Not about the pot or the pills that Al the third didn’t have a prescription for, but what a waste of energy.

Al Gore’s son was arrested early Wednesday on suspicion of possessing marijuana and prescription drugs after deputies pulled him over for speeding, authorities said.

Al Gore III, 24, was driving a blue Toyota Prius about 100 mph on the San Diego Freeway when he was pulled over at about 2:15 a.m., Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Amormino said.

The deputies said they smelled marijuana and searched the car, Amormino said. They found less than an ounce of marijuana along with Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and Adderall, which is used for attention deficit disorder, he said.

“He does not have a prescription for any of those drugs,” Amormino said.

Air drag is proportional to velocity squared, which essentially means that your vehicle expends more energy for every mile per hour increase than was used to increase the previous mile per hour.  Despite his cutesy attempt to save the world by driving a Prius he was just burning more fossil fuels than necessary to get from point A to point B.  Maybe he can buy some carbon offsets to make up for his energy excesses.

I’ll just summarize this story in a sequential manner.

1. Woman buys a compact fluorescent light bulb for $4.28.
2. She breaks the bulb while installing it.
3. Afraid of potential contaminants, she calls Home Depot.  They direct her to call the Poison Control Hotline.
4. The Poison people send out the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
5. They say the mercury level is in excess of six times the state’s “safe” level.  They tell her to call a clean up firm.
6. She spends $2004.28 on the clean up.

I can’t wait to put those things all over the house!  One legislator in California actually want to ban good ol’ Edison era bulbs and force consumers to buy CFL’s.

John Edwards is touting the carbon neutrality of his new 28,000 square foot mansion.

The March 20 edition of CNN’s “American Morning” showed Edwards hyping global warming, promoting his energy plan that mandates carbon caps and claiming that his new mega-McMansion was actually being operated in a “carbon-neutral way.” He has recently declared his campaign “carbon neutral.”

Edwards also avoided how he holds himself to one standard but wants to hold businesses to another. As anchor Miles O’Brien put it: “One of the keys to your plan is the so-called cap plan which would institute, as it suggests, caps on the amount of carbon dioxide industry can put into the environment.”

But when it comes to Edwards’ own life, he doesn’t cap his carbon efforts, preferring instead carbon offsets. “We have committed to operate this house in a carbon-neutral way, which means in addition to using energy saving devices in the house itself, to the extent that doesn’t cover it, we’re going to purchase carbon credits on the market,” said Edwards.

I’m sorry, but if you are in any way influenced in a positive way by a rich person who proclaims their environmental greatness by purchasing carbon offsets then you are an idiot.  Think of it this way; if you’re on a diet and you decide to eat a big piece of chocolate cake after dinner does it really matter if you wash it down with a Diet Coke to “offset” the calories and fat?  Furthermore, how much would it help you to pay someone else to drink the Diet Coke?

What John Edwards and his ilk want to do is to impose restrictions on US while they go about the pampered lifestyle they currently enjoy.

One of the biggest shams being sold to the American people is that our hypocritical elected and unelected leaders are offsetting their excessive “carbon footprint” by purchasing green credits.  If they really believed in what they tried to impose upon us they wouldn’t have to “offset” their excessive contribution to what they consider to be global warming.

Todays hypocrites: Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein offers plenty of tips on how California households can combat global warming, such as carpooling and running only a full dishwasher.

But one bit of information Feinstein declines to share is the number of times that she flew last year on her husband’s Gulfstream jet, which burns much more fuel per passenger-mile than commercial airliners.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also has asked constituents to do their part to conserve energy — including cutting summertime power consumption — even though he takes to the skies on leased executive jets.

…

A single cross-country round trip on a Gulfstream IV, or GIV, the model owned by Feinstein’s husband, churns out about 83,000 to 90,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, experts say. By contrast, on a per capita basis, the average American produces 50,000 pounds from all activities in an entire year.

Nonetheless, Feinstein and Schwarzenegger intend to continue their noncommercial flying ways because their jobs demand a flexibility the airlines can’t match, spokesmen say.

They can’t be expected to be good environmental stewards - that would affect their lifestyle!  Better that they put such onerous restrictions on us regular folk.

One of the things that bothers me most about socialist politicians - and the list is long - is the hypocrisy.  Same complaint about the too-righteous pols on the right.  Al Gore is the latest in the long, undistinguished list.

From the Tennessee Center for Policy Research:

Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.
 
Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).
 
In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.
 
The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.
 
Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.
 
Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.
 
Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.
 
“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.
 
In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.

I came across this little gem this morning:

We did not inherit this land from our fathers. We are borrowing it from our children.

- Amish Proverb

I’ve dumped it into my random quote database.

I’m glad to see that others are echoing the point I made recently about climate change.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Scientists have substantial evidence to support the view that humans are warming the planet — as carbon dioxide levels rise, glaciers melt and global temperatures rise. Yet, for predicting the future climate, scientists must rely upon sophisticated — but not perfect — computer models.

“The public generally underappreciates that climate models are not meant for reducing our uncertainty about future climate, which they really cannot, but rather they are for increasing our confidence that we understand the climate system in general,” says Michael Bauer, a climate modeler at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York.

Most people know very little about computer models.  I guess that many are still enamored with the concept of computers and they assume that since computers are involved the results must be accurate.  Models are really little more than sets of equations and assumptions, some empirically based, others analytical, that are solved with the aid of computers.  The computers only add speed and repeatability to the solution of the predetermined equations.

