Althouse: "I try never to buy organic food because plowing the earth releases tons of greenhouse gases.

April 5, 2012

"I try never to buy organic food because plowing the earth releases tons of greenhouse gases.

"In fact, I never buy anything at all. I stay at home and burn as few calories as possible so I won't have to eat more than a few acorns per day and on holidays, a squirrel or rabbit I catch in the yard and eat raw. I never turn on my furnace or air conditioner. No lights. No TV. For music, I hum quietly to myself. It cheers me up and, hopefully, it doesn't cause noise pollution. I stay away from programs such as Green Madison because I don't want to be lulled into believing I'm a good person when I know I'm not."

What are you doing about anthropogenic global warming?

74 comments:

Harsh Pencil said...: This is a joke. It has to be.; 4/5/12, 7:56 AM
Robert Burnham said...: Excellent comment by Meade. But I strongly suspect the pathology of that viewpoint will pass straight over the head of any real-life Greenie.; 4/5/12, 7:59 AM
SGT Ted said...: What a dope.

He is like the Unabomber, sans the bent, genius mind and homicidal tendencies...so far.

He has that same sort of moral preening vanity.; 4/5/12, 7:59 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: I wandered into the woods and I now live naked in box. The box is freaking me out so soon I'll recycle the box and live in a grass and mud hut that I will make. No green TV for me.; 4/5/12, 8:02 AM
jimspice said...: Meade really should have staid on point to the thread, which was, early warming predictions were, in fact, fairly accurate, and actually UNDERestimated the degree to which temperatures would rise. But I understand snark is easier.; 4/5/12, 8:02 AM
Skyler said...: I think this is more a mental illness than a mere dedication to some misguided form of environmentalism. He needs help but I doubt he will realize it and the media is enabling him.

The danger is that there are many like him who influence weak minded people and encourage those who enjoy power over others. He is ill, but it is this type of sickness that allows others to seek power.; 4/5/12, 8:03 AM
Anonymous said...: Yeah,

just because the problem is complex and the solution even more so--and might actually cause you to change your behaviors a little (OMG, they are taking my light bulbs away), lets just ignore it and mock the people who are concerned about it.; 4/5/12, 8:03 AM
Harsh Pencil said...: Whoops. I didn't notice it was by Meade.

It is a joke. (And a good one.); 4/5/12, 8:07 AM
Joe Schmoe said...: And....cue the lefties with no sense of humor.

Sometimes it's okay to laugh at yourself. Ed Begley Jr. plays a greenie-comic foil a lot on TV. He probably feels some exposure for his cause is better than nothing. Thank Meade for bringing this up. We could still be talking about vajayjays instead of this. Would you rather do that?; 4/5/12, 8:08 AM
Joe Schmoe said...: Skyler, SGT Ted, please read who wrote the post!; 4/5/12, 8:09 AM
Anonymous said...: Sometimes it's okay to laugh at yourself.

Meade isn't laughing at himself, he is mocking others.; 4/5/12, 8:09 AM
garage mahal said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/5/12, 8:10 AM
Joe Schmoe said...: I know he's mocking others. If you feel like he's mocking you, can't you laugh at yourself once in awhile? His prose, while mocking, is quite gentle; more of a Garrison Keillor-kind of satire.; 4/5/12, 8:11 AM
garage mahal said...: Hahaha. Meade is the Unabomber.; 4/5/12, 8:11 AM
Bob Ellison said...: I'm doing my part for AGW by smoke-cooking a pork butt today.; 4/5/12, 8:12 AM
X said...: I don't buy the AGW bs but I'm willing to compare my carbon footprint to any green's because I am a cheap efficient bastard.; 4/5/12, 8:12 AM
TMink said...: I do my part for AGW. In my office I have a 75 gallon heavily planted fresh water aquarium. Every month I buy poisonous CO2 and pump it slowly into my tank.

The net result is that the plants grow faster and push out more O2, thus making my fish much, much happier. See, there are natural safeguards like that built into the world. More C02 = more plant growth = more 02.

I love it when someone asks me what those little bubbles pearling up from my plants are, I get to share a bit about AGW.

