Short-Sighted About Resources

In arguments against mineral extraction on public lands, the argument is often made that allowing such is "short-sighted" because the roads, drill pads, or excavations will "permanently" scar the land, ruining "pristine" vistas, and the usual arguments about air pollution.

First of all, almost no land in North America is "pristine" in the true sense of the word.  I see that word as a red flag that the argument is based on false premises.

Second,  let's examine exactly what is "short-sighted."

Short-sighted is sacrificing the economic well-being of this and the next 2-3 generations so that a small minority today can feel good about something as insubstantial as the views they like.

Short-sighted is pretending that dirt roads and drill pads are some kind of permanent damage, when erosion and vegetation start removing them almost immediately after use.  Animals don't care about roads.  Roads do not pollute their surroundings.  In fact, roads allow more people to experience, enjoy, and appreciate the back country, and appreciation is one goal of nature advocacy groups, isn't it?  You can't really appreciate a place you can't see.

Short-sighted is ignoring the importance of mineral resources in our every-day well-being.  Try living a day without using anything made from or that uses oil, gas, iron, copper, lithium, plastic, synthetics, or is shipped.  The increasingly healthy, comfortable, and productive lifestyles people throughout the world live today are based on the availability and use of mineral resources, including oil and gas.  To pretend that we can magically cut off these resources without drastic consequences is the epitome of ignorance and short-sightedness.

Of course, no reasonable person would conclude that strip-mining Yosemite or Yellowstone would be a good idea.  That's not the argument here.  The argument is about typical public lands like Utah's San Rafael Swell, Book Cliffs, and Uinta Basin, which are mostly barren deserts that happen to have prettily colored bedrock.  It is simply unreasonable to put these places in the same category as Nature's true treasures.

So I'll make the logical argument:  Not allowing development of our mineral resources in reasonable places is short-sighted.  There, I said it.

Cost versus Price

Many seem to be confused about certain financial issues including health care, car payments, credit card debt, and so forth, because they don't understand Cost versus Price.

Price is what an individual pays as a monthly bill or at the time of services.  Cost is more comprehensive, including such things as subsidies, overhead, interest, and indirect costs.  For example, the Cost of a car is its sticker price plus the interest on a car loan plus operating expenses, maintenance, and insurance.

In the health care debate, politicians focus on Price -- the bill an individual pays -- while ignoring Cost -- total money involved.  Adding a layer of government bureaucracy on top of the system can only increase the Cost; there is no other possibility.  If that cost is to be covered, taxes must increase.  If that cost is not covered, national debt must increase.

Some people might see their Price of health care decrease because they are being subsidized by other tax payers, but inevitably because the Cost of health care is higher, Price and taxes must both increase.

Fear

Fear -- it's part of human nature, it can be a disease, and it can be manipulated for nefarious purposes, but I think we can take simple steps to avoid unfounded fears and thereby lead happier lives.

I'm no expert in psychology, but it seems to me that many people have a psychosis that compels them to NEED something to fear.  Government, secret world-ruling cabals, foods, industries, cults, aliens, political parties, the U.N., celebrities, the local cops, the very wealthy, something they don't understand, or just "them" -- if those things didn't exist, their psychosis would invent them.

Fear of the unknown is also just human nature.  We all have fears.

Some people are savvy enough to play off fear, or to at least instill a form of it in their audience.  They invent things to fear so that they can gather power or money.  How many times have you heard politicians paint the opposition as something or someone to fear?  How many advertisements use this tactic, and organizations seeking donations or votes?  "You may have this disease and not even know it" is a common ploy in medical advertising.  Talk show hosts (of all persuasions) use it all the time.

Hitler used fear to peddle his doctrine of murder and war.  Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood and the KKK use it, as do virtually all radical militant and political groups, and groups that hate based solely on race or stereotype.

Some common unfounded fears include the following: The Japanese mafia or the U.S. government manipulating weather, the U.S. government being behind the 9/11 attacks, aliens (everything about them), the Trilateral Commission, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, witches, ghosts, hauntings, the "zombie apocalypse," California sinking into the ocean, refined sugar and white bread,  fluoridated water conspiracies, and teaching evolution in schools.

