NYTimes.com: Want to Save the Earth? We Need a Lot More Elon Musks.

[John Clark]

I agree with Thomas Friedman, environmentalists are not serious people.

From The New York Times:

Want to Save the Earth? We Need a Lot More Elon Musks.

To slow climate change, Father Profit and New Tech must innovate, fast.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/opinion/glasgow-climate-change.html?smid=em-share

[Giulio Prisco]

Good piece. I agree.

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[William Flynn Wallace]

I agree with Thomas Friedman, environmentalists are not serious people.  John Clark

C'mon John, that is just the worst sort of overgeneralization type cognitive error - very unworthy of you.  I am an environmentalist.  Sure, that are stupid radicals, and progressives etc. who call themselves that and I don't associate my name or beliefs with theirs.

In psychology we learn never to say never, always, everybody, and so on, very early.

bill w

[John Clark]

On Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 3:43 PM William Flynn Wallace <fooz...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree with Thomas Friedman, environmentalists are not serious people.  John Clark

 

> C'mon John, that is just the worst sort of overgeneralization type cognitive error - very unworthy of you. 

I don't think I'm overgeneralizing at all. Greenpeace may be the most prominent environmental organization in the world and has led the opposition to the introduction of Golden Rice in sub Saharan Africa and south Asia even though it would prevent between 200,000 and 700,000 deaths EACH YEAR from vitamin D deficiencies  and stop 500,000 children going permanently blind EACH YEAR. Why? Because Golden Rice is genetically engineered and Greenpeace thinks that must mean it's inherently evil despite the fact that 107 Nobel prize winners have urged that they stop their mindless opposition to all genetically modified crops and let Golden Rice be much more widely used.  

Environmentalists 

claim to occupy the moral high ground but they have one hell of a lot to answer for. They managed to get DDT banned in 1972, the most powerful weapon we had against malaria causing mosquitoes. The following is a graph of malaria deaths over time, you tell me if you can spot something unusual about it in the early 1970s:

To environmentalists the shooting of one gorilla at a zoo is a great tragedy but 8 million people starving to death each year (which GMOs could help prevent) is just a statistic.  Environmentalists say that global warming is an existential crisis, but they torpedo any attempt to prevent it.  Every large mainstream

environmental organization opposes

greenhouse gasses, but they also oppose nuclear power plants even though they produce no greenhouse gasses and

has

 

by far

the best safety record of any large scale power source.  More people die installing rooftop solar cells EACH YEAR than the number of people who have died operating a nuclear power plant during the last 50 years.

Mortality rates worldwide by energy sources

Environmentalist say nothing is more important than preventing global warming and one possible solution to that is to introduce Iron into iron deficient regions of the ocean to encourage plankton growth which absorbs carbon dioxide, the very greenhouse gas they're so worried about, but they violently oppose even tiny small scale tests of this idea when somebody proposes putting a few tons of powdered iron into the ocean to see what happens.

We live at the only time since life began on this planet that 8 billion large animals of the same species have existed at the same moment, to expect that all those individuals can be kept alive (forget about them being happy too) without at least some disruption to the natural environment is just not being serious. 

 John K Clark

[William Flynn Wallace]

What matters to me are the billions of people who are environmentalists in the sense of loving the world, wanting clean air and water, wanting much industrial pollution stopped, enjoying gardening and traveling in nature.  I suspect that most of that applies to you, no?  And nearly everyone.  And we are serious about it.  I can't help it if some organizations do bad things in the name of environmentalism.  But frankly, I would applaud if Greenpeace could sink every whaling ship on the planet.  bill w

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[William Flynn Wallace]

[John Clark]

On Thu, Nov 18, 2021 at 8:35 AM William Flynn Wallace <fooz...@gmail.com> wrote:

 > frankly, I would applaud if Greenpeace could sink every whaling ship on the planet. 

Me too. At one time Greenpeace was best known for harassing whaling ships and I thought that was a brave and noble thing and I still do, years ago I even donated money to them to help them do it, but later they seem to get the ridiculous idea that some problems are so serious that we shouldn't think logically about them. And I'm not the only one who believes that; Patrick Moore is the guy who started Greenpeace but he was drummed out of the organization he founded because he dared to suggest that maybe nuclear power wasn't such a bad idea after all.

