Waking Nightmares #6739: Lenses in Space

The "Green Hallucination" that is beginning to pervade society is for the most part harmless rhetoric. The dangerous part is that we can take some bright idea concocted by a scientist hungry for grants and parlay it into a world-saving measure.
An illustration of this was recently telecast on the Discovery Channel in a show entitled "Space Sunshield." The description states "Scientists consider shading the planet with mirrors to deflect sunlight and protect against global warming." In matter of fact, most of the individuals shown in the Discovery Channel feature might be charitably described as "fringe players," and I was actually somewhat relieved after watching it, realizing that few viewers -save the most credulous- will be buying this.
At our present state of knowledge, trying to block the sun's rays has an equal probability of precipitating us into the next phase of the million-year Ice Age (Pleistocene), where we live in balmy interglacial period. Scientists are in agreement that it's only a matter of time before the next glaciation occurs. The last time, an ice sheet a mile thick covered a good bit of the Northern Hemisphere, which is where most land animals (including us) live.....because that's where most of the land is.
Any consideration given to implementing such a project absent far, far more research is worse than criminal, and could literally be genocidal. On the other hand, those who advocate voluntary human extinction may support this.....

Define "Organic" ?

According to this story, some people are peddling milk that isn't organic.

I have to admit- I don't understand what "organic" means, except from my short career in Chemistry, and a somewhat broader exposure to the concept in Biology. I understand organic compounds to be: those comprising some combination of C,H,O,N (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen) with the occasional incorporation of atoms of such elements as Sulfur or Iron.
Ever since the unfortunate adoption of the word "organic" by those who theorize that foods produced in a certain manner are more "foodlike" or "less poisonous" than others, I've yet to see any simple, concise definition of "organic foods" ....which, I submit, should be rendered as some sort of phrase when applied in this manner (....or "organic sustenance, organic chow"), and not merely as the modifier "organic," which, as I have noted, is already taken.
What I'm getting at, and where the confusing "middle part" comes in, is that a molecule of glucose is an organic compound, and it is just as much glucose in sugar cane that is raised "inorganically" as some that is raised "organically." The article linked above does nothing to remove the murkiness from the concept of "organic food." It appears that it revolves around a bunch of rather hard to define conditions, e.g., whether (and how much?) milk cows get their sustenance from pasture, as opposed to food. But if their food is just dried baled grass from those same pastures, does it qualify? And then there's the fact that the brand of "organic" has been around long enough, and enough people seek it out, that it's become a battle of the food interests- but I'm not going there.
I admit that I've a very dubious outlook on the whole idea of "organic food" as it's been presented and marketed so far. The best I can say is that I'm looking for more light, and less heat. "Free-range light," naturally.....

What's Next?

Here is American Thinker's post "Everything is Caused by Global Warming." Well....not everything, but the 600+ links cited clearly demonstrate that the GW frenzy has become a major disease within a year or two, and one that has only tenuous links to anything sensible about climate change. At such times it's a good idea to remember:

Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.

- Henri Poincaré

Here We Blow Again....

Funny, just when I get done watching a show of respected meteorologists say that frequency and severity of hurricanes seem to follow a 30-year cycle, and they don't know what causes it, this comes along. Please don't ask "What is an article about the increased frequency of hurricanes being caused by climate change doing in a site about Green Cars?" I frankly don't know. But it is interesting how nearly anything that comes up these days runs Anything = Global Warming, no matter how many intermediate steps have to be postulated.

Let's see. An increase in the frequency of dirty socks produces Global Warming. Dirty socks = washing = hot water = electricity = burning fossil fuels = more CO2 = Global Warming. There, that wasn't so difficult, was it? Now you try it. And knock it off with those dirty socks!

Not Their Finest Hour...

Several weeks ago, I posted on the danger of environmental tinkering in a vacuum. Now it is proposed by some UK think tank to do just that, brushing off the implications of environmental engineering by stating "-three strategies are generally available-" as if it were proven that any of these will work, and how much, and completely ignores the terminal danger in raising or lowering the albedo (basically reflectivity) of the planet. Environmentalism is truly well on the path to becoming the new religion, and this may be its first leap of faith. Let us hope it is founded in True Belief. Since beliefs in the name of science are apparently part the New World Order, my belief is that the proposal above is to embark on a 20-year plan, without the slightest evidence that it can produce the intended result......and some of the unintended consequences are potentially disastrous.

In response to those who may take me to task for having advanced no solution, I can only propose what no one dares say now, but which will in the end prove inevitable. We will do less, with less people, and the "equilibrium" some talk about will be restored. Whether this is done the easy way or the hard way remains to be seen.

Making The Point...

I didn't call Reid Bryson "The Father of Scientific Climatology," folks, other people did. And, as the article says, it's not that global warming isn't occurring, it's just that he thinks that the theory that humans are causing it is a bunch of crap.

I'll Do Anything You Want, Just Shut Up!

Of course, the current spasm of "green religion" (and someone has already used just that phrase, and in all seriousness) must run its course before any sense can emerge from our re-re-re discovered awareness that 1) fossil fuels aren't inexhaustible, and 2) we are fouling our own nest.

Nevertheless, it's simultaneously tedious and frustrating to read the 87th iteration of what amounts to the same mantra. Today's selection is "I'm running a mix of Wesson Oil, used french-fry squeezings, and the renderings of chit'lins in my '77 Mercedes 240D, after Alf the Diesel Doctor worked on it. I'm saving the world, now if all of us just...."

Ignoring the fact that you can act locally in such a situation, but you cannot apply it globally, I'm just on overload with the whole thing.

When Robert Benchley was writing as critic in The New Yorker back in the 1920's, he expressed this kind of frustration well, but on a different topic:

I am now definitely ready to announce that Sex, as a theatrical property, is as tiresome as the Old Mortgage....I am sick of rebellious youth and I'm sick of Victorian parents and I don't care if all the little girls in all sections of the United States get ruined, or want to get ruined, or keep from getting ruined. All I ask is: don't write plays about it and ask me to sit through them.

...and I don't care if the importance of french-fry oil is earth-shaking (which it's not), I just don't want to hear any more about it.