Category Archives: Environment

Sympathy for Paranoia

The moon landing was faked by the U.S. government for propaganda purposes to win the Cold War. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 was actually an inside job as a pretext to go to war. Space aliens landed in Roswell, NM but the government has been covering it up. The Sandy Hook massacre was faked to increase support for new gun control laws; the “victims” were actually actors who are all alive and well today. The Illuminati is the secret entity which actually governs the whole world…

The natural response to these statements is to say “these people are mad barking moonbats” and to keep ourselves as distant as possible from the people making them. Those of us in the liberty movement who want to be taken seriously are very quick to renounce anyone who is within six degrees of Alex Jones or anyone else who states any of the above. It’s difficult enough to be taken seriously about legalizing drugs, the non-aggression principle, free markets, and freedom of association; the last thing we need is to be lumped in with “those people.”

While it is very important to defend the “brand” of the liberty movement, it’s also important to recognize the reasons why people believe some rather nutty things.

[W]hen I say virtually everyone is capable of paranoid thinking, I really do mean virtually everyone, including you, me, and the founding fathers. As the sixties scare about the radical Right demonstrates, it is even possible to be paranoid about paranoids. – Jesse Walker, The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory, (p. 24) (Read my book review here)

Once one learns about some of the activities governments been proven to have been involved in, some conspiracy theories no longer seem as outlandish. I used to refer to conspiracy theories and wacky beliefs as “black helicopter” stories and I’m fairly certain that others used the same terminology. Once I learned that black unmarked helicopters were used in the assault by the FBI on the Branch Davidians in Waco, TX,(Napolitano, p.110) I stopped calling such ideas “black helicopter.”

Not everything that sounds crazy is.
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The Glass Houses of the Anti-Science Left

The enlightened left loves to mock anti-science on the right. But guess what?

The pot is every bit as sooty as the kettle.

The political left in the U.S. harbors junk- and anti-science tendencies running strong as anything found on the right. From glass houses (recycled, natch!) in solid blue crunchvilles around the country, the left’s anti-science factions scoff at global warming “deniers,” blissfully blind to the power of their own superstitions.

It is not merely the chemophobia or the illogical fixation on things “all natural.” Never mind that everything on earth is made of chemicals—including kittens, oxygen, that homemade soap on Etsy, and every essential oil. Never mind it would take 14 bottles of store-bought shampoo to amass the amount of formaldehyde in just one apple (and cauliflower has even more). Never mind that arsenic, lead and hemlock are all natural.

I can overlook the dangerous predilection for “natural remedies,” the susceptibility to mythical conditions like “candida overgrowth,” or the willingness to pay extra for meat without nitrates that is actually more dangerous. All of these are largely phenomena of Prius-driving, Whole Foods-shopping raw pecan lovers. Regardless, the externalities these superstitions impose, while greater than zero, are within a range acceptable in a free society.

Let them buy all-natural snake oil from salesmen savvy enough not to incorporate.

The problem is that not all their superstitions are quite so harmless.

Genetically Engineered Food

Consider GMO foods. As compiled by Reason’s Ronald Bailey:

A 2004 report from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) concluded that “no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population.”

In 2003 the International Council for Science, representing 111 national academies of science and 29 scientific unions, found “no evidence of any ill effects from the consumption of foods containing genetically modified ingredients.”

The World Health Organization flatly states, “No effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved.”

In 2010, a European Commission review of 50 studies on the safety of biotech crops found “no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.”

At its annual meeting in June, the American Medical Association endorsed a report on the labeling of bioengineered foods from its Council on Science and Public Health. The report concluded that “Bioengineered foods have been consumed for close to 20 years, and during that time, no overt consequences on human health have been reported and/or substantiated in the peer-reviewed literature.”

The science is in. The safety of GMO foods is as well established as evolution and clearer than man-made global warming.

Wonderful news! We can move forward with ameliorating hunger and saving lives around the world using foods like Golden Rice, genetically altered to carry a gene from carrots and intended to prevent the Vitamin A deficiency that kills 670,000 children under the age of five every year.

But superstitious anti-GMO activists have succeeded in escalating the testing requirements necessary to bring it to market and backed a campaign of vandalism against farmers with limited licenses to use it in the meantime. A study published in the Cambridge Journal of Environment and Development Economics calculated that delayed deployment of Golden Rice has cost 1,424,000 life years since 2002 in India alone.

Compared to that, young-earth creationism seems almost…science-y.

Renewable Energy

Fracking is safe, fossil fuels are efficient, and there is no credible path to replacing them without nuclear, the greenest of them all.

