Exposure to the [compact fluorescent light] bulbs could lead to premature aging and skin cancer, according to doctors.
“It can also cause skin cancer in the deadliest for, and that’s melanoma,” said Dr. Rebecca Tung.
In every bulb that researchers tested they found that the protective coating around the light creating ‘phosphor’ was cracked, allowing dangerous ultraviolet rays to escape.
Killer twisty light bulbs? Say it ain't so! Although killing people will reduce our carbon footprint, I'll admit. You have to break some eggs to make an omelet, and all that. Perhaps I just didn't read the fine print.
Next! Cash-for-clunkers, the 2009 green program, was brownish in practice:
According to E Magazine, the “Clunkers” program, which is officially known as the Car Allowance Rebates System (CARS), produced tons of unnecessary waste while doing little to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Greens think they can order our entire global economy to save the planet but they couldn't properly design one narrowly focused green program. Got it.
Not that we haven't had a victory in the carbon footprint area. We actually reduced our carbon emissions. Sadly, this was pure market forces at work done in the teeth of green opposition:
Only the USA has had a shale gas boom and only the USA has cut substantially its carbon emissions since 2006. When combined with rising amounts of renewable energy and energy efficiency, the shale gas boom substantially decreased US carbon emissions. Moreover, US electricity prices in 2012 have barely increased and natural gas prices have plummeted.
Yeah, our government wanted to achieve this carbon achievement by dramatically raising energy prices to punish us for using the stuff that produces it.
Oh, and remember how I said I don't trust greens to control our economy when they can't design a narrow program without demonstrating the skill set needed to pour water out of a boot when the instructions are written on the heel? Here's another glorious green moment:
To make things worse: evidence suggests that the corn ethanol program, for the sake of which callous greens condemned the world’s poor to higher food prices, is a failure even on environmental terms and fails to reduce greenhouse gasses.
We’re betting that this news won’t dent greens’ self-confidence. They will still insist that unless they are put in charge of the entire world economy we face disaster. The sad truth is that the more power they get, the more damage they do.
Fancy that. Oh well. It's just corn. It's not like we're making fuel out of arugula, or something important to the well-to-do greens who can afford to pay for their preening green habits that save the world (and thus free their conscience to fly off to Aspen in carbon-spewing jets to ski).
Speaking of food. A leading genetically modified crop activist recanted his opposition to GM food:
I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment.
As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely.
Huh. When everyone you know shops at Whole Foods Market for expensive organic vegetables lovingly raised by artisan farmers, it can be tough to imagine that most people on the planet just need calories to survive.
Aside from the hunger issue, Holy Bio-Diversity is in the news, too:
Environmentalists who are skeptical about genetically modified crops should think again, judging from a study published last June. Researchers reported in the journal Nature that transgenic cotton bred to resist pests increases biodiversity by reducing the amount of insecticide sprayed on fields.
Whoa. Science is starting to sting a bit. There was a firewall, so I couldn't read much. But what I could get at seemed to indicate that rather than bio-diversity of the GM crops they are speaking of the bio-diversity achieved in the non-crop area by not spraying insecticide around freely. Still, every phylum is sacred, no?
But hey, the greens will always have Canadian tar sands and scientific opposition to building pipelines to America for this fuel. Oh, you know where this is going:
So: while levels of dangerous chemicals increased, the waters surrounding the oil sands areas were cleaner than most urban water sources in Canada and met water quality standards. If this is a “smoking gun”, we aren’t impressed.
Only science is hard. Alarmism under the color of science--and the annoying confidence of the peddlers of this nonsense in their wisdom in designing solutions--is the easy part.