Trey; 4/5/12, 8:14 AM
Original Mike said...: I'd kill myself, but my decomposing body would emit greenhouse gasses.

I wish I'd never been born.; 4/5/12, 8:14 AM
Joe Schmoe said...: Bob Ellison, I was pleased to learn recently that pork butt doesn't come from where I thought it did. It's actually the butt of the pig's shoulder.

It is awesome when smoked or otherwise slow-roasted.; 4/5/12, 8:16 AM
Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...: What am I doing about AGW? As one whose first two degrees are in geology -- where 10 million years is pocket change -- I oppose that pseudo-religious bullshit every step of the way.

People who claim late-20th century warming was the most rapid and most severe in all earth's history immediately identify themselves as ignorant idiots.; 4/5/12, 8:20 AM
Patrick Henry was right! said...: The only rational act for a true believer in AGW is suicide. Also, in the interim, please stop with the private jets and the world wide, in person conferences.; 4/5/12, 8:24 AM
rhhardin said...: I'm avoiding deponent verbs.; 4/5/12, 8:27 AM
Matt Sablan said...: It is only fun when conservatives make fun of themselves, not others.; 4/5/12, 8:28 AM
ricpic said...: Once their job against humans has been completed will eco-freaks turn on cows?; 4/5/12, 8:30 AM
Roger J. said...: Bob Ellison: good man--I use a brinkly smoker and it works wonders on a pork butt.; 4/5/12, 8:34 AM
jimbino said...: Sustainability is for the breeders. We non-breeders have already cast our vote for "Die Broke" and have every intention of using up our 1/9000000000 share before kicking off. Let the breeders provide for their brood from their shares.; 4/5/12, 8:36 AM
Tank said...: Freder Frederson said...
Yeah,

just because the problem is complex and the solution even more so--and might actually cause you to change your behaviors a little (OMG, they are taking my light bulbs away), lets just ignore it and mock the people who are concerned about it.

You mean a non-existent problem. There hasn't been any warming in ten to twelve years and/or it could maybe be a problem, but humans are not the cause and/or nothing we do will make a difference.; 4/5/12, 8:37 AM
Abdul Abulbul Amir said...: .

What am I doing about AGW?

I am enjoying it.

.; 4/5/12, 8:44 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: I suppose that I should drive my 3/4 ton Suburban more than my 1/2 ton Tahoe. Not sure where I can go from there. Maybe, I could start towing my Tahoe and Audi behind the Suburban wherever I go. Never tried it, but it does have the towing capacity. Not sure what I can personally do beyond that.

I will think of some more things that I can do to aid the situation.

Now, let's just stop for a minute, and assume, despite all the evidence that AGW is hype designed to further implement a statist police state (which, not surprising, Freder above seems willing to embrace), that CO2 added to the atmosphere actually might remotely possibly increase global warming. Then what?

I would think that the natural result of that would be to burn as much hydrocarbons as you could possibly do, to increase the effects as much as possible. That is what would seem the most logical, given the reality that man has done better when we have had a warmer climate, and suffered more when we have had a colder one.

And, yet, the conventional wisdom is just the opposite, that warming of the climate will harm us. Or, at least the polar bears, and maybe penguins, though my understanding is that Antarctica has not seen as much of whatever is going on as we have supposedly seen in the Northern Hemisphere.

Go figure.; 4/5/12, 8:46 AM
Curious George said...: When my hippie neighbor is mowing his yard with his "green" mechanical lawnmower I fire up my lawnmower and just let it run in the drive way until he's done.; 4/5/12, 8:47 AM
Scott M said...: OMG, they are taking my light bulbs away

First they came for the light bulbs, and I said nothing.; 4/5/12, 8:48 AM
Joe Schmoe said...: If Meade's humor in this instance needs to be described in such a way as to make it more approachable to leftists, especially those that would describe themselves as intellectuals, let's just say that Meade is carrying on in the same vein as the French playwrites (playwright? doesn't look right) from the era of the Theater of the Absurd.; 4/5/12, 8:51 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: The only rational act for a true believer in AGW is suicide...