Biofuel contributes to global warming and would require stripping the planet. As for all the rest, the resources necessary to manufacture the components are about equal to the energy the technology is capable of producing. They never manage to do much more than break even in producing the amount of energy consumed in their own manufacture.

In other words, trying to replace fossil fuels with renewables “simply won’t work” because the energy requirements for manufacturing and maintaining solar panels, windmills and electric cars are too high.

Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear. All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms—and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.

In reality, well before any such stage was reached, energy would become horrifyingly expensive—which means that everything would become horrifyingly expensive… This in turn means that everyone would become miserably poor and economic growth would cease (the more honest hardline greens admit this openly).

“The most honest hardline greens” openly admitting that ending our reliance on fossil fuels would necessitate ending civilization as we know it? They’re the ones who understand the science.

The rest are just crossing their fingers while imposing “astronomical” costs on the rest of us.

Recycling

Reusable diapers are not more environmentally friendly than disposables. Curbside recycling doubles the number of fossil-fuel burning trucks required to pick up the same amount of garbage. There is no shortage of landfill capacity. Whether for the purpose of preserving sand or to prevent glass from returning to sand, there is no sound reason for spending $90 a ton recycling glass into other, different glass that can be sold for $10 a ton. For every remanufactured product that achieves net energy savings, there is another that results in a net energy loss.

There are recyclers who take the time—in between washing their garbage and line-drying those disposable diapers—to research each potential recyclable, investigate the programs in their locales, and reach reasonably scientific conclusions about which recycling efforts net a savings of natural resources. the-craft

Most don’t.

They’re not interested in scientific answers to these questions. They’re practicing a religion.

So while Democrats gaze down their all-naturally moisturized noses and snicker at the anti-science right, let us not forget that Democrats are more likely to believe in ghosts, significantly more likely to believe in fortune telling, and almost twice as likely to believe in astrology.

The walls of their recycled glass houses might be kept shiny with organic, handmade, all-natural, chemical-free, locally-sourced, artisan household cleaning products.

But those who live there still ought not throw stones.

Sarah Baker is a libertarian, attorney and writer. She lives in Montana with her daughter and a house full of pets.

Ethanol not only isn’t Green… It’s Blacker than Coal

Mother Jones Ethanol Problem Breakdown

Image credit: Mother Jones (oh… and that was 7 years ago. it’s worse now)

So everyone knows the whole song and dance when it comes to clean energy, energy efficiency, renewable energy. Every now and again we get a new technology or trend on the market that changes the whole game. Such as when we changed from incandescent lights to LED neon and the likes to cut down around 70% of lighting costs. Electric cars are supposed to be one of those cleaner technologies. Energy-efficient vehicles with little to no emissions and environmental impact… right?

A new total environmental impact metastudy has been published, rating the environmental impact of electric cars, with results for each type of electric car and the types of power generation used to fuel them; comparing them against conventional gasoline, and ethanol fueled vehicles.

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/your-all-electric-vehicle-may-not-be-so-green-study-n268961

Their basic conclusion, is that electric cars are in fact no better, and are often worse for the environment, than conventional cars (because of their manufacturing inputs, waste outputs, and the impact of electricity generation).

Of course, anyone who has been paying attention to the actual technologies and manufacture of electric cars has known this for years… They’re essential philosophical symbols, rather than any real benefit to the environment.

… but that’s a different argument for another day…

What I find most interesting though, is the conclusions and comparisons they drew between different energy sources… particularly ethanol:

“The study finds that overall, all-electric vehicles cause 86 percent more deaths from air pollution than do cars powered by regular gasoline. But if natural gas produces the electricity? Half as many deaths as gasoline cars. Wind, water or wave energy? One-quarter. Hybrids and diesel engines are also cleaner than gas. But ethanol isn’t, with 80 percent more deaths.”

… 80 percent more damage (expressed here as deaths) than regular gasoline, just direct damage, not second order effects and the like. Nearly as much as straight coal.

When you add the damage ethanol causes from starvation, increased food costs, food insecurity, and additional transportation costs, as well as damage to vehicles and distribution infrastructure… it’s FAR worse than coal.

Resource Media - Ethanol, Food or Fuel

Image Credit: Resource Media

Then there’s the subsidies it soaks up and therefore the additional tax burden it creates… Ethanol is far FAR worse than coal.

Oh and then there’s the fact that ethanol is actively preventing better greener technologies from being developed; both by consuming resources which would otherwise be more productively used, as well as directly, because the ethanol industry lobbies against competing technologies, and for mandatory ethanol use.

