Wednesday, September 3, 2008

re: hogwash economics and environmentalism

last week, i mentioned how the fields of economics and environmentalism ignore each other when making their predictions.

this was specifically in reference to a flat out silly claim that air travel will be prohibitively expensive in the future because of fuel shortages. a bit of news today reinforced my argument:

An algae-to-jet-fuel process from Arizona State U is being moved from research to commercialization.

also, a factoid i ran across in a car mag this morning reinforced the point i made about humanity's willingness to convert coal to liquids when the situation demands it:

Coal-to-Liquids process used to fuel Axis armies during World War II.

i'm not saying these are good or bad technologies. i have no special desire to fly using nazi fuel, or hippy gas. all i'm saying is that some parts of popular environmentalism are almost farcical in how they obstinately ignore economics and technology in order to come up with their dire predictions.

and this makes me a bit mad, because i am an environmentalist. but the practical kind of environmentalist that finds the modern extremist anti-humanity face of environmentalism so ridiculous that i am frequently ashamed to associate myself with any part of the movement.

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