April 25, 2007

Actually Factually Factual Facts

Over at Ecotality today, I tweak the true-believer treehuggers a bit with a handful of posts including Industrialization = Cleanliness, which explores why most of the 25 cleanest cities in the world are located in wealthy and industrialized democracies.

Also, if you believe America's CO2 emissions are the chief cause of global warming, well, I got some bad news for ya: China is about to become the world's largest cause of global warming thanks to their red-hot economy. Meanwhile, carbon emissions from the American economy are not growing nearly as fast as the economy itself is growing - because our industries and vehicles are less polluting today than 15 years ago. It's all in this post.

Sparking the most discussion at Ecotality today is my post Myths That Drive Us, which looks at a recent Max Schulz column on a poll showing that most Americans are ignorant of the basic facts about energy and warning that public ignorance raises the risk of politicians making bad policy. The ensuing discussion in the comments is rather enlightening as to the rather low regard for facts some on the enviro left have.

And finally - a look at new technology from New Zealand that can turn carbon monoxide (bad) into ethanol (good) - and new technology being developed right here in Tennessee at Oak Ridge that can use nuclear waste (bad) to make nuclear power (good).