Thursday, April 12, 2007
Global Warming Math Does Not Equate
George Will has an excellent editorial today in the Washington Post that expresses what others have been saying about the threat of global warming; that even if man is causing the earth's temperature to rise the steps necessary to reverse this trend are dramatic and costly. Here's my favorite paragraph:
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Speaking of Hummers, perhaps it is environmentally responsible to buy one and squash a Prius with it. The Prius hybrid is, of course, fuel-efficient. There are, however, environmental costs to mining and smelting (in Canada) 1,000 tons a year of zinc for the battery-powered second motor, and the shipping of the zinc 10,000 miles -- trailing a cloud of carbon dioxide -- to Wales for refining and then to China for turning it into the component that is then sent to a battery factory in Japan.On another subject, Dinitia Smith of the New York Times reports today that author Kurt Vonneget has died. I read and loved all of his books. Therefore, it is quite a coincidence that I concluded yesterday's blog post with his famous phrase. From the Times story:
In "Slaughterhouse-Five," Mr. Vonnegut introduced the recurring character of Kilgore Trout, his fictional alter ego. The novel also featured a signature Vonnegut phrase.Or maybe it is a catchphrase for politics as usual.
"Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles from the home I live in all year round," Mr. Vonnegut wrote at the end of the book, "was shot two nights ago. He died last night. So it goes."
"Martin Luther King was shot a month ago. He died, too. So it goes. And every day my Government gives me a count of corpses created by military science in Vietnam. So it goes."
One of many Zenlike words and phrases that run through Mr. Vonnegut’s books, "so it goes" became a catchphrase for opponents of the Vietnam war.
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