Friday, August 01, 2008

The consumption police

Front page Funny Paper today, all about the carbon footprint of regular consumables. I KNEW this wasn't far behind.

As soon as we accept any kind of carbon taxing/measuring/limiting regime, there is simply no limit to the ways in which government will intrude on what we do and how we behave. The sustainability nags can indict ANY consumption at all they don't like.

The article says half of all carbon emissions come from the manufacture of consumer goods. It laments that we don't even try to measure it. But have no fear! Oregon wants to be the first state to track carbon emissions from consumer goods.

David Allaway from Oregon's DEQ says that unless we see changes in "consumer behavior," our CO2 emissions from consumption will continue to climb, because of the expected population increase in Oregon.

The real culprit here, of course, is economic growth. A sure way to reduce CO2 is to slow down the economy. Poor people don't buy much stuff. A state full of paupers will be uber-sustainable.

Do these people realize what happens when we "reduce consumption?" What has to happen before anything can be consumed? Yup, it's gotta be produced. So if the government's goal is for us to reduce consumption, what they are really saying is we should reduce production, which means shrink the job base.

Any volunteers for voluntarily becoming unemployed so the bureaucrats can meet their carbon reduction targets from consumables? Do you think any government jobs will be the ones that go?

This is dangerous. Chilling, really. I am just shocked that so many people seem to blithely go along, and apparently not see how damaging this is.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Rob,

Just more fun from our local politbureau. Framing policy from polution or waste is admirable, but basing policy on man-made global warming is just deceptive and is a poor foundation. Many proponents of GW are now acknowledging that the signature atmospheric 'hot spots' do not exist, and thus man's role in GW is negligible at best. So why all the hype? Alterior motive, possibly. Fascistic governmental control, probably.

Brian

MAX Redline said...

As usual, a good read. I also wonder why folks just go along.

THE last ice age 13,000 years ago took hold in just one year

Well, as we all know that human activity is responsible for all global climate change, this is rather a sobering look at just how quickly the human activities of 13,000 years ago destroyed the planet; plunging it into a global ice age in less than a years' time. What, exactly the humans at that time did to precipitate such a dramatic change remains unknown - lending credence to the idea that all human activity must be immediately halted in order to Save the Planet.

Anonymous said...

The category is: throwing stones from glass houses ... the answer is: never.

The question is: When will the Newhouses (the out-of-state multibillionaire owners of The Funny Paper) tree-killers take responsibility for the environmental degradation they cause directly, for the paper-stream waste and pollution that results from their own product? (Who knows how many genetic mutations they cause?)

Never.

The O will never take responsibility for being wrong about anything. At least these ne'er-do-well do-gooders are consistent in their hyopcrisy.