Great minds think alike. From near the end of the Near the end of Ann's mega thread yesterday:

I think that this is going to be #458, with 36 almost by himself and his insistence that CO2 is a pollutant, has carried the discussion since it broke into the [third] page.

Don't know who should be the first one to tell him the easiest way for him to reduce this pollution.; 4/5/12, 8:56 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Sustainability is for the breeders.

Well, short of eliminating all my progeny, which would be highly unpopular in my family, I seem to be stuck here.; 4/5/12, 8:59 AM
traditionalguy said...: You laugh now, but the Enviro-Marxist's plan is to announce that there is no longer any private air, nor private water, nor private ownership of anything that affects those two government owned things.

Who needs a Commerce Clause. It is a crisis!

Come to think of it, the Obama Regime has already begun to do that by EPA Decrees that by-pass Congress. It is a crisis!

So we are not going to be allowed to speak the truth for long. It will be decreed civil disobedience to deny trace CO2 warms the air. Denier speech by non-approved UN Science Commisioners will be cause for arrest. It is a crisis!

Planners at Homeland Security have built Concentration Camps and purchased 500 million rounds of military ammo. It is a crisis!; 4/5/12, 9:04 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: I try never to buy organic food because plowing the earth releases tons of greenhouse gases. In fact, I never buy anything at all. I stay at home and burn as few calories as possible so I won't have to eat more than a few acorns per day and on holidays, a squirrel or rabbit I catch in the yard and eat raw. I never turn on my furnace or air conditioner. No lights. No TV. For music, I hum quietly to myself. It cheers me up and, hopefully, it doesn't cause noise pollution.

I stay away from programs such as Green Madison because I don't want to be lulled into believing I'm a good person when I know I'm not.

Sounds a bit dreary over at MeadeHouse.; 4/5/12, 9:06 AM
David said...: Get yourself an electric car. That will help. It's only 50% powered by coal. (Of course the largest other power component of your electric car is nuclear.); 4/5/12, 9:07 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: just because the problem is [too] complex [for Freder] and the solution even more so--and might actually cause you to change your behaviors a little (OMG, they are taking my light bulbs away), lets just ignore it and mock the people who are concerned about it.

Count me in.; 4/5/12, 9:09 AM
Cedarford said...: GREAT Meade parody of a hairshirt environmentalist!

The ones that irritate me the most are not the hairshirters that want us to look up to them because they only shower once a month to help save the planet...They are pretty harmless..."Look, look at me! I use one sheet of toilet paper a day and eat discarded food in the back of restaurants to lower evil carbon consumption!"

They are nothing compared to the Green Nazis that want to force their ideology on others. "No evil lightbulbs for you as well as me!"

And the disgusting elites that bray about ending our oil addiction while being the single greatest consumer of oil on the planet (Obama), or the Gore types that log 20,000 miles a year in kerosene gulping air travel to warn others of the need to end oil consumption to save Mother Gaia - when they are not recupertating from planet-saving activities in a massive mansion that uses more evil carbon released electricity than a whole village of fast-breeding noble Haitians.; 4/5/12, 9:28 AM
rhhardin said...: Scythe-cut acre finished.

Somebody chastised cutting early Sunday morning because it's disrespectful to neighbors trying to sleep even if it doesn't make any noise.

I do notice a temperature rise when scything, evidently from lawn spirit being freed.

Probably that's what awakens the neighbors.; 4/5/12, 9:44 AM
Anonymous said...: The original poster at the Isthmus is doing an end-zone dance on the 50-yard-line, seems to me. The observed warming so far is compatible with ALL the black forecast lines in the Hansen paper, which after all have not yet diverged much from each other. This includes the nearly straight line at the bottom, which corresponds to a warming rate of about 1.0C per century. Forecasting that little warming will get you labeled a "denier" in a lot of places.

That said, I thought it was a bit lame of Meade to demand explanations of what the other people are doing about it, just so he could turn around and make fun of them.; 4/5/12, 9:55 AM
Original Mike said...: X said: "I don't buy the AGW bs but I'm willing to compare my carbon footprint to any green's because I am a cheap efficient bastard."

