It Aint Easy Being Green

Lets take some time to discuss this "green" movement that is sweeping the country. You can't go anywhere these days without hearing about hybrid cars, fluorescent light bulbs, and high efficiency appliances. So how effective are these "green" initiatives at actually cleaning up the environment and reducing carbon emissions? Well, the initial results don't look good.

Thanks Joel for tipping me off to this article from the Wall Street Journal. The future is not looking good for all the granola eating bio-fuel huggers out there. According to two recent articles in Science magazine (Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt, How Green Are Biofuels), going green is actually more harmful from a carbon emission perspective.

And I already blogged about the problem with compact fluorescent bulbs.

Here's the thing, I have no inherent problem with fluorescent light bulbs and high efficiency cars and appliances. In and of themselves those are a good thing and I, like most people, want to do my part in keeping our environment healthy and strong. The problem I have is when these things get mandated at the government level. As you can see from the articles above they often times cause more harm than good in the end. It becomes quite obvious that the people and lobbyists behind the green movement are not truly concerned about the environment, when despite scientific fact to the contrary, they continue to push initiatives "that work".

I thought this Super Bowl commercial was a great example of the disconnect between science and what these people believe.




Someone might want to inform GE that trees need carbon emissions to live!!! That's like a human hugging something that's taking oxygen out of the atmosphere.