The two most glaring “faults” (inherent drawbacks is probably a more apt term) with models is that they require a litany of assumptions and cannot accurately predict chaotic behavior.  The latter issue is pretty self evident, but the former could stand a bit of elaboration.  Assumptions, in technical terminology, are simplifications.  For example, one of the first problems that might be posed to an engineer in an introductory dynamics class is solving the trajectory of a baseball.  In order to make the problem solvable for a novice, the professor will likely to tell the students to ignore drag, wind, rotation of the ball, etc.  Those assumptions make the problem more easily solvable, but they introduce error into the student’s model of the ball’s trajectory.  That is a very, very simple example.  Just imagine how many assumptions must be made to model the entire earth’s very complex climate - not to mention the associated, and equally unpredictable, human actions - for a period of decades.

Errors propagate with time and eventually invalidate models.  Personally, I think that the scientists making bold, dire predictions about the long term results of global climate change should be more forthright about the validity of their models.

I consider myself to be an environmentally minded person.  Protecting the environment is the only area in which I personally feel that capitalism needs an infusion of governmental regulation.  Individuals making decisions out of their own self interests yields great results in numerous facets of life, but safeguarding the environment requires that decisions are made in the best interest of all people, collectively.

That being said, I find the logic and tactics used by environmentalists to be dubious.  One fallacious argument is made in the first sentence of this article that proudly predicts a “global collapse” of fish species.

If fishing around the world continues at its present pace, more and more species will vanish, marine ecosystems will unravel and there will be “global collapse” of all species currently fished, possibly as soon as midcentury, fisheries experts and ecologists are predicting.

The key phrase is “if [it] continues at its present pace.”  This ignores the fact that individuals, governments, and wildlife itself are adaptive in both predictable and unpredictable ways.  The authors of the study are clearly more interested in purveying a provocative headline than making realistic predictions about the status of marine animal populations.

As the numbers of a commercially viable marine animal dwindle the cost to seek out and capture said animal will increase.  The higher acquisition cost will necessitate higher prices, which will diminish demand.  Eventually the demand will fall below a critical level and virtually all efforts to capture the creature will cease as they will no longer be cost effective.  The population will rebound.

Governments - possibly spurred on by people such as the authors of this study - may move to shift the supply or demand curve through regulation.  Higher taxes applied to the purchase of seafood or restrictions on harvest size will cause the price to increase.  See previous paragraph for eventual result.

Most striking is that environmental propagandists ignore one of the core tenants of the living world: life adapts.  After the Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980 many scientists wrung their hands at the ecological disaster.  They were all surprised to see how quickly and completely the area rejuvenated itself.  Some animals, including snapper, are able to change gender in order to cope with unsustainable ratios of male to female.  The theory of evolution (which shouldn’t be called a theory, but that is another story) is the ultimate law of unknown consequences.  When faced with a daunting set of circumstances some plants and animals go the way of the dodo and others react in unpredictable ways to preserve themselves.  The point is that you can’t make a ceteris paribus extrapolation that far in the future with any reasonable expectation of accuracy.

My biggest pet peeve is when I see some study predict global temperatures decades in advance.  My snarky rationale is that even the most seasoned meteorologist can’t seem to consistently predict temperature and precipitation just a few days in advance.  But only slightly more seriously, I’ll compare climatological predictions to the trajectory prediction of a guided missile.  Before a missile is launched virtually everything is known.  Initial mass properties can be measured with a high degree of accuracy.  The thrust generated by the engine is generally very well characterized.  Environmental conditions can be measured just before launch.  The azimuth and elevation of the missile can also be set with precision.  Very advanced and complex codes exist that can model the position and attitude of the missile throughout flight.  Yet devices must be included in the missile to correct for unknowns and the unexpected during flight in order to keep the missile directed at the intended target.  And still these weapons “miss” their targets by some amount and their accuracy has to be quantified by defining a theoretical circle that the missile will likely land in a certain percentage of the time.

Contrast the predicted and actual flight of a missile, where virtually everything is known ahead of time, with climatological predictions where only the initial conditions are known.  Think about the butterfly effect.  Unlike the flight of a missile, there are no known variables after the start of the simulation.  The bottom line is that computational climate models decrease in accuracy at an increasing rate with the passage of simulation time.  Who knows how long they can be considered accurate?  What is the stated (and verified) degree of uncertainty as a function of time?

We must protect our environment for generations to come, but we can need to make policy decisions without a bevy of Chicken Little’s running around (think Al Gore) proclaiming doom and gloom.

Update: It seems I’m not the only one with reservations about the marine population extrapolation.

“They are flagging a really serious problem, but I don’t buy that extrapolation,” said Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist at Oregon State University.

Maybe they should practice what they preach.  As an aside, I am somewhat embarassed that I linked to TMZ.

The absolutely over the top reaction from politicians and the media to a glorified thunderstorm has been absurd to say the least.  How can they expect the public to take them seriously when a REAL storm approaches when they go haywire for such an insignificant event?  Three words: boy, cried, wolf.

NASA has actually turned around the shuttle transporter and is taking Atlantis back to the launch pad.  This can mean only one of two things.

1. The media coverage of Ernesto is completely without merit because there is no way NASA is going to put one of only three orbiters - the products of a $145 billion program - in harms way.
2. NASA is so driven by their internally created schedule that they are willing to jeopardize a $145 billion program in the face of a dangerous storm.

We’ll see which one plays out, but my money is on #1.

Oh yeah, whatever happened to global warming making all of these hurricanes unbelievably powerful?