Creationist Science Tours: Helping Build Tomorrow’s Crack Ass Backwards Fundamentalist Christians

Fundamental Religious thinking, no matter what religion found in, is the enemy of mankind and the environment. After all, if the world is going to end sometime soon in a rapture of godly light, why on Earth would I take the time to recycle? Global Warming can’t be real, and if it is there’s certainly nothing we can do about it- it’s all part of god’s plan. Fundamentalism is a virus that in part lives on through the indoctrination of children, as seen here in a bit from ABC News on two guys who give tours of modern museums but spew a bullshit young earth creationist spin on the whole thing. It makes me sick to see those little kids looking up at the adults who are filling their head with their Literal Bible propaganda. Blech… And just so our Fundy Muslim friends don’t feel left out- here’s a video of a Koranist (is that a word?) insisting that the Earth is flat because the Koran says so. Link [The Friendly Atheist]

Fake Steve Jobs is Mad He Wasn’t Invited to Join Richard Branson’s Secret Planet Saving Club

 

Fake Steve Jobs just went off on a tear about Richard Branson and his not-so-secret cabal of planet saving green moguls. He thinks Richard Branson is a con man, Global Warming is probably a crock of shit (he should have lunch with Bob Lutz), and even throws in a dig at Al Gore for good measure.

It’s good, here’s a snip:

Here’s the thing. Everyone who’s ever dealt with Richard Branson realizes that he’s a complete con man, and his involvement in anything is a sure sign that it’s a crock of shit. Honestly, no matter where you are, if Branson gets on board you know there’s something profoundly wrong with the project. It’s the business equivalent of finding out that some movie has Donald Sutherland in it.

Truth is, Goldilocks does not really believe the world is about to burst into flames. What he does believe is that the global warming “crisis” is the next big way to make money off hype and fear. It’s the Y2K scam all over again. Truth is, the photo above and the ones on the linked page show a bunch of lucky rich bastards scheming to get even more rich. I’m telling you this because I’ve talked to these guys. I’ve been invited to invest in these funds. And I’ve done it. Why not? If the ducks are quacking, as they say.

Every VC in the Valley has a hard-on for greentech because it’s the first market they’ve ever seen where they can mitigate their risk by laying it off onto governments (ie taxpayers). The trick is to spread lots of hype and put pressure on governments (hence Kleiner hires Al Gore) so that governments will provide subsidies to keep these venture-funded startups alive until they can be flogged off onto the public markets. They’ll sell these stocks to dentists and they’ll use the same pitch that Toyota uses on the Prius — sure it’s overpriced, but think how good you’ll feel. These will be IPOs as a form of therapy, and the Birkenstock-wearing suckers will sing Kumbaya and talk about how capitalism is saving the world.

I’m guessing Fake Steve Jobs didn’t get an invite to Branson’s meeting. Poor fake guy.

Link [Fake Steve Jobs]

Inventor of Virtual Water Honored by Stockholm International Water Institute, Wins 150 Large

Anthony Allan, a professor at King’s College in London, was recently honored by the Stockholm International Water Institute for his contributions to water research (the honor is no joke: they gave him $150,000). He was recognized for inventing the concept of “virtual water” back in 1993. This concept has revolutionized the way people think about water consumption and it’s worth pausing on this occasion to give it some attention.

Basically, virtual water refers to the water required to produce a commodity. A famous example is a cup of coffee; the process of making that single cup actually requires 140 liters of water (about 37 gallons) to grow and ship the beans. A single hamburger requires 2,400 liters, a beer about 75 liters, and wheat takes 1,300 liters to make 2.2 pounds.

Allan explained, “The water is said to be virtual because once the wheat is grown, the real water used to grow it is no longer actually contained in the wheat. The concept of virtual water helps us realize how much water is needed to produce different goods and services. In semi-arid and arid areas, knowing the virtual water value of a good or service can be useful towards determining how best to use the scarce water available.”

The term “virtual water”–just the term–has always sounded wrong to me, like the water in a video game (Rollercoaster Tycoon, maybe). The water that the term refers to is real enough; it’s simply not physically there with the final commodity. It is sometimes, therefore, called “hidden water” or “embedded water.” But that’s just a problem with the term. The concept itself is essential.

Link [The Raw Story]

Photo Credit: Flickr User Laszlo

The March of Incompetence: Climate Change Denier James Inhofe Also Hates the Troops

Scott Herring is a new writer here at EarthFirst and a published author, blogger, and professor from the University of California, Davis.

The US Senate is an intellectual landfill. Really–I can’t say it too strongly. It seems like the higher you go in the federal government, the more rubbishy things get.

Take Oklahoma Republican Senator and well known Climate Change denier James Inhofe as an example. Inhofe is wildly hawkish, but as the Huffington Post reports,

“he has consistently voted against health care for the troops and their families, against pay protection for reservists, and against an increase in the death gratuity payments (now $12,000) for the families of military personnel killed in battle. And on top of all that Inhofe has also voted consistently against repealing the heinous ‘disabled veterans tax,’ which penalizes disabled veterans who receive both disability pay and retired pay.”

