Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Green cars' dirty little secret

From Lomborg (HT Ryan Murphy).

Here's a good rule of thumb for people: transitional technology is just that. Don't think of yourself as God's gift to the planet. Think of yourself as one of millions of people involved in a slow process of improvement over time that is far more incremental and subject to one-step-forward-two-steps-back on occasion than you think.

As I've said before with respect to Willie Nelson, Owen Wilson, Woody Harrelson, and Kris Kristofferson's "sustainable" private community in Maui: "sustainable" is a social, not an individual adjective.

All this green tech and sustainability stuff is great and it's the way we get to sustainability of the whole system - but don't misunderstand the extent of the contribution.

1 comment:

  1. Seriously citing Bjorn Lomborg?? Never trusts anything he publishes with regards to global warming and makes me skeptical about your posts regarding any environmental issues. For example he cites only $5 dollars as what an extra ton of CO2 is worth in terms of damage but most carbon taxes are basing that the marginal cost should be at a minimum $20 dollars. He defends this by saying the European cap and trade charges little but neglects to mention almost everyone agrees one the reasons European cap and trade hasn't worked as well as the US system with regards to acid rain is that they priced carbon way too cheap

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