… And of course, that’s ignoring the damage it does to our political process, dominating the early primary process, in effect acting as a filter for presidential candidate selection.

Ethanol is quite possibly the worst fuel in common use.

I am a cynically romantic optimistic pessimist. I am neither liberal, nor conservative. I am a (somewhat disgruntled) muscular minarchist… something like a constructive anarchist.

Basically what that means, is that I believe, all things being equal, responsible adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want to do, so long as nobody’s getting hurt, who isn’t paying extra

Climate Change… The New Inquistion

I was searching for something else, and I came across this piece I wrote back in 2007…

…And perhaps unsurprisingly, not much has changed today, except that now catastrophists are saying EVERYTHING is proof of climate change.

Climate change can apparently do anything whatsoever, including mutually exclusive and contradictory things, because “science”.

It’s absolutely unfalsifiable.

I decide to republish it here, to point out, that while the science against the catastrophists has only accumulated and strengthened; their stridency and grasping demands have only increased.

I say again, the concept of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change, except in the case of localized micro-climates, holds absolutely no scientific water.

Honest scientists will tell you the same thing if pressed (and if their funding doesn’t depend on it), but the agenda politics of todays science (admittedly on both sides of the political spectrum, but generally on different subjects), prevents real, honest, science from occurring anymore; or from being reported if and when it is (the record of suppressing science which disproves catastrophic anthropogenic climate change is long and shameless at this point).

The mere language used by catastrophists against those who seek to use actual science rather than sociopolitical ideological faith, calling us “deniers” in an attempt to paint an equivalence with holocaust deniers, should make it clear that their concern is not truth.

The honest numbers are simple.

Global temperatures have risen an average of less than 1 degree centigrade since measurements started being taken (“adjusted measurements”, which have been conclusively proven to be inaccurate and possibly deliberately manipulated say it may be as much as 1.8 degrees, but that is the absolute maximum).

There is no “sudden and precipitous increase”. There is no hockey stick. It was a lie, and even many of the climate change people have admitted it. The ice caps aren’t melting, in fact in most areas they are thickening slightly. The sea level isn’t rising any more than it would have naturally.

Oh and in case you didn’t know… Polar bears are excellent swimmers.

More damning to the catastrophists faith; even by their own admission, there has been NO rise (and there may in fact have been a slight decline) in global average temperatures, SINCE 1996.

Since temperature recordings have begun, volcanic eruptions have put more carbon into the atmosphere, and caused more temperature change, than all of human industry and activity since the beginning of the human race; but it wasn’t by increasing temperatures with carbon, it was by decreasing them with dust in the air… much of which was in fact carbon particulates.

The world has been far colder than today at times when there was far more carbon in the atmosphere; even without more dust. The world has been far warmer than today with far less carbon in the air, even WITH more dust.

The amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide and carbon particulates in the atmosphere are FAR less than one half of one percent of total carbon dioxide, and far less than one half of one percent of total carbon particulates (the vast majority of CO2 is released by soil, rotting vegetation, oceanic microorganisms, and seafloor offgassing. The vast majority of particulates, are released by forest fires, and volcanic activity ). Considering how small a percentage of our atmospheric carbon and carbon compounds (between 0.03 and 0.06 percent. Not between 3% and 6%, 3 one hundredths of a percent), that amount is completely insignificant to global climate change.

This is not to say they don’t effect local microclimates, they certainly do. But in those local microclimates, these concentrations are literally hundreds to thousands of times higher.

These levels of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere are not a temperature driver, or a climate forcing.

In fact, historical records show that overall CO2 levels (which, remember, human inputs make up only a tiny fraction of) TRAIL global climate change by anywhere from a few hundred years, to a few thousand.

All currently existing GLOBAL climate change can be fully and scientifically explained by natural endothermic cycles (atmospheric oceanic interaction combined with volcanic and other geothermal activity, and large particulate emissions such as forest fires, plus natural greenhouse component and other climate forcing component emissions), and the fluctuation in output of the sun (because earth is an exothermic system). The suns output has varied greatly over the course of human history (and of course long before), and periods of warming and cooling have tracked right along with that output.

Models using average sunspot activity as an indicator of solar thermal forcing, have proven to be accurate within a few percentage points at predicting historical temperatures.

Some models (those used by catastrophists) predict that there may be FUTURE global climate change based on a theory that human generated carbon inputs, even though they are far lower than historical levels which did NOT cause these things to happen, will somehow cause the entire climate system to change the way it has always functioned.

