I'm taking about today's Murky News editorial by Todd J. Paglia, "executive director of ForestEthics, a forest and climate advocacy group". He said that the state's forests should not be clear-cut and replaced with mono-culture because, err, it "causes global warming".
Uhm, no. The carbon in those trees is going to stay in the lumber that builds houses and stuff. Unlike what this moron said, the carbon isn't going to get released back into the air, the vast majority of that lumber is *not* going to be used for firewood, it's going to go into homes and businesses. The tree plantations planted in place of the cut trees are going to suck up even more carbon, since they will be growing rapidly as vs. older trees which grow very slowly. So from a global warming perspective, we're talking about something that's good for the environment.
Of course, there's plenty of other arguments to be made against clear-cutting forests. It reduces species diversity, it causes erosion and sedimentation of streams, it harms wildlife, it's just plain ugly. This guy didn't make those arguments, though, because those arguments don't pay his bills, while the global warming argument does. What irritates me is when people just make sh*t up and don't care whether it's true or not, it pays their salary and that's all they care about, not truth. I seem to recall some feller sayin', "the truth shall set you free." I think his initials were "J.C." or somethin' like that. But that feller obviously didn't live in modern-day America or rely on telling lies for his living.
-- Badtux the Irritated Penguin
My personal favorite is the Greenpeace fact sheet that stated, and I quote, "In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world's worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly [FILL IN ALARMIST AND ARMAGEDDONIST FACTOID HERE]."
ReplyDeleteYes, it is very annoying when people who have absolutely no need to lie to make their case, lie anyway because it's just so much easier.
Dude, I wasn't trying to add to your aggravation the other day with the troll, I really wasn't.
ReplyDeleteTo hell with Ayn Rand, have you read Jared Diamond or Mike Davis ?
I like trolls, until they get tedious. Then they either stomp off in a huff because they lost the argument or I start deleting them.
ReplyDeleteI've read the reviews of Jared Diamond and Mike Davis. The reviews were depressingly similar to my own opinions in those matters, so rather than submit myself to being depressed again, I decided that it wasn't a good idea to read them :-(.
Actually, The Third Chimpanzee, and Collapse were oddly uplifting.
ReplyDeleteThis planet can still be saved, the trick is educating girls to be more than brood mares, cooks and punching bags.
"Me, I'm a Camera"
African Women Making Change
By Ann Jones