jonathanmoeller ([info]jonathanmoeller) wrote,
@ 2008-04-04 10:14:00
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duh
I've reached the point where I'm only mildly surprised by articles like this:

Frugal Living More About Priorities

Key quotes:

The word "frugal" might sound a bit old-fashioned, but the concept is as modern as today...

Yes, financial responsibility is so out of style. And "modern as today"? That similie is as tortured as forty pounds of waste matter in a twenty pound sack.

The Economides, who don't use credit cards, believe consumers need to avoid debt, spend less than they earn and embrace a thrifty lifestyle.

How is this a revelation? Did some editor do a little research and say to himself "Good Lord! A couple in New York is...is living below their means! I've never heard of such a thing! Stop the presses!" Things have come to a bad pass indeed when the basic concept of spending less than you take in is actually news.

I was amused that either the couple themselves (or perhaps the AP writer) felt the need to dress up thrifty living in terms of ecological piety. You see, living frugally isn't just good for you, it's good for the environment. I care not a fig for the environment*; I half-suspect Global Warming is the Left's give-us-government-money-or-your-children-will-DIE!!! bogeyman, the way Terrorism is for the Right. See, I think people should live frugally because they'll probably be happier and healthier in the long run, since it's way harder to be happy and healthy when debt collectors are calling nineteen times a day. If people want to be frugal so they can help Captain Planet and his band of ethnically diverse misfits**, well, whatever.

-JM

*Or, to be more precise, I care not for the environment as an end in and of itself.

**Wasn't that just the preachiest show? I found myself rooting for Corporal Pollution, or whatever the villain's name was, in hopes that he could get Captain Planet to shut up already.


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[info]yttrius
2008-04-05 12:48 am UTC (link)
"I half-suspect Global Warming is the Left's give-us-government-money-or-your-children-will-DIE!!! bogeyman, the way Terrorism is for the Right."

Sadly, there are many who try to take advantage of Global Climate Change (a more applicable name than Global Warming) for their own monetary ends. However, ask any credible scientist and they will tell you it is real, they will even explain the science behind it to you if you are willing to listen.

The movement to combat Global Climate Change is world-wide. The U.S. is actually one of the slowest moving countries in the world on this issue. Meanwhile, the movement against terrorism is limited almost entirely to the U.S and the U.K..

There seems to be this "economy vs environment" belief. But focusing on the short-term status of the economy is how you end up with situations like the "mortgage crisis" in the first place. Sure, all was going well for a few years, so people were happy, but then the exploits that had been feeding the economy all came crashing down at once and look where we are now: afraid to take any action that might cause a short-term economic loss, while staring a long-term economic catastrophe in the face and pretending it isn't there.

And don't even get me started on the political motivations that are leading us towards the catastrophe that is ethanol.

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[info]jonathanmoeller
2008-04-05 04:12 am UTC (link)
Well, I am a global warming (or global climate change) agnostic, which is why I only half-suspect it is a bogeyman. I am not wise enough to conclude definitively whether or not it exists. Should I trust to the word of the experts? Perhaps, but experts are human, and humans become markedly less trustworthy around large sums of money, the potential for political power, public prestige, professional respect, and book deals. It doesn't look very good if you've spent thirty years describing magnificent jeweled robes only for someone to prove that the Emperor has been strutting around naked. Experts can lie.

Or instead of liars, they could be entirely honest but deceived. I'm sure any credible scientist would favor global warming. But there were times when any credible scientist would explain that Africans were only slightly smarter than gorillas or that scientific principles could produce a classless society. And then they would explain the science behind it if you were willing to listen. Today's scientific consensus is tomorrow's pseudoscience (or protoscience, if it's lucky).

And science welded to a crusade (or perverted to it, if you prefer) ends badly. Eugenics was going to cleanse the world of defectives, and scientific socialism would bring an end to poverty and oppression. Heck, Alfred Nobel was a scientist-turned-businessman, not a crusader, and even he thought that his dynamite would usher in a golden era of peace, once men learned that entire armies could be obliterated in the blink of an eye.

The Global Climate Change movement today reminds me quite a bit of the early days of scientific racism and Marxism. At first it was all grand speeches, reasoned articles, dense academic books, and rich guys getting together for high-level international meetings. I'm sure most of them had no intent, or even idea, that it would all end in dictators and death camps, but there it went.

On the other hand, even the boy who cried wolf was right that final time. So is Al Gore the keensighted prophet of our doom, or a modern Lysenko? I don't know. But while I don't know if global warming is real or not, I do not trust any of the movements that have sprung up around it, not even a little. H.L. Mencken was probably right when he said that the urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

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[info]yttrius
2008-04-07 02:32 pm UTC (link)
The one really big problem with the wait-and-see approach is that there is no easy way to fix the damage believed to currently be happening. It will cost far less to avoid the problem than it will to fix it should the scientists be correct. I too wish we could wait and see what is truly correct, but we just don't have that option.

Besides, I personally don't expect anyone to do anything drastic, just things that any true christian or socially-conscious non-christian should be doing anyways. Such as: not buying a 15mpg SUV/minivan when a 30mpg mid-size sedan will serve your needs just as well (and be easier to park!). Replacing incandescent lights with compact fluorescent lights (CFL's). And turning off electronic devices when you aren't going to us them for a while (such as people who leave their TV running all day so their dog can watch animal planet and similar obscene acts.) Heck, all these things will save that person a significant amount of money anyways!

Oh, and Al Gore was not the first or the only person trying to get people to believe in Global Climate Change, he was just the first one a significant number of people bothered to listen to... and I still dislike the guy.

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