Arnold Kling writes:
Suppose that a friend of yours is trying to lose weight, and he tells you, “If I eat this salad, it will be good for me. So then I can have cake for dessert.” What would you tell your friend?
Al Gore is trying to say that by investing in alternative forms of energy, he is “offsetting” the heavy use of conventional electricity for his home. This is like saying that eating salad entitles a dieter to enjoy cake for dessert.
Read the whole thing.
2 responses so far ↓
Barry Ritholtz // March 6, 2007 at 8:03 pm |
Well, there are several alternatives; One is living in a tiny footprint, low energy consumption house (not very likely for a ex-VEEP); the other is having a big house and NOT investing in the offsets. Of the 3 options, what Gore did is wrong why . . . ?
If you think the size of Al Gore’s home is in the top 1000 most important issues facing a nation in 3 wars, whose stock market suddenly turned shaky, then your priorities are an utter mess.
This is why I am a political independent — the far left holds no appeal for me, and the far right is so consumed by absurd minutae that have become irrational to the point of frenetic idiocy.
David Krupp // March 9, 2007 at 1:27 am |
The reason that the global warming debate is a big deal is because this is the new arena where the government can easily restrict free trade. If the government can convince the population in believing higher energy prices will prevent the utter destruction of the earth then productivity will slow. Every one of my business professors at my college have been showing this Al Gore garbage in every class. The same idiots in my school that think minimum wage and farm subsidies are good ideas will eat these lies up too.
My Business Policy Professor has actually suggested we need a $5.00 per gallon gas tax in the United States to raise it to the European level so we are forced to get rid of our energy dependency. Thinking that the United States could easily implement this is complete ignorance! The US doesn’t have the same infrastructure or population density Europe has, we rely on more energy because we produce more! Why I bring this up is because it is economic ignorance, and this is coming from a professor with the following degrees.
B.S. University of Maryland, Finance, High Honors,
M.B.A. University of Maryland, Management Science, 3.7 GPA,
Ph.D. Florida Institute of Technology, Management Theory, 4.0 GPA
If he thinks this way, what do you expect the general public will think? The global warming prevention crazies are trying to force their crap on everybody else and robbing everyone of wealth by putting another barrier to free trade.
The other reason this is a big deal is that Al Gore is more than just an activist, he is directly benefitting from this carbon offset program, because he is the founding partner of Generation Investment Management LLP. This is the investment firm where people buy the carbon offsets from!
Well of course the global warming debate is just the 1,000th most important issue in America today. I am curious what is the 999th ranked issue on your big board of the Top 10,000 American Issues? I’m sorry you think conservatives are consumed by absurd minutae details; I’m not sure what minutae means. I can never understand political independent slang…