Yeah, me too. Be we don't get any credit for tha, because we don't bow before the AGW deity.; 4/5/12, 9:58 AM
edutcher said...: I think the Digger Indians were about the only ones on this continent with a minimal carbon footprint.

They scraped out holes in the ground to live.

Next to them, the Comanches were the 1%.

Today, they're barely remembered.; 4/5/12, 10:00 AM
sakredkow said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/5/12, 10:06 AM
DADvocate said...: I sunbathed a lot this winter. In Ohio, yet! It's great!; 4/5/12, 10:08 AM
DADvocate said...: I don't want to be lulled into believing I'm a good person when I know I'm not.

The best part of Meade's comment.; 4/5/12, 10:11 AM
Bob_R said...: @jimspice - Someone gets the amount of global warming correct in 1981 using what modern climate scientists would consider amazingly crude methods. Because of this we should accept the reliability of the ad hoc computer models with dozens of black box feedback loops each with multiple free parameters? If you want to take chances like that I can find you a tout who picked the Giants to win the Super Bowl last spring. You can bet your life savings rather than the world economy.; 4/5/12, 10:20 AM
SGT Ted said...: You will never find a more narcissistic group of people than hard corps environmentalists.

I hung out with them during Redwood Summer here in Humboldt County CA when I could. Very totalitarian minded folks, with the usual drivel about being peaceful while they attempt to provoke pitched battles with the police, using the same leftwing protest tactics as 60 commie protestors and todays OWS. They even aligned themselves openly with the World Workers Party International COmmunist organization, trying to use them to organize the loggers against the companies.; 4/5/12, 10:29 AM
wyo sis said...: The 99% are all living on Waldon Pond right? It's the dang 1% causing all the global warming. I hate the 1%! Those bastards have all the fun.; 4/5/12, 10:30 AM
SGT Ted said...: In the Political Ornithology handbook, environmentalists are the Male Peacock.; 4/5/12, 10:30 AM
Smilin' Jack said...: What are you doing about anthropogenic global warming?

I take the long way home in my SUV.

You're welcome for the early spring.; 4/5/12, 10:34 AM
rhhardin said...: The good Indian tribes all had Piper airplane models named after them.; 4/5/12, 10:44 AM
Rusty said...: Bruce Hayden said...
just because the problem is [too] complex [for Freder] and the solution even more so--and might actually cause you to change your behaviors a little (OMG, they are taking my light bulbs away), lets just ignore it and mock the people who are concerned about it.

Not me!!!

I'm on the expressway on ramp with a whole shitload of old spray cans and an ax.

It's for the environment!!; 4/5/12, 10:53 AM
Christopher in MA said...: Freder:
Just because the problem is complex and the solution even more so - and might actually cause you to change your behaviors a little (OMG, they are taking my light bulbs away) let's just ignore it and mock the people who are concerned about it.

Bart Hall:
People who claim late-20th century warming was the most rapid and severe in all earth's history immediately identify themselves as ignorant idiots.

One rarely sees such a perfect conjoining of mole and whack outside of the midway.; 4/5/12, 11:01 AM
Automatic_Wing said...: Gaia did its part to slow down AGW by killing 500 carbon-spewing Euroweenies with a cold snap this winter. Just sayin'.; 4/5/12, 11:03 AM
edutcher said...: rhhardin said...

The good Indian tribes all had Piper airplane models named after them.

And US Navy tugs.; 4/5/12, 11:12 AM
cassandra lite said...: Also, I've trained myself not to fart except under the most extreme circumstances--in which case I light them to burn off the methane.; 4/5/12, 11:15 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: It is a bit hard sometimes determining what the best thing to do is.

For example, a couple of days ago, I was reading the "Green" monthly issue of the AZ Lawyer. And, there was the obligatory article on how to green your practice. Of course, by now, no attempt was made to defend CO2 based AGW alarmism, recycling, etc. We, as knowledgeable attorneys should understand the immensity of these, and other, environmental problems, and be willing to sacrifice up to, and probably including, our firstborn, for the benefit of Mother Gaia.