These models are ridiculous on their face. The way you test a model is to run if forwards and backwards without adjustment, and see if it can accurately predict what actually happened in the past, using the data from further back in the past; then verifying against actual future results over time.

None of the models that predict significant global climate change due to human carbon inputs, come anywhere close to predicting the historical record.

They always consistently overestimate warming by SEVERAL HUNDRED PERCENT, as in estimating 4 to 8 times the actual warming.

And NONE of them came anywhere close to predicting the variability of the historical record, always showing a consistent warming trend over time, even for CENTURIES that had a significant cooling trend.

The models were not made to predict the actual climate… they were specifically made to predict massive warming, no matter the input. And that’s what they do, as non-catastrophists have proven, running data which any rational model should predict steady or cooling temperatures through the models… and they STILL predicted significant warming.

I leave it up to you to decide whether the models were just designed badly, or whether the distortion was intentional. Either way, these models cannot be trusted, and decisions should certainly not be made based on them.

The climate IS changing, and has since the moment the earth formed a climate. As near as we can tell (through ice core samples and the like) there has never been a period of more than 200 years without at least a 1 degree change in global average temperatures.

The climate will continue to change on its own, and no NORMAL human activity will change global climate significantly one way or the other… unless it’s something that actually would kill us all (which would by definition not be normal… Incredibly massive particulate pollution over a high percentage of the earths surface – including the oceans – would do it. It would initially trigger warming from trapped thermal radiation, followed by extremely rapid cooling from blocking out the sun, and then a sudden ice age; and likely kill all crops and food animals in the process, along with at least 80% of humanity in the first two years, if not more, and ultimately followed by mass global extinction).

That isn’t to say we shouldn’t attempt to develop better sources of energy, we should. We aren’t going to “run out” of oil… ever in fact; a basic understanding of economics would show that. But, eventually hydrocarbon fuels are going to get more and more expensive as time goes on, and petroleum fueled combustion engines are relatively inefficient, and do contribute significantly to micro climate pollution.

In many ways, doing things greener IS in fact better. Saving energy is generally a very good thing. Not polluting is generally a good thing. When it isn’t, is when it destroys economies, prevents job growth, reduces food production, increases food prices, and all the other ways that forced greenism (I won’t even call it environmentalism, because it isn’t doing the environment much good), causes pain, suffering, misery, and general reductions in peoples health, quality of life, standard of living, and basic liberties.

“Climate change” isn’t about the environment… It’s about giving financial and political control to anti-western, anti-capitalists…. Or just the cynical opportunists who would use peoples good intentions and fears to increase their own power.

It’s about punishing those rich capitalist nations and people, for not being poor socialists… Or just for “not doing things the RIGHT way”…. whatever that particular person or group happens to think the “right” way is.

It isn’t science, it’s a pseudo-scientific sociopolitical ideological movement, and near religion. The adherents don’t need any proof, because they have faith; and any who challenge that faith must be burned as heretics in their new inquisition.

I am a cynically romantic optimistic pessimist. I am neither liberal, nor conservative. I am a (somewhat disgruntled) muscular minarchist… something like a constructive anarchist.

Basically what that means, is that I believe, all things being equal, responsible adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want to do, so long as nobody’s getting hurt, who isn’t paying extra

TLP Roundtable — Should We Require The Labeling Of GMOs?

label gmo large

Welcome to the first of a new weekly feature here at The Liberty Papers, the TLP Roundtable where the contributors give their opinions on a topic that’s generating a lot of discussion.

This week’s topic is mandatory GMO labeling. Colorado and Oregon have ballot measures on Tuesday asking the voters of their states whether or not they believe food companies should label their GMO ingredients. Supporters of the measures believe that GMOs are harmful to the environment and humans while opponents believe that GMOs have been proven safe.

The contributors found themselves overwhelmingly against mandatory GMO labeling. One of our newest contributors, Joseph Santaniello, wrote a piece opposing Oregon’s ballot measure on this issue, Measure 92.

Chris Byrne:

“I have no problem with it voluntarily but am against it as a regulatory mandate…. and I’m against it in general as a lover of science and truth; because anti-GMO hysteria is pandering to the stupid, the ignorant, the anti-science, and to those who would manipulate them for their own personal agenda and benefit”

Chris wrote a piece on this topic on his personal blog a year ago, that he wants you to read.

Tom Knighton:

“While I generally approve of laws that empower consumers, and I don’t see this as creating an undue burden on businesses, I also believe that laws should actually accomplish something of benefit to society. Despite countless memes floating around social media, there’s no compelling argument that GMO foods are any less safe than non-GMO foods. With that in mind, I can’t support a law that does nothing but fuels a ridiculous hysteria.”

