A surprisingly good read on why radical environmentalism does not make sense. I have tended to be fairly outspoken on environmentalism, and I still believe that it is a good idea to keep our planet clean, but I can see where some of the recent environmental measures have ended up costing more than they save in terms of human life. Of note particularly is the Kyoto Protocol:

A model by Tom Wigley, one of the main authors of the reports of the UN Climate Change Panel, shows how an expected temperature increase of 2.1°C in 2100 would be diminished by the [Kyoto Protocol] treaty to an increase of 1.9°C instead. Or, to put it another way, the temperature increase that the planet would have experienced in 2094 would be postponed to 2100.

I have a question: did the banning of chloroflourocarbons (CFCs) really save the ozone layer? Most CFCs were used in refrigerants, such as Freon (e.g. R-12). Freon was very efficient as a coolant. Now we’ve replaced Freon with CFC-free coolants, which are actually less efficient. If the coolant is less efficient, then it means we actually use more energy to provide the same amount of cooling for our automobiles, refrigerators, and freezers. This seems a bit counterproductive since most energy doesn’t come from totally “clean, renewable” sources.