Of course, there really are some things to fear -- natural disasters, violent people, insidious political movements, and so forth.  But all of the things mentioned above?  Certainly not.

So how do we evaluate the things we fear?  How do we instill a little more peace in our lives, and shut out unfounded fear?  I have a couple of suggestions, and would appreciate your input for more.  You'll notice that my basic philosophy is that knowledge is power, and that shallow knowledge is dangerous.

1.  Is there objective, tangible, verifiable evidence for this thing/person/movement you fear?  Have you really studied this thing?
2.  What is the source of your information?  Does this source gain anything by promoting this idea?  If so, be skeptical and take a hard look at it.  Are your sources credible authorities, or are they politically or economically motivated?  As an example, I'll offer that all talk-show and website/blog hosts are motivated by increasing their audience, and their guests are motivated by selling their books, so everything they say should be viewed with healthy skepticism.  You can extrapolate to other sources from there.  A subject-matter expert is one who is educated in the subject, has been employed working on the subject for many years, is recognized by other subject-matter experts, and does not reach conclusions motivated by power or money.  Simply being a book author or website/blog author or talk-show guest does not an expert make.
3.  Is this thing you fear realistic?  That is, do subject-matter experts agree that it is?  Does it contradict good common sense?  Does it fit with known laws of physics and accepted scientific or psychological principles?

Life without unfounded fear is much, much happier.

Moral Superiority

Frequently in the news or broadcast media, or even in movies, TV shows, and conversations, a position is taken with an underlying assumption of unquestionable moral superiority over other positions.  For example, a recent editorial overtly took the position that closing the Book Cliffs in eastern Utah to oil and gas exploration was morally superior to allowing drilling.  They never bothered to justify their position, they were so sure it's obvious to everyone that this is the moral thing to do.  Those who are called "environmentalists" often work from an assumption of unquestionable moral superiority, but it happens on a lot of topics -- health care, welfare, tax rates, energy (of all types), and myriad political issues.

I challenge the notion that closing an area to mineral exploration is morally superior to allowing mineral exploration.  It was this topic that led me to write "Imagine There's No Oil," another post on this blog.

Look at the materials you use and depend on every day, and consider this: if it wasn't grown, it was mined.  Think about that for a moment as you look around you.  Here in my office, for example, the only things that were not mined are paper and wood products, and they were logged (often farmed).  The plastics, glass, synthetic building materials and fabrics, ink, lightbulbs, metals, paint, and if you really want to get detailed, even some of the food ingredients you eat were all mined.  Your entire computer was mined.  You know about metals, but did you realize that plastics are made from oil and other mined materials?  Electricity is generated by machines that were made from mined materials, and most in the U.S. is fueled by coal, gas, or nuclear fuel.  Solar panel materials were mined.  Same with wind turbines.  Batteries are made of materials from open-pit mines (what do you think of the Prius now?).

Medicines depend heavily on mined materials, including oil and gas as the stock for carbon.  Farming depends heavily on fertilizers and pesticides, which come from mined source materials -- not to mention water, which in much of the U.S. is pumped (mined) out of the ground.

Natural resources are where they ARE.  We cannot choose where to go to get them.  There are certainly beautiful places we should never disturb, but they are unusual and few in number (Yosemite comes to mind).  The Book Cliffs, the Escalante staircase, and ANWR are simply not in the same category.

So imagine there's no oil, no metals, no raw materials for all these things.  Or at least imagine they all become very expensive because of opposition to their development.  Imagine the resulting poverty, hunger, disease, economic strife, and lower standard of living.  Is that really a morally superior position?

I think not.

Imagine there's no oil
It's easy if you try
No coal below us
No planes up in the sky
Imagine all the people
Living cold and dark...

Imagine there's no metals
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to manufacture
And no synthetics, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in caves...

You may say I'm a reaper
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will prosper as one.

Imagine no electricity
I wonder if you can
No fertilizer to stop hunger
Mass starvation of man
Imagine all the people
Dying all over the world...

