Wednesday, December 05, 2007

So, what's the answer?

Once again, hurricane predictions were way off for this year. What I like about global warming alarmists, is that they can use global warming to answer both sides of a question. More hurricanes? Global warming. Fewer hurricanes? El NiƱo apparently is to blame . . . which some say is fueled, in part, by global warming. Of course.

Meanwhile, Maine and North Dakota are already breaking records with snowfall. But that's just the climate issue. Our energy needs are another issue.

What's ironic, is that the environmentalists don't seem to want to do anything practical about a solution to our energy needs. The fact is, we are where we are. We like our cars, ipods, cable TV, high speed internet, and all of the other things that make each decade more advanced than the previous. And it all takes energy to produce and/or operate. In Texas, a wind farm . . . a massive wind farm . . . is being challenged by environmentalists.

The federal suit, filed in U.S. Western District Court in Austin, said the turbines could kill untold numbers of migratory birds and damage the bay.

Personally, for what you get from wind turbines, I think they're a waste of space. Ted Kennedy doesn't want them in his backyard. For all I know there's merit to the Texas challenge. But that's not the point. If coal is bad, nuclear is bad, wind turbines kill birds and thus are bad, what's left? In Texas, several coal plants have been cancelled due to challenges by the environmentalist groups. Now this. What about solar energy? Well, it likely less efficient than wind energy, and it takes a lot of resources to manufacture. A process that includes strip mining for the materials needed for the cells. Not to mention production factories . . . not to mention storage cells containing lead and sulfuric acid . . . lots of and big storage cells . . . not to mention the space needed for the solar panels. Lots of space. Space that I'm sure would displace many species of living things.

So, solar is bad.

Life sucks. Energy, that is. Meanwhile, people complain about the high costs of gas and electricity. Well, it has to come from somewhere. But where?

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