> What matters to me are the billions of people who are environmentalists in the sense of loving the world, wanting clean air and water, wanting much industrial pollution stopped, enjoying gardening and traveling in nature.  I suspect that most of that applies to you, no? 

Sure, and I'm for motherhood and apple pie too, but things only get interesting when you get down to the nitty-gritty and start talking about specifics. Environmentalists never met a power source they didn't hate. They oppose geothermal power because it smells bad and causes earthquakes, And wind power because it disrupts global wind patterns, is noisy, is ugly, and kills cute little birds. And have deep reservations about solar power because it's so dilute it requires vast tracts of land that is no doubt environmentally sensitive. Environmentalists say there are just too many people on this small planet so they seem to suggest that we should all just freeze to death in the dark.

  > I am an environmentalist

And at one time I called myself a libertarian, but the meanings of words change with time and thanks largely to the disgraceful behavior of the Libertarian Party I'd be embarrassed to call myself that today. In the same way I am an environmentalist in the sense that Patrick Moore originally use the word, not the way Greenpeace has debased it today.

John K Clark

[William Flynn Wallace]

I am for every power source you mentioned and would add nuclear, which I think is by far our best option.  Of course it just scares people who think it will explode like the Hiroshima bomb.  I'll bet tricycles have killed more people than nuclear plants.  Why is everything going off the deep and radical end?  Where are the moderates in Washington or elsewhere?

I am also a fan of GMOs.  So if what you say is correct, I would fit in in no environmental organization extant.  bill w

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[John Clark]

On Thu, Nov 18, 2021 at 1:22 PM William Flynn Wallace <fooz...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I am for every power source you mentioned and would add nuclear, which I think is by far our best option.  Of course it just scares people who think it will explode like the Hiroshima bomb.  I'll bet tricycles have killed more people than nuclear plants.  Why is everything going off the deep and radical end?  Where are the moderates in Washington or elsewhere?

I am also a fan of GMOs.  So if what you say is correct, I would fit in in no environmental organization extant.  bill w

That about sums it up, if there is a mainstream environmental group that is in favor of all the things that you and I are I've never heard of it.  

John K Clark

========

 

On Thu, Nov 18, 2021 at 9:26 AM John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Nov 18, 2021 at 8:35 AM William Flynn Wallace <fooz...@gmail.com> wrote:

 > frankly, I would applaud if Greenpeace could sink every whaling ship on the planet. 

Me too. At one time Greenpeace was best known for harassing whaling ships and I thought that was a brave and noble thing and I still do, years ago I even donated money to them to help them do it, but later they seem to get the ridiculous idea that some problems are so serious that we shouldn't think logically about them. And I'm not the only one who believes that; Patrick Moore is the guy who started Greenpeace but he was drummed out of the organization he founded because he dared to suggest that maybe nuclear power wasn't such a bad idea after all.

> What matters to me are the billions of people who are environmentalists in the sense of loving the world, wanting clean air and water, wanting much industrial pollution stopped, enjoying gardening and traveling in nature.  I suspect that most of that applies to you, no? 

Sure, and I'm for motherhood and apple pie too, but things only get interesting when you get down to the nitty-gritty and start talking about specifics. Environmentalists never met a power source they didn't hate. They oppose geothermal power because it smells bad and causes earthquakes, And wind power because it disrupts global wind patterns, is noisy, is ugly, and kills cute little birds. And have deep reservations about solar power because it's so dilute it requires vast tracts of land that is no doubt environmentally sensitive. Environmentalists say there are just too many people on this small planet so they seem to suggest that we should all just freeze to death in the dark.

  > I am an environmentalist

And at one time I called myself a libertarian, but the meanings of words change with time and thanks largely to the disgraceful behavior of the Libertarian Party I'd be embarrassed to call myself that today. In the same way I am an environmentalist in the sense that Patrick Moore originally use the word, not the way Greenpeace has debased it today.

John K Clark

On Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 3:43 PM William Flynn Wallace <fooz...@gmail.com> wrote: