InUrFace

So in the humor department today the U.N. issued a notice stating the following. I don’t want to waste time barfing all over your screen so I will quote it from the Fox website.

Beat the heat — eat less meat.

That’s the message being sent by the head of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won last year’s Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore.

“Give up meat for one day [a week] initially, and decrease it from there,” Dr. Rajendra Pachauri told Britain’s Observer newspaper in comments published Sunday.

Pachauri reasons that because raising, feeding, slaughtering and shipping livestock produces much more greenhouse gas than does growing plants, a decrease in the number of livestock worldwide would do a lot to offset the threat of global warming.

“In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity,” he told the Observer.

A U.N. study in 2006 found that 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions came from the livestock industry, chiefly in the form of methane burped up and otherwise emitted by cattle, sheep and pigs.

Additionally, as meat consumption grows as developing countries get richer, more and more forests are cut down for pasture, resulting in fewer trees to replace carbon dioxide with oxygen.

Chris Lamb, a spokesman for the British pork industry, disputed Pachauri’s logic.

“Climate change is a very young science and our view is there are a lot of simplistic solutions being proposed,” Lamb said.

Pachauri, who like many Indians is a vegetarian, was re-appointed last week to a new six-year term as the head of the IPCC.

We give Nobel Peace Prizes to these people? Heck, I want one. 

The U.N. grates on me for a number of reasons but I have to say… Since when has studying greenhouse emissions from animals been a U.N. responsibility? How is that even anywhere close to their mission? 

How you are supposed to accurately measure climate change in regards to how many cows we eat? Talk about a variable science! 

Oh and for the record I did a little Google sleuthing on the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” Turns out they have a speal on the interweb site.

The IPCC is a scientific body: the information it provides with its reports is based on scientific evidence and reflects existing viewpoints within the scientific community. The comprehensiveness of the scientific content is achieved through contributions from experts in all regions of the world and all relevant disciplines including, where appropriately documented, industry literature and traditional practices, and a two stage review process by experts and governments.

Doubtful, I think.

Plus, notice that the author comes from India, where cows are sacred and not eaten. Is he simply furthering his religious agenda?  Who would trust his biased opinion? How does this have anything to do with science?

Can I keep my chicken, please?

This is in reply to a post on Feministe by La Labu. 

A lot of the union perceptions out in the workplace are formed in a bubble it seems, removed from economics, and economics keep America floating. If I am correct a lot of the ideas are formed with the belief that creating the perfect job for the average worker is the ultimate responsibility of a company and unions are there to keep the companies priorities straight.

Unfortunately this is where different ideals collide. Business operate off of capitalistic rules. If a business makes less than it spends it goes insolvent. Then everyone loses. The whole idea of a business is capitalistic. If you want a more socialistic or even communistic system go to Canada or China. Better yet, have the industries run by the government. Please don’t do that to America, there is a reason we are the most prosperous.

Whoever starts a business starts it because they see an opportunity to make money, not to provide you with a job. You, as an employee, are an ends to a mean. Don’t like that? Either make yourself into a valuable employee (more skilled then the next guy) or go somewhere else. Unions try to subvert this process by making the employee the priority. Now I grant there are some excellent reasons for unions to exist but none of those reasons are to protect rights. Being paid a certain wage and having healthcare are not rights. Anyone who thinks that has an undue sense of entitlement. Unions are for forcing companies to give wages or benefits that the employee cannot actually earn (in other words, deserve) but can leverage using collective bargaining. Basically threatening the existence of the company to get what they cannot earn by themselves. It creates weak companies that, in the end, cannot compete with companies around them which ends up in outsourcing, bankruptcy, etc. It is counter productive (especially for the employee) to demand more then the company can support.

It’s a business principal that you must provide more value than you receive. This applies to employees just as much as business. In a way you are a business. You sell you time and skills in exchange for money. If you demand an wage or benefit that you cannot obtain simply through supply and demand then that creates an unjust strain on the company which bites into the very reason it was founded, money. Hence the rift between business owners and the blue collar.

If you have been responsible with your life you have taken advantage of the tremendous opportunities around. You have educated yourself and made your skills a prized commodity. Prized skills and education are enough to get excellent health care, wages, etc. It’s when your skills and education are deficient, in other words you are not a very valuable contributer as an individual (you yourself don’t bring the company very much value), that you need a union to increase healthcare, wages, etc.

The statement that unions are more prevalent in the white collar world is not true. Competitively educated people are a very highly prized commodity and companies will compete ferociously for them. Benefits, wages, healthcare, etc are all implicit because the person creates huge value for the company. I work in the white collar recruiting field and can tell you from experience that a person who has invested in themselves can expect all that the lower class clamors for because they are worth it to the company. It’s about money in the end whether you like it or not.

In the end it comes down to what you have done with your life. If you don’t take responsibility for earning a decent wage and expect that is just something someone else should take care of for you, in this case the business owners (shareholders), then you will have to resort to using unions.

So when you consider the benefits a union provides consider also the cost to the company and ask if it is a win win situation. Are you providing more value to the company (in production, not time) than you require? That is the only way wealth will continue to increase in America and employees can expect consistently higher wages. Everyone wins.

I am an employee also. I work hard. I distinguish myself and consequently enjoy benefits that most people in my position can only clamor for. I don’t need to pay union dues, I don’t need to dislike my boss, and I have unlimited potential corresponding to my value. My life is simpler and has less conflict because I am committed to providing an excellent service for the company which my boss is happy to pay me well for. Do that and you will prosper.

