?


• "It's hard to see how wasting money and replacing lower-cost energy with higher-cost energy can revive the economy." - Replacing profligate energy use infrastructure with more efficient use doesn't count?


• "and drive energy intensive industries to other countries, again thereby putting people out of jobs" - Who cares that the highest uses of energy are in the form of home heating and transport, neither of which can be driven to other countries. Meanwhile, the production of fossil fuels, driven to other countries by the massive wastage of the US's inherited wealth, is not a problem for Myron.


• "Or maybe he believes what he’s been told by environmental pressure groups, namely that there are plenty of cost-competitive alternatives to replace the coal that provides over half of our country’s electricity" - Isn't it odd he uses the word "cost-competitive". All that means is the billing price to the customer for coal can be financially less per kilowatt/hr than the other options. This does not mean that the costs are effective, bearable, or tolerable when you factor in non-monetized costs, which he doesn't want you to.


• "Or maybe he doesn’t care or indeed thinks it’s a good thing to reduce economic growth." - Where does your "economic growth" lead to? People have been seeing through this one for a while. Economic growth, like population growth, cannot continue forever, even if you believe that the entire mass of the Earth can be converted into human flesh. If your pointless rhetoric can't abide having a ceiling on so-called economic growth, then it's belongs in Science Fiction along with an infinite series of parallel worlds you can teleport to and get lost in.

Myron then paid a pointless visit to the off his trolley blog where he moaned:

Brilliant insight from Fred Barnes in the Wall St. Journal today: "We could be in for a lurch to the left."

That’s why he gets paid the big bucks. If only I’d known earlier, maybe I could have prepared.

We can only assume this means he wants the job of writing right-wing op-eds in Murdoch newspapers and being on TV. The Climate wishes him luck in his job-hunting adventure. It would keep us in business with the pleasure of tracking all his incompetant ideological ramblings about stuff he only knows how to lie about.

The Fred Barnes' article he failed to link to is here.

Yes, it would sure be good to see some socialism come for the common people, rather than just for the oil companies, arms companies and Wall Street bankers who use all their powers to screw them up the back-side. These are the same guys who pay for Myron to do what he does, as well as giving him a platform in their corporate-owned media.

The political system is broken by people who want it to be broken. The proof of this will be provided when Myron finds work on anything except cleaning toilets.