I was struck though by the suggestion (requirement in more green-conscious Colorado) that we use primarily recycled paper. And, that, of course, we recycle our paper too. The justification was that fewer trees would be harvested.

And, I thought then, why was that good? If releasing CO2 into the atmosphere is bad, then it would seem logical that raising trees for paper, using the paper, and then burying the used in landfills, would be a great way to sequester the carbon.

Now, I will admit that it might be more efficient if we could, again, use hemp, instead of wood, for our paper. But, thanks apparently to William Randolph Hearst, that is off the table.

One of my pet peeves in law is that the practice is filled with left wing zealots, and so many of them seem to rise to the tops of the profession. I don't know which is worse - in AZ, requiring that I pay dues to support a rag like that, that devotes an entire issue to environmental mumble jumble (and to other inane left wing causes), or in CO, requiring that court pleadings be on recycled paper (and every year, all male attorneys have to certify that they are current on their child support payments to stay licensed, but there is no such requirement for women being current on visitation). Thank goodness I am not licensed in what a friend of mine calls the Land of Fruits and Nuts (aka CA).; 4/5/12, 11:15 AM
Brian Brown said...: What are you doing about anthropogenic global warming?

1. Driving a full-sized (8cyl) SUV

2. Ridiculing and mocking AGW believers at every turn.

3. Actively not recycling

You?; 4/5/12, 11:26 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Also, I've trained myself not to fart except under the most extreme circumstances--in which case I light them to burn off the methane.

This reminds me of a couple things, esp. related to the issue that cows tend to release a lot more of this far more potent greenhouse gas than do humans.

First, until recently, I lived in a county in N. Nevada, that probably had as many cows as humans. There was a statute a couple of blocks from work celebrating how the north end of the valley had been a large ranch up through the early 1950s. Now, a part of it is now taken over by horses living on 10-20 acre mini-ranches. (ok, can't say too much negative here - my GF there has 2 large hay burners and such a spread). The horses, though still contributing methane, are not as plentiful as the cows were, so, this is maybe better for fighting AGW (assuming that that is desirable, which I question above).

So, I was thinking while living there if maybe, just maybe, giving up one steak a month might be better than recycling all that paper. But, we had to shred everything anyway, and the shred was recycled. But, interestingly, the shred containers were called "burn" bags - hearkening back to an era where we were maybe more environmentally realistic about the whole subject.

And, to juxtapose this, I was reading an article a couple of days ago about the town that the recession never hit - Wash., D.C. To emphasize this, a picture of a menu board was shown, highlighting absurd prices for steak. A classic case of hypocrisy - in the city where all those environmentally wacko regulations are promulgated, the most sought after high-status food seems to be methane intensive steak.; 4/5/12, 11:37 AM
kimsch said...: Environmentalists pick a snapshot and decide that is what's best.

There's the Spotted Owl. It was decided that they were endangered because of logging. Logging was extensively curtailed. But the Barred Owl (a close relative) has been found to be a threat to the Spotted Owl as well. Henson agreed that the barred owl, which is larger and more aggressive than the spotted owl, is a threat to the smaller bird. The Fish and Wildlife Service has proposal to trap and remove barred owls from areas where spotted owls live.

So Nature can be the threat to nature rather than people or their activities.

When there's only two flies on a piece of land (stopping the owner from doing anything with it) might there not be a reason other than people that there are only two? Might that particular fly species be unsustainable? Species become extinct and new species are found every day. Nature takes care of herself.

Greenies want to feel good about themselves, but they also want power. They want to force people to do what they want them to do. It goes along with the power trip of forcing a religious organization to pay for birth control against their beliefs or to force a religious institution to perform marriage ceremonies against their beliefs.

It's all about power.; 4/5/12, 11:39 AM
Anonymous said...: They are nothing compared to the Green Nazis that want to force their ideology on others.

I assume that when Cedarford calls someone a Nazi, it is meant as a compliment.; 4/5/12, 11:43 AM
Brian Brown said...: Freder Frederson said...