You may say I'm a reaper
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will prosper as one.

Jesus and Welfare

It is sometimes argued that Jesus taught socialist principles and, therefore, the Christian thing to do is for the government to provide welfare.  I reject this argument.

In fact, Jesus never taught about the role of government in welfare.  Instead, he taught that we, individuals and the Church, must take care of the poor and our neighbors in need.  St. Francis of Assisi reinforced these teachings when they had been lost from the Medieval church.

Passing the responsibility of welfare on to the government is to reject Jesus' admonition that taking care of the poor is an individual responsibility.  The Good Samaritan did not go to town to report that an injured man was on the road, and law enforcement should go help him.  Mother Theresa did not send off a check to a charity, she WAS the charity.  That is what Jesus taught us to do by example and precept.

Whenever you read or hear this argument, please don't let it slide.  It is fundamental to the present and future of our American government and to us as a people.

Oblivion: An Example

In a recent letter to the editor, a young man complained about being given a ticket for going 2 mph under the speed limit.  That was the focus of his letter, decrying his obviously safe driving and the injustice of the officer in citing him.

In the process of trying to justify himself, however, he filled in the rest of the picture, painting himself clearly as an Oblivion:

He was on a 2-lane interstate next to a semi-truck, with a line of cars stuck behind him.

Oblivious!

First-Hand Experience: There's No Substitute

I had heard, seen, and read a lot about Italian drivers, and thought I had a pretty good conceptual understanding of how they're different from the American drivers I'm familiar with.  After all, I'd seen dozens of movies and TV shows, including some with both a car-related focus and some made for prospective visitors, so I felt comfortably well-informed.  And driving is something I do all the time and am a extremely comfortable with, so hey, no surprises could possibly await me.

I was wrong.

Spending two weeks all across Italy from Sicily to the Alps has finally educated me on Italian drivers.  Like in America, their habits and circumstances vary from place to place.  But from the mad almost-a-demolition-derby scramble in Sicily and Naples, where every car seems to have dents and broken mirrors, to the please-stay-away-from-my-Mercedes-while-I-hurtle-down-the-mountain thrill ride in the Alps, it dawned on me that it all makes sense in a very Italian sort of way.  While there are rules, markers, signs, and cops, the Italians seem to approach traffic like they approach food and family relations, with GUSTO.  They don't piddle around with polite waiting at traffic round-abouts, they barge in and get through!  If you want to go slow, you go slow.  If you want to go fast, you go fast.  And it all sort of works out.

To truly understand something, there's no substitute for hands-on, first-hand, in-person experience.  Ask anyone who has ever climbed a high mountain peak, or snorkeled in a reef, or watched lava explode on contact with the sea.  By reading or watching a screen you can get the general idea and learn a lot, but I've learned it's a mistake to mischaracterize that as actual knowledge or understanding.

It's the same with people, families, and culture.  If you'd like to understand a people or a country, for goodness' sakes GO THERE.  And don't make the mistake of preaching about them until you have.

How many of the world's current ills could we solve by sending people to places for first-hand experience?

Financial Crises

The logical conclusion reached from the financial crises in several European countries is that their governments spent too much.  Yet Washington has been spending recklessly for the past dozen years with no sign of slowing down.  It's like the lemming at the back of the pack, who sees his fellows plunging off the cliff--he could choose either to stop before he reaches the edge, or he could plunge to his demise with the others.  Guess which Washington has chosen.

Marriage

Not to wander too far off this blog's intended path, but a couple of thoughts keep rattling 'round my head as I listen to discussions of marriage in the news.  I'd like to keep this to one narrow point.