Armies fall apart when the soldiers aren’t treated well. Just a few years ago, the GOP dominated the political world, with majorities seemingly everywhere except the Berkeley city council, and it is now well on its way to being thrown out of power entirely. Republicans won their dominance because people thought they were good on national defense. Their sickly incompetence on this same issue has in turn done them in.

Link [Huffington Post]

Global Warming Doesn’t Necessarily Mean It Gets Warmer Everywhere All The Time

One of Matt Drudge’s favorite things to do with Global Warming headlines is to set them up against cold weather headlines. One headline will be about a Global Warming protest or meeting, the headline below will shout that it was super snowy somewhere, implying that Global Warming can’t possibly be real if it’s snowing hard in Iowa.

I’ve heard the same arguments thrown out about what’s turned into the snowiest winter in New England’s recorded history. “Global Warming must be BS, we just got 13 inches of snow again”.

To a simpleton that argument makes perfect sense. After all, the second word in “Global Warming” is “Warming”. Doesn’t that mean that every place on the planet should be warm now?

No, actually it doesn’t. Weather and long term cooling and warming trends are extremely complex systems. As the earth warms up due to our love affair with releasing CO2 into the air, the temperature and weather patterns in different places on the globe will fluctuate. It could be a colder winter in one country, a vastly warmer one in another. The overall temperature trend remains going up, but the local weather conditions vary from place to place.

The answer to Maine and New Hampshire’s extra snowy winter turns out to be North Europe, which is coming out of one of the warmest winters on record. Treehugger has it:

Tourism favorites like dog sleds have been “on ice” this year, euphemistically rather than literally. With temperatures breaking records across northern Europe, there is literally no ice for the popular winter tours. Mid-December to mid-January there was only hiking. Recent snows have re-employed the idle huskies, but the weatherman is not as optimistic as the sled owners: February 2008 was the second warmest on record since 1900. Other indicators demonstrate the unusual warm streak throughout the region.

The ice on the Baltic is so thin that ferries running between Tallinn, Estonia and Helsinki, Finnland have been in operation non-stop; no need for the usual pause in services between December and April. The German daily Der Spiegel references Jürgen Holfort of Germany’s Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency predicting that this winter will have the least ice in the Baltic Sea since 1720.

Link [Treehugger]

Photo credit: Flickr user BigMcGuire

George Bush Bends Space and Time to Recast America as a Leader on Climate Change

Sometimes I feel bad for George Bush. I imagine the reality-bending bubble he lives in will be harder to maintain when he doesn’t have the might of the worlds super power at his beck and call. He’ll retire to a world of driving around his ranch and getting $100k speeches to rich white guys, but it will never be the same. He won’t be able to invade other countries and will miss hanging out in the cool room in the basement of the White House, the with all the big screens and lights and stern looking dudes in uniform.

You’ve gotta give it to him- he’s playing his bullshit line out to the very end. Yesterday he insisted that America has been a leader on Climate Change, despite the fact that it’s just the opposite under his Administration.

Here’s what Douche Nozzle in Command Bush had to say:

Now, look, I understand stereotypes are hard to defeat. People get an image planted in their head, and sometimes it causes them not to listen to the facts. But America is in the lead when it comes to energy independence; we’re in the lead when it comes to new technologies; we’re in the lead when it comes to global climate change — and we’ll stay that way.

Think Progress has the video.

Does he get away with it because he takes it so far? Can you be a liar if the lies you tell are big enough? What. The. Fuck.

Link [Think Progress]

Photo credit: Flickr user Tootsfontaine

Let There Be Organic Tobacco: Smokers Deserve Healthy Cancer Sticks

Environmental Graffiti got in a snit about greenwashing by the tobacco industry:

The cigarette industry knows that there are smokers who can’t kick the habit, but still want to go green. Recently, roll your own cigarettes have been promoted as a more eco friendly, cleaner alternative to regular smokes. That’s not the case, however, as roll your own cigarettes were recently found to have more chemicals than regular cigarettes.

Other companies are rolling out organically grown cigarettes. While this tobacco isn’t doused in pesticides during its growth, the previously mentioned problems still apply. So what’s a green smoker to do? Nothing.

I’m not going to defend the greenwashing by tobacco companies, but is it realistic to expect everyone to stop smoking for the benefit of the environment? Call me a cynic, but my guess is that I have a better chance of being elected President in November than that happening. Smoking tobacco is not going anywhere and if we really want to save the world we need to figure out a way to give people their cancer sticks without destroying the rain forest in the process. Smokers should be able to buy minimally processed, chemical free Fair Trade tobacco.

Tobacco companies should be called out for their bullshit greenwashing, but at the same time they should be encouraged to actually get a handle on the environmental impact of their business. If we can get the tobacco industry to get on the bandwagon maybe we’ll have luck in convincing the Drug Cartels to green up their product line. A guy can dream can’t he? (Note: I don’t smoke cigarettes, just the random shisha)

Link [Environmental Graffiti]

Photo Credit: Flickr user eilard

China’s Making the Thneeds That Everyone Needs: Cue Smogulous Smoke

Yuck. I thought Moscow looked bad, check out how polluted China is. The entire middle of this satellite photo is filled with thick smogulous smoke. It’s the Lorax on a grand scale.

Link [Econbrowser: China's air pollution] Via Treehugger

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