Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane!

I've mentioned Derek Lowe's amazing writing on obnoxious chemicals before, and his articles have continued while my humble blog was on hiatus.

Take this gem, for instance. I'm not going to bother excerpting this one - read it all. The whole category of things I won't work with is worth a read.

As hilarious as these articles are, he also takes aim more serious subjects, such as a recent post demolishing a Buzzfeed posting on 8 toxic foods. I've run across that kind of crazy before, and some of the claims are so ridiculous that they boggle the mind. For example, claiming bromine being present in a compound somehow gives it the unpleasant properties of the pure element is silly. Next they will be calling table salt (Sodium Chloride) a toxic chemical weapon (Chlorine) that explodes on contact with water (Sodium), or worrying about how water is flammable and explosive, because the H in H₂O is Hydrogen. I should keep this around in case I ever teach chemistry again - listening in chemistry class will prevent you being taken in by people like the Buzzfeed author.

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Still No Free Lunch

Wretchard at the Belmont Club, discusses the newly-discovered perils of green buildings with his typical intelligence and eloquence. It seems that designing a building to be energy-efficient also makes it a target for birds. Yet another case of the law of unintended consequences playing havoc with the plans of men. Suddenly, the green strategy is discredited, and yet another green strategy takes its place. The building owners are left holding the bag and wondering why they bothered to build green in the first place.

Wrethchard extends this to a discussion of the precautionary principle and the Kyoto Protocol.

But the point is that we expect a return on all the effort being poured into Kyoto and are being charged for the investment. But what if it's a dry hole? What if there's no return? What happens if in fact we have to pay for fixing the damage we did with Kyoto because we didn't care about the science since the "precautionary principle" took care of everything? What then?

What then indeed? This is the fundamental argument against the precautionary principle cast in an unconventional light. Not only could a decision made without sufficient evidence lead to a solution that fails to work or justify its cost, it could create further problems that we failed to recognize. The pregnant woman has morning sickness - quick, give her the thalidomide!

'The market will fix it'. Yes, but we've fixed the market because it wasn't working to our satisfaction. Kyoto has the potential to be greatest single boondoggle since Charles Ponzi began his illustrious career. That's not to say it won't benefit mankind. But then, how would we measure that benefit? Oh, I forgot: the precautionary principle renders that question unnecessary.

Unnecessary for the people who campaign for and launch the program. No cost will fall upon them. Ironically, Charles Ponzi also seemed to have good intentions.

There are often delays in publishing environmental and occupational regulations. Much of the time, it is simply the result of industry lobbyists seeking to buy time and stave off reduced profits. However, it would be foolish to always rush to implement new standards before the controversy is addressed. Better to wait and solve the original problem than to hurry and add more problems.

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Water Vapor: Not a form of pollution

Water vapor is usually not thought of a form of pollution. In fact, it is a necessary part of the water cycle. When water vapor condenses into a suspension of water droplets, the puffy result is an often beautiful part of nature. However, conventional wisdom is less and less conventional. Don Surber reports:

The tax-exempt Environmental Integrity Project in Washington, D.C., issued its annual list of the 50 dirtiest power plants in America. This is illustrated by a photo showing steam — water vapor — escaping from a cooling tower. Sigh.

Sigh indeed. However, not satisfied with simple error, the EIP decided go head over heels into error.

Bill Hobbs unloads on the rest of the report. It proves to be alarmist distortion and dedicated pessimism. He states the following about the water tower:

As for the water vapor image, that’s not surprising. Some years ago when the environmentalist groups in Nashville decided to target the city’s innovative trash-to-steam plant, which provided steam for heating and cooling about three dozen downtown buildings and also helped the city process its garbage, the local alt-weekly illustrated its attack stories on the project with ominous-looking pictures that also really just showed steam rising from the plant’s cooling tower even though they knew that’s what they were doing.

This is a bit like a certain liberal journalist inferring that milbloggers are afraid to serve their country, despite having interviewed one of them. (See Blackfive for more details. ) It's just completely and deliberately wrong.

The environmental movement has developed a strong streak of alarmism, which is great for fund raising, but not so great for actually discussing an issue. It's a bad idea to exaggerate or portray something deceptively. What is missing in all of this worry over a declining rate of emissions is the increasing energy demand and the requirement for a usable method of meeting said demand. As Mr. Hobbs says:

I’ll be impressed with the Environmental Integrity Project when they have the integrity to either endorse expanded nuclear power, or admit that they don’t have a viable replacement for all the coal-generated power they want to shut down.

Same here. What has made the environmental movement decide to limit it's alternatives to energy sources hat are laughably inefficient in terms of money, unable to be applied to much of the Earth, and are about as reliable as a stopped clock. I call them complementary energy sources, for like complementary medicine, they cannot replace actual base load power sources. You want a real alternative? Try splitting atoms.

Hat tip: Pajamas Media

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