In the end it’s about responsibility. If you think there is no way you can rise above your middle class peers because you are held down by “The Man” so you must fight “The Man” then you will have unproductive class struggle. Unions create a certain ceiling of achievement and distinction by limiting the amount of value you can provide to the company. A great example of that is work hour caps. Limited at eight hour days and forty hour weeks? What does that accomplish? All it does is limit your options, limit your pay, and limit you from distinguishing yourself from anyone else. Aren’t unions supposed to do the opposite? I thought they were meant to empower the employee?

If you take responsibility for your career and expect your wage to be proportional to your value to the economy and take steps to increase your value the you WILL have the privileges you want.

Louis Swingrover, from the Constellation Hypothesis Blog, cited these excellent points in response to my post.

Fallacy #1: Your argument assumes green laws do NOT make life safer. If they did, you say, you would be willing to foot the bill. Instead you call green practices matters of preference.

The fact of the matter is that green laws based on sound science can make life a crucially safer. I am willing to argue for this claim if need be. Let me know.

Fallacy #2: You say “If I am required to install double paned windows what stops lawmakers from slipping a little farther into “Buy one of those Toyota Prius””. Please cf. Slippery Slope. Let me know if you have any questions.

The reason we have to enforce these practices on other people is twofold:

1. We share the environment. If you want to poison your immediate environment in a way that doesn’t violate my right to life, go ahead.

2. Green laws based on sound science may be more than life safening, they may be life-saving. You yourself admit the benefit of enforcing speed limits! Why not pollution limits?

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1. No. My argument dismisses that argument all together. For you to prove to me that forcing me to install a more efficient water heater will decrease localized climate change is impossible. As it is for me to do the inverse. So we are only left with the moral dilemma. Is it right to force these decisions? Note that I do not argue that it is or is not a good decision to install a more efficient water heater. 

2. I don’t believe the Prius reference qualifies as a slippery slope fallacy but that might be me just being dense. I will expand on my argument to ask what gives lawmakers the power or authority to force these decisions. Just because we elected them doesn’t mean they get to run crazy. And just because it is an issue that effects all of us it doesn’t mean laws are the answer. I would argue that politicians would be overstepping their authority to make laws that should be based in science but we don’t even have consensus on this issue.

3. No one wants to poison the environment in a way that effects anyone. The crux of the argument comes when you try and prove the “violation to your right to life.” You cannot link a simple consumer choice in water heaters to your quality of life any more then you can your own car.

4. Pollution limits are not based on sound science or logic. Al Gore proposed an abolition of the income tax to be replaced by a pollution tax with the premiss that it would bring in the same amount of money and encourage green economics. Yet the implications into the business world would be disastrous. Companies that employ thousands of people and contribute hugely to our economy would have to downsize due to carbon emissions while companies in different industries such as telecom and SEO would not be impacted at all. In a sense they would be tax free. Then how do you go about accurately calculating the pollution for a large company? You think a 1040 is tough? Imagine a Pollution 3248. The carbon footprint to balance those tax codes and print the books, not to mention the late nights CPAs will spend studying this development, will kill 492 Jumping Monkeys alone!

All a pollution tax would do is rebalance our economy to favor certain industries and drive others into the ground. It would cripple America and jeopardize your daily mocha.

Currently no lives are in danger of pollution and things are only getting better. How would more governmental interference be a good thing?

Ok, so the green movement has a point when it comes to the corporate ambition and reverence for the bottom line. It works. That’s capitalism. So what?

If I were a lunatic the obvious answer would be to condemn the fiscal conglomerates and the infamous contributions they have made to the “Global Warming Crisis.” I would rant how overpaid CEOs oppress the middle class and will bring an unjust ruin to us all. Mostly though, I would suffer an internal edema of the brain, considering the political maneuverings of “Big Oil”.

But I am not, so I won’t. Instead I’ll say this.

The Green Movement appeals to people because it evokes emotions of responsibility and sustainability is the new password. I know I must mindlessly repeat that we must stop burning oil to save our children. Further more, we must cut the outrageously lucrative oil companies off at the knees to save or morals from a morass of profitability. What I want to know is this. How sustainable is this thinking? Can America continue to live in posh houses and expect the president to supply us with good fortune while we destroy the economic foundations of our enviable culture?

Tell me this. Would Green Peace be happy if all the retched Corporations of the world just shriveled up and died? That doesn’t seem like a very “sustainable” option to me. I like comfort.

Say I were to be, ironically, run over by a environmentally friendly semi and be reincarnated as the aforementioned lunatic. And, for the sake of the argument, I were to accomplish my goal of righting the right wing wrongs. What would that look like? 

Well, my Apple is now being powered by solar panels and friendly little breezes. My imaginary and in no way scientific carbon footprint has shrunk to the size of a small empirical cow. My house’s water is always luke warm due to solar heating when the sun is out. And the price of energy has increased 10 times more then Bush could have ever hoped because solar and wind energies are hugely expensive to develop. Oh, and no dams, those piss the fish off.

I have also managed to have the onerous CEO’s salaries reduced. Unfortunately the CEOs like getting paid that much and the shareholders (average people) like having the company running profitably. The CEO went somewhere else and the job got outsourced to an Indian with an MBA from New Delhi. Profitability has tanked along with consumer confidence (in the product) and investors don’t want to invest in a company that will cut off it’s head to spite it’s pocket book. Company over. 

Repeat the above a couple hundred times and I (the power crazed lunatic) will be preaching about more then just a recession. Try a super sized depression with those fries. Poverty anyone?

All I am saying is this. You and your Green Movement is a powerful force. Don’t let the aforementioned lunatic pirate your cause into dangerous waters. You may accomplish your dreams of a more clean more fair society and the world might be a better place for it, but don’t sacrifice everything America knows and holds dear. Please? 

Don’t be a tool, speak your mind and contribute!