Christopher Bowen:

“Being a liberal libertarian on a site that uses the Gadsden Flag as its avatar, I’m used to pissing people off, and now it’s time for the tree huggers to get in line. There is virtually no compelling evidence that genetically modified food is even an inconvenience – let alone a threat – to people. Yes, it can be peoples’ preference to not consume any food with GMOs; that’s their right. But forcing it on other people, codifying untested science into law, and not giving me the ability to make my own educated decision is beyond the pale.

With that in mind, “let the market decide” is not necessarily the right move, either. By the time the “market” has education, there could potentially be a public health scare. Only a strict constitutionalist would argue that the government does not have the right to regulate food, if only to make sure that what we buy is indeed what we’re getting.

I have an alternative solution, and it serves as a test: instead of mandatory GMO labeling, if we really want the government that involved, let’s instead have it so that “organic” is a distinctly enforceable label, with layers of testing, peer-review and regulation before a company can put “organic” on its food. Most of the liberals I talk to want nothing to do with that for various reasons, but that just goes to show that people are generally OK with government overreach as long as it’s something they agree with.”

Matthew Souders:

“Although I think the fear of GMOs is both overwrought and scientifically baseless at present – I am not wholly persuaded that GMOs are and always will be 100% safe. I don’t think the GMO label is necessary, but I think people have a right to know how their food was prepared and asking companies to provide a label is not an undue burden with any real cost (they already have to have labels…this just adds to what needs to be on the label). As such…if people want to be stupid and fearful, that’s their business…and if it turns out that GMOs become dangerous someday, we’ll be in a better position to respond.”

Sarah Baker:

“If the market demand exists for information, the manufacturer will voluntarily provide it. As an example, baking soda is nowadays often marked “aluminum free.” But all baking soda has always been aluminum free. Baking powder sometimes has aluminum. Manufacturers got tired of explaining that their baking soda-along with everyone else’s-was sans aluminum, and started putting that information right there on the package. A market demand for the information arose, and manufacturers responded by voluntarily altering the packaging to provide the desired information.

If the market demand does not exist, then such a law merely amounts to forcing an expense on the manufacturer, which will be passed on to consumers who do not want or need the information. I would let the market take care of this issue entirely. Those manufacturers who wish to attract the niche market of non-GMO consumers are free to do so. The rest can field phone calls, emails or web traffic, like poor old Arm & Hammer who keeps having to explain that a product made of 100% sodium bicarbonate has no percentage points left over for aluminum.”

Brad Warbany:

“I’m tempted to be against it. Considering how much my wife spends at Whole Paycheck on organics, I can only imagine our grocery bill would increase substantially if she started buying non-GMO!

But more seriously, I’m in favor of labeling, and against mandatory labeling. Mandatory labeling is only appropriate when something contains a known health risk. At this time, there is no significant evidence that GMO foods are more risky than non-GMO foods, and until/unless this changes, it should be handled by voluntary market action. There are plenty of label printing services available should one want to stick another on their product to promote it as GMO-free. In regards to other aspects of labeling, such as the best-before date and batch number, myself and others will think it is important that this has been correctly labeled so that people know exactly what they’re buying. Whether that be through the use of an inkjet coding and marking system by someone similar to Paul Leibinger, (https://www.packagingdigest.com/coding/paul-leibinger-inc), or through other methods, this type of information should always be displayed on a product’s label. It may have more advantages than we think.”

Kevin Boyd:

“I have to concur with all of my fellow contributors that there is no sound scientific basis to believe that GMOs are unsafe. I also agree with most of my fellow contributors that there is no justification to require the labeling of GMOs on foods. I also agree with Joseph in his piece that these labeling schemes are crony capitalism to benefit Big Organic. I also agree with Chris Byrne’s blog post on this topic.

There are already voluntary non-GMO labeling schemes out there to cater to the consumers who demand non-GMO foods. If these products are not widely available, it’s not because of a conspiracy by Monsanto, but because there is a lack of demand for them. As to Chris Bowen’s point about government regulation of organics, I would argue that we already have it with the current USDA Organics program, which expressly forbid GMOs. Whether or not the program is any good or effective is certainly up for debate.”

What do you think about GMO labeling? Is it something that should be required by the government, something left to the private sector, or there’s no need for it? Let us know in the comments!

I’m one of the original co-founders of The Liberty Papers all the way back in 2005. Since then, I wound up doing this blogging thing professionally. Now I’m running the site now. You can find my other work at The Hayride.com and Rare. You can also find me over at the R Street Institute.
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