From a social, legal, and governmental viewpoint, one of the significant purposes of marriage has always been to provide legal protection for women and their children, and, to a lesser degree, protection for husbands & fathers.  Where is that in the current discussion of same-sex marriage?  Government has a vested interest in promoting and protecting families (parents and children) because they are the fundamental unit of society from which social order comes (and a lot else), and that is in part accomplished by the legal contract of marriage and the benefits bequeathed therewith.  From a KSL.com editorial:

"Redefining marriage would also diminish the social pressures and incentives for husbands to remain with their wives and their biological children and for men and women to marry before having children. It would be very difficult for the law to send a message that fathers matter once it had redefined marriage to make fathers optional.   On the subject of fathers, by the way, social science is not ambiguous. Children raised in households headed by a single mother (the most common single-parent situation) face many disadvantages, often through no fault of the mother. It would be wrong to assume this is merely because the child needs just two people, of any gender, in a parental role. Fathers and mothers, men and women, provide unique role models and nurturing capabilities from which children develop into healthy, balanced adults"

When both partners are the same gender and their marriage, by design, cannot produce children, exactly what would be the purposes of such "marriage" from a social, legal, and governmental point of view?  Government and society do not have a vested interest in promoting and protecting same-sex unions anywhere near as important as promoting and protecting families -- the results of the two to society are radically different.  I understand the desire for same-sex couples to get the economic, legal, and tax benefits that married couples get, which seem to be the heart of the matter, and I think it would be wise for those issues to be addressed specifically without redefining "marriage."

Energy Philosophy

Based on recent discussions in the news, I offer a philosophy for your consideration.

Wind- and solar-based power plants cannot operate all the time because the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine.  That means that behind these power plants, we must have traditional power plants (hydro, coal, gas, geothermal, or nuclear).

Isn't that a waste of money to build redundant systems?

Imagine that you have a car that can use sunshine to drive.  What do you do when the sun goes down?  You must turn on the gasoline engine.  So why pay for the solar system to begin with?  It made your car significantly more expensive.

"But it uses no fuel and is good for the environment," you may say.  But solar power costs several times more than traditional electricity, making it inaccessible to most of the world.  Photovoltaic panels are quite environmentally damaging to produce and dispose of.

"It could run on batteries," you may say.  Do you know where batteries come from?  They are, frankly, the environmentalist's worst nightmare.  They are prohibitively expensive, as Prius owners are discovering (over $4000 per car), and they are recharged by whatever power plants are in your regional electrical grid (coal, in most of the country).  So your Prius runs on coal and heavy metals -- that ought to soothe your green little heart.

The point is:  There is no perfect energy source.  There are, however, some than can provide all of our needs all of the time while at the same time are affordable to most of the world.  In my mind, redundant systems like wind and solar do not make sense at the large scale or in the long-run.

My proposal:  Convert coal-fired power plants to gas immediately.  As we can, replace as many power plants as we can with nuclear.  Build geothermal plants around Yellowstone and along the west coast.  Stop wasting tax dollars on wind and solar subsidies, and let them win or lose in the competitive market.  Remove Federal regulations that prevent high efficiency vehicles from coming to the U.S.

Why NIMBY is Often Irrelevant

NIMBY -- "not in my back yard" -- is a reaction to anything proposed to be near you.  It could be something small like a business, church, school, road improvement, or zoning change, or it could be something big like a prison, refinery, or nuclear power plant.  NIMBY is considered in decisions every day, and it often affects the outcome, as it should.

But wait a minute.  Some things will be opposed by someone no matter where they proposed to be.  I doubt you could propose to build an oil refinery anywhere without opposition, for example.  The question is, in such a case what do we do with NIMBY?  Is it a valid reason, of itself, on which to base a decision?

I say it is not, and here's why.

First, if a factor is the same everywhere, we routinely disregard it as logic dictates we should.  Gravity, for example, would not be a consideration in locating an oil refinery because it is essentially the same everywhere (in detail it is not, as some of you realize, but the differences are negligible).  Similarly, if NIMBY is everywhere, it can be ignored in the decision-making process.

Second, it is likely that some of the reasons brought up by the NIMBYs (the people in opposition) are legitimate and should be considered; however, it is vital to realize that  the logic and reasons of the argument are distinct and different from the opposition itself.  Some opposition is gut reaction and not based on valid reasons or evidence, and that kind of opposition should be summarily dismissed.

