Shouldn't Solutions... Work?

As I unloaded my dishwasher the other day, I caught a telltale whiff from one of the plates. The odor that my (rather poor) sense of smell detected was, I've learned, a sign that the rinse agent dispenser was empty and needed refilling. As I took care of that little matter, I (again) sighed at the need to do so.

You've likely guessed that it's a newer unit, and indeed it is. A Kitchenaid, vintage 2019, designed to satisfy government efficiency mandates. It does an adequate job at cleaning our dishes, but we do need to pre-rinse most of the food residue, I do need to keep an eye on the filter, it takes forever, and it needs that rinse agent to do the job right.

As the Biden administration "pushes strings" by mandating even higher efficiency standards, I wonder if any of the midwits that populate our regulatory machines give the slightest thought to the notion that they're regressing actual progress. In other words, do they care that their remedies don't actually work? In both the small scale and in the big scale.

That question becomes even more pressing as the administration rolls out new vehicle efficiency standards that are intended to coerce the nation's automakers to two-thirds of all new cars being electric or hybrid in eight years' time.

No matter that automakers' lots are filling up with unpurchased EVs.

No matter that power grids are already overtaxed at peak times without the extra burden of charging cars.

No matter that the range/recharge time problem hasn't been solved.

No matter that there aren't enough charging stations out there.

No matter that apartment dwellers who park on the street instead of in driveways or garages don't have infrastructure.

No matter that most of the nation's power comes from carbon fuels, obviating the global warming benefits of EVs.

No matter that wind and solar are nowhere near ready for primetime as the nation's exclusive power supplies.

No matter that wind and solar's storage problem is not even talked about, let alone addressed.

No matter that the resources needed for wind and solar and batteries are dominated by hostile nations.

No matter that wind and solar are already underperforming, and will continue to underperform barring some transformational discovery.

There is a breathtaking arrogance in contemporary green thinking. It centers around the presumption that simply saying "make it so" is sufficient, that the private sector will find a way if forced to, and that this "way" simply requires the overcoming of stubbornness and nefarious special interests.

As if there are no nefarious special interests in the green racket.

Unaccountable echo-chamber idealists have captured the government's decision-making machine just as they infiltrated Corporate America with their DEI and ESG folderol. Corporate America, feeling the pinch of "get woke go broke," is starting to unravel its ESG and DEI stuff.

Government, unfortunately, doesn't feel pinches the same way, as in bureaucrats pay no price for being wrong and rarely give a flying rat's patootie about inefficiency or waste or misspent dollars. Ditto for politicians, especially older ones like Joe Biden, who will be retired or dead before the folly of their edicts actualizes.

This is born of another conceit - that voters are either too stupid to know what's "right" or too selfish to do what's "right." Cue the guffaws at politicians calling other people selfish.

I used the term "midwits" earlier in this piece. New to my lexicon, it's a perfect descriptor of the vast majority of those who go into "public service." Scare quotes deliberate - they look to manage rather than serve. Our society's actual smartest people, the real best and brightest, don't usually go into politics, because politics isn't merit-driven. It doesn't reward those who implement successful policies, but instead rewards those who know how to schmooze and smarm, who know how to sell intentions rather than results, and who excel at playing the Other People's Money game. Bureaucrats are driven by a desire to control rather than a desire to succeed. They're the sorts who would force you to use their preferred mousetrap rather than build a better one that you might choose to buy.

In short, there's little or no incentive to do what will work, and the void that leaves is filled by fabrications of their egos and arrogant condescensions.

This is how we end up with mandates intended to push us out of the vehicles we prefer to drive and into vehicles that don't serve us as well. And that will cost us more for the privilege of doing less for us.

But, what about global warming? What about the "tragedy of the commons" problem that is carbon emissions?

I cannot think of a more stupid "remedy" than decarbonizing via wind and solar. It's a "remedy" that requires near-total global compliance to work (never gonna happen), it's a "remedy" that is nowhere near complete or mature enough to be implemented even if near-total global compliance could be assured, and it's a "remedy" that will do massive harm to the nation’s and world’s poorest of until the dunderheads who insist it are forced by reality to admit their error.

If AGW is a problem that needs remediation, the three part solution I've offered in the past remains the way:

1. Nuclear power, and lots of it. Modularized for efficiency and for export.

2. Natural gas, and lots of it. It's 4x more efficient emissions-wise than coal, it burns cleaner than coal, and its extraction and export carry enormous geopolitical benefits.

3. Research into geoengineering, in case we have to act at a future date. Unlike decarbonization, geoengineering would not require global compliance. If, decades from now, the bad predictions of AGW finally materialize (hundreds of them have not, to date), we can be ready to "do something."

None of these will cause harm to us today. All provide benefits beyond AGW mitigation.

Which is why they're not being pursued. Government doesn't want real solutions. Government wants to satisfy its desire to put the boot to citizens, to bend them to its will, and to reward the cronies that are in bed with politicians.

---

Sometimes, serendipity.

The day after I put this article to bed, I read this article. A geoengineering experiment was just cancelled at Harvard, because:

a vocal minority of scientists have voiced concern that [the experiment’s] technology may provide an excuse to reduce pressure to cut emissions.

Not the first time, by any means, that the veil has been lifted from the true aims of eco-extremists. In textbook Carvillian “never let a crisis go to waste” fashion, the greens have not only managed to keep the perceived threat from global warming at existential levels despite hundreds of missed doomsday predictions, they’ve successfully conflated the problem with their sure-to-fail remedy.

Many see global warming as the perfect vehicle for imposing top-down control of economies, reattempting socialism, and crushing the scourge of capitalism. No matter that capitalism works and socialism doesn’t, and no matter that the rapid rise out of the substance living that was the human condition for most of our 100,000 year existence is due to capitalism.

These people are utterly contemptible, in no small part because their lifestyles won’t be impacted by the crushing burdens they seek to impose on the masses.

Then there are the useful idiots who oppose anything that’s not Wind and Solar and Battery Idiocy, because they’ve been taught to fear and loathe remedies that might actually work.

I get that some fear the unknowns associated with geoengineering research - that’s human nature. But, if we let fear of the unknown dissuade us from the search for solutions, we’d still be wearing furs and throwing stone tipped spears. Don’t fall for the eco-luddites’ fear mongering about geoengineering. Or about nuclear power. At the root of that fear mongering is the fear that those might actually work, and thereby allow us to continue living our comfortable lives.

For some reason, the notion of fixing a problem without forcing misery on the masses infuriates them.