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The New York Times and Energy Policy; Endorsing Harry Potter Science
Topic Started: Sep 7 2008, 07:05 AM (213 Views)
Bill Anderson
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I know that reasonable people can disagree on the issue of energy, but in reading the New York Times' editorial, "John McCain's Energy Follies" today, I was wondering just who was endorsing folly.

Take the following:

Quote:
 
Emissions from fossil fuels — not just oil but the coal and natural gas used in power plants — are the main drivers of global warming. Mainstream scientists have warned that unless they are sharply reduced the planet will face rising sea levels, prolonged droughts, widespread famine and other frightening consequences.

Global problems obviously require a global response. As the world’s most profligate user of energy, and as one of its most technologically gifted nations, the United States can and should lead the way by developing more efficient vehicles and by expanding carbon-free energy sources like wind and solar power.

First, we have the usual fear-mongering. The earth has been much warmer than it is now, the last time during the early Middle Ages, and the kinds of catastrophes the Times predicts were not the reality of those times. In fact, the harder times came when the earth began to cool severely in what is known as a "Little Ice Age."

Second, as an economist, I know that things like "wind and solar power" do not simply appear. Windmills, solar panels, and the like must be manufactured. They must be transported to their sites, and so on. The Times simply ignores these facts.

Furthermore, the issues of wind, solar, and ethanol (the Times was for corn-based ethanol before it was against it) are not able to be separated from reality. While chiding the Republicans for using its "boilerplate" rhetoric for energy, the Times has been giving us nothing but boilerplate.

Here is another howler from the Slimes:

"The world is consuming oil at a ferocious pace because of runaway demand in India and China and because America — the world’s largest consumer — is only beginning to confront its addiction."

The United State is not "addicted" to oil. I repeat that statement: we are not "addicted" to oil. An addiction implies that one has a compulsive habit for which there is no appreciable positive result. What the Times really is saying is that we should return to the pre-oil days, as though that were possible without widespread famine and starvation and death.

Does anyone at that editorial office have a clue as to what a world without oil use would be like? You may want to read accounts of life 200 years ago and before.

We can trash modern civilization all we want, but I can assure you that I do not want to return to what existed in the past. The Times is fond of the phrase "turn back the clock," but they usually apply it to people who are not "progressives" like them. In reality, however, the Times wants us to "turn back the clock" in energy matters.

The other thing is that the Times wants all energy transitions to be state-controlled. If you wish to see what happened in a country in which the government engaged in the kind of planning that the Times demands, you might want to see what happened in the USSR during the first three periods of the "five-year plans" that Josef Stalin imposed. There was a reason that the USSR had widespread famine and death during that time, and when one sees the history of central economic planning, it is shocking to think that the people at the Times believe we can do that successfully.

What they really believe at the NY Times is that they are qualified to tell the rest of us what to do. Yes, the Newspaper of Walter Duranty, Jayson Blair, Judith Miller, and Duff Wilson is always on top of things.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/opinion/07sun1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

:bill:
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mike in houston
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Quote:
 
The other thing is that the Times wants all energy transitions to be state-controlled. If you wish to see what happened in a country in which the government engaged in the kind of planning that the Times demands, you might want to see what happened in the USSR during the first three periods of the "five-year plans" that Josef Stalin imposed. There was a reason that the USSR had widespread famine and death during that time, and when one sees the history of central economic planning, it is shocking to think that the people at the Times believe we can do that successfully.



Just look at Mexico for a good example. :biggrin: :biggrin:
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