If our society is to continue to thrive and grow, we must base decisions on valid logic, reason, and evidence, and not on emotional reactions.  That is why NIMBY is often irrelevant.

Italian Scientists Appeal Conviction

Last year, a judge convicted Italian seismologists for failing to adequately warn citizens of an earthquake.  297 people died in the M6.3 quake.  The conviction sent forehead-slaps throughout the scientific world.

First of all, earthquakes are not predictable.  Period.  End of sentence.  Fuggeddaboudit.

Second, earthquakes don't kill people, buildings do.  If you feel a need to put someone on trial, how about those responsible for poor building construction?  How about the government that failed to promote adequate preparation and mitigation measures?

Fortunately, the outcry against this conviction has been loud and wide-spread.


See a recent article at http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/03/08/italian-scientists-appeal-earthquake-manslaughter-verdict/

Oblivions

Oblivions (prounounced "oblivi ONs") -- you know, those individuals who seem oblivious to what's obvious to everyone else.  You see them wreaking havoc in traffic.  You see them talking loudly into their mobile phones in restaurants.  You see them blocking supermarket aisles.  You hear them talking during movies.

And I see them in classes.  This one is from a comment about a homework assignment.  The question was followed by a long blank for an answer:  "I got the last question wrong because I left it blank, but it just said "Think:" so I left it blank. I don't think that I should get it wrong because it didn't ask us to answer, just to think."

Oh boy...

Doomsday!

Doomsday predictions have been around for hundreds of years, which if you think about it is proof that they're never right!


Lately I've seen comments on volcanic eruptions at Mt. Etna in Italy, Sakurajima in Japan, and Tolbachik in far-eastern Russia, and they all go about like this: "SUBSCRIBE FOR PREDICTIONS THAT MAY AFFECT YOU - -...Massive record breaking volcanic eruptions strike Russia...REVELATION... The appearance of smoke is seen emerging out of the ground all over the earth. It appears generally white or foam like, coming out of cracks in the ground, seemingly blurring the images of certain structures. The word sulphur is heard...." and various quotations of Biblical scripture.


Facts: Every day, dozens of volcanoes erupt around the earth. This is news to a lot of people, but it's old news to the volcanoes and volcanologists! The advent (pardon the wording) of omnipresent cameras and instant global communications has fundamentally changed mankind's view of the world. Only within the past 15 years do we see video of a volcanic eruption, earthquake, tsunami, flood, or landslide in a far-off and remote place within hours or even minutes of its occurrence. The result is a change in mankind's perception. It only seems like there are more natural disasters now than in the past because we hear and see about them much more than at any time in the past. Another factor is the yearly increase in scientific instrumentation (like seismometers and satellites) that record more and more events every year.


Reality: There are no more earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or other natural disasters in the world today than in the past. Experts have data to prove it, which you can find on the web with minimal effort (remember to stick to expert sources -- the scientists and their agencies themselves. For most natural events, try USGS.gov, the U.S. Geological Survey). And in fact, for any category of natural disaster you can name, there are examples of bigger, badder ones in the past (which you can also find via the experts). Some day, I'll post examples.


Another factor: Because global population has doubled in the past several decades and technology and wealth allow us to live in locations where we never did before, more people are in the way of natural disasters. That means more people are affected by natural disasters now than at any time in the past.


Summary: Doomsday postponed.

What's This Blog About?

Do you ever read or hear about something going on, and say to yourself, "What!?"  Politics, news media reports, pseudoscience, celebrity quotes, letters to the editor and comments pages, social media -- they're all rich in examples of the profound lack of logic, reason, and knowledge in our society today.  That's what this blog is about.

I call such occurrences "forehead slappers" because that's what they make reasonable people want to do.

As forehead slappers happen, I will comment on them here.

We won't get into political, religious, philosophical, or social debate -- we'll simply look at facts and logic.

Join me as we thoughtfully digest and dissect outrageous claims, exaggerations, distortions, misinformation, misdirections, leaps and lack of logic, lack of education, hypocrisy, and urban myths that, from a delightfully twisted point of view, keep modern life interesting -- and make the future of civilization frightening indeed.