As IF Times

BBC News – Today – Lovelock: ‘We can’t save the planet’.

Well finally, something sane from a person reasonably familiar with the whole climate change debate.  While it was this scientist who expressed that people were too stupid to do anything about climate change, he now expresses his belief that:

“… the earth’s climate will not conveniently comply with the models of modern climate scientists.  As the record winter cold testifies, he says, global temperatures move in “jerks and jumps”, and we cannot confidently predict what the future holds…”

In addition:

Prof Lovelock does not pull his punches on the politicians and scientists who are set to gain from the idea that we can predict climate change and save the planet ourselves. Scientists, he says, have moved from investigating nature as a vocation, to being caught in a career path where it makes sense to “fudge the data”.

Let’s get real here.  The planet has been around a long time and will continue to be around long after the current hysteria of doom wears off.  It’s as if after millions of years of existence, man’s effect on earth over the past 100 years will doom all life forms.  There have been ‘end of the earth’ guys around forever because I suppose it sells newspapers.  It’s truly ironic that with the supposed increase in access to information afforded to all in the modern age, there has not been the commensurate uptick in common sense.  Perhaps it’s the phenomenon of  too much information and people are lazy and prefer to have it distilled for them.  So we can’t blame it all on the people with their hair on fire, people have to blame their own naivete.   As an illustration of this, John Stossel, a consumer reporter, ex of ABC and now with Fox News went around New York recently with a petition in hand to solicit people to ban “di-hydrogen oxide”.  This product was odorless and tasteless but was pitched as a danger to mankind. 

As you can guess, he was able to sign up almost everybody he asked even though the product he was referring to was H2O, which is of course, water.  The issue going forth is how to push back against those who are deeply mired in the global warming crap and feel they must dig deeper in order to save face.  This professor Lovelock has done that to his credit.  Will  Gore and the gang put down their shovels?  Methinks not.  He will continue to dig.

Price ranges for glasses prove real eye-opener – chicagotribune.com.

For all the yak about how the modern information age has ushered in a new era of advantages for the modern consumer, the fact is, business models still favour the dumb consumer approach.   Which is to say, price things for as much as people will pay, the epitome of a free market system. 

Take the area of eyeglasses.  Logically, with the progress of industrialization, the employment of  high tech machinery, with efficiencies of distribution, how can it be that people are willing to pay upwards of over $1000 for  a pair of eyeglasses?  Years ago, I had the unfortunate need to pay for a cracked windshield on my car.  Insurance would cover the cost if I paid the deductible, or I could opt to pay for the “factory” glass from Stuttgart for $900.  Naturally, being an idiot, I paid to have the factory glass in order to maintain the ‘integrity’ of the car.

Still, I rationalize, $900 seems like a deal when you consider the expanse of glass, the weight for shipment etc etc.  It seems like even more of a bargain when you consider that people will pay $1000 for a couple of silver dollar sized pieces of glass in  a frame.  You would think somebody could set up a frame factory near a coke bottle plant and churn out spectacles for 5 bucks apiece.  These days, for less than a thousand bucks, you can buy the most recent technology flat screen TV.  This is what makes capitalism so great.  In a free market, there is no set price for things.  We are able to strike a good deal or get fleeced according to our needs and wants.

Think about the price of a car.  A very entry level car can be had these days for about $15,000.  Think of the materials, the engineering, the salaries, etc etc that are involved in creating that product for sale at a price to the public for approximately 15 pairs of expensive eyeglasses.  Competition in that space must be truly intense and the end result is that the consumer benefits.  Consider the price of a pair of jeans.  Some of today’s “designer” jeans are offered at $300 per pair.  Undoubtedly, these are made at the same turn of the century factories in China as the $15 work jeans that you can buy at Costco. 

The takeaway from this discussion is that the West may not be the industrial giant it once was, but they sure can market.  The wisdom is that cost of things has not as much to do with value recieved but more to do with price extracted.  These days it seems, we’re surrounded by hucksters.