Fracking follow-up

Arguing over whether people actually read stuff before commenting on it (they don’t) is so last week, and thus it’s time to add a couple more thoughts from my fracking post, which was ever so trendy (like Lewis Pugh was last week).

Firstly, there were a couple (literally two) objections to my use of the term “bunnyhugger” to describe those of a green persuasion. Now, I rebuffed these objections by questioning exactly what could be insulting about saying someone cuddles rabbits. But apparently, it’s a derogatory term. Aside from the fact that perhaps I wished to be derogatory, I would point out that “bunnyhugger” is merely a derivative of “treehugger”, which is a common term by which environmentalists refer to each other. See environmental website treehugger.com, for example.

Putting this neatly in perspective: I have called people worse.

Secondly, I found another good (fairly well balanced) article about natural gas and fracking. Since these sort of articles seem to be few and far between, I thought I would share it. It’s from MIT and weighs up the needs, the pros and the cons of natural gas and shale gas extraction.
Give it a read – at least until you get to the first bit where it says natural gas is good, then you can stop and throw rocks at me.

Thirdly, we may all be saved from fossil fuels forever anyway, thanks to the all new, all singing, all dancing (disclaimer: it neither sings, nor dances) artificial photosynthetic leaf:

The artificial leaf uses nickel and cobalt as catalysts to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen by facilitating oxygen-oxygen bonding.
Oxygen and hydrogen molecules are then sent to a fuel cell that can produce electricity. If the device is placed in a one-gallon bucket of water in bright sunlight, it can reportedly produce enough electricity to power a house in a developing nation.

The one immediate flaw I can see in their plan is that many people in developing countries don’t have buckets.

Oh, or water.

Finally, a word of caution from Dilbert on green technologies:

Dilbert on clean energy innovation | Grist

And did you know it’s illegal to have wind turbine in your back garden in Cape Town?
It must be true, because I heard it on Cape Talk last night.

Fighting ire with fire

From here, via here.

With the G20 protests taking place in London today, Guido takes us back to previous occasions when demonstrators have bitten off more than they could chew:

WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail. What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement. “We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.”

Another said: “I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”

Protesters conceded that mounting the operation after lunch may not have been the best plan. “The violence was instant,” Jon Beresford, 39, an electrical engineer from Nottingham, said. They were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”

Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.” Last night Greenpeace said two protesters were in hospital, one with a suspected broken jaw, the other with concussion.

Classic moments. And I can quite see where those oil traders were coming from. Since my dismissal of all things Earth Hour on here and elsewhere on the web, I have had bunnyhuggers, lefties and bunnyhugging lefties chastising me at every opportunity. Not very pleasant and not very conducive to debate on the subjects at hand. And damn annoying, if I’m honest.