Meade isn't laughing at himself, he is mocking others

It isn't anyone's fault but your own that you're not that bright and easily misled.; 4/5/12, 11:44 AM
Original Mike said...: "...and might actually cause you to change your behaviors a little (OMG, they are taking my light bulbs away),"

Completely disingenuous, given that the GWers projection indicate massive reductions in CO2 are necessary to make any kind of dent in temperature rise.; 4/5/12, 11:49 AM
The Unknown Pundit said...: ...a whole village of fast-breeding noble Haitians.

So Haitian copulation is short lived compared to non-Haitian copulation? I did not know that.

Is it the fast breeding that makes them noble?; 4/5/12, 1:37 PM
Rusty said...: Is it the fast breeding that makes them noble?

No. They're used in the same named nuclear reactors. They are special Hatians.; 4/5/12, 2:17 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/5/12, 3:39 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: What am I doing about anthropogenic warming?

I'm doing my part. It was 17 degrees here this morning and had snowed 2 inches last night.....what global warming?.... so we drove 150 miles in our 1972 Chevy K5 Blazer that has a V-8 Corvette engine in it. Now that we are back, and it is clear skies and just above freezing we are going to make a big fat assed bonfire from the tree limbs pruned from the orchard last month.

We will stand around the fire, drink some alcohol laden refreshments and put as much CO2 into the atmosphere as we can.

Maybe go ahead and BBQ those steaks on the charcoal briquettes even though it is won't be above freezing this evening. Expected to be in the low 20's or teens every night for the next 3 - 4 days.

Yep...I'm doing my part to warm up the planet.

You're welcome.; 4/5/12, 3:42 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: OMG, they are taking my light bulbs away

Oh yeah. I forgot. I'm going to turn on every light bulb in the house and run around chortling at the CO2 load I may be putting into the atmosphere.

Turn the heat up to 72 and bake some cookies in the oven.

AND since old growth forests put out MORE CO2 than oxygen, I am going to begin advocating that we clear cut all the old growth forests so that the young trees can have a chance.

Give Seedlings a Chance. Can that be a bumper sticker?; 4/5/12, 3:52 PM
SukieTawdry said...: X said...I don't buy the AGW bs but I'm willing to compare my carbon footprint to any green's because I am a cheap efficient bastard.

I hear that! I lol whenever I read green advice like "instead of running a few errands every day, save them up to do once a week." I mean, what kind of idiot would expend time, money and energy on daily errand runs when a weekly will do. I don't know about my carbon footprint, though, since we spend the money we save by living cheaply and efficiently on travel that involves cars, planes or cruise ships and often all three. Oh well.; 4/5/12, 4:22 PM
Indigo Red said...: Breathe. That's what I'm doing -efficiently converting oxygen to carbon dioxide. And encouraging folks to ride bicycles because breathing while riding a bike 1 mile produces more greenhouse CO2 than driving a car 1 mile. So I breathe as often as possible.; 4/5/12, 4:47 PM
SGT Ted said...: Well, when you can post excerpts from Earth in the Balance by Al Gore and the Unabomber Manifesto and people can't tell them apart, just like Meade can post up his parody and it isn't immediately recognizable for what it is, that should tell you something about the adherents of that particular movement.

Namely, that their motivations are quite probably separated from reality and their solutions will be equally unreal.; 4/6/12, 8:46 AM
SGT Ted said...: I'm eating the cows that cause AGW.

You can thank me in your prayers.; 4/6/12, 8:47 AM
jimspice said...: The examples of nose thumbing just server to prove you guys don't know what you're talking about. Cow farts in and of themselves aren't a problem. It's just shifting carbon that was already in the system from one form to another (though methane is a somewhat more effective greenhouse blanket than CO2). Now, the gas and coal powered machinery needed to sustain the beef industry, that's another matter, particularly when compared to much more efficient carbon/calorie ratio of veggies.

And burning fires? Again, just shifting the carbon, so no problem there. In fact, the particulate matter in the smoke, in blocking suns rays, actually has a cooling effect (you know, like the year without a summer caused by enormous volcanic eruption?). So thanks for doing your part!

Listening to people be WRONG and proud of it is just simply mind boggling.; 4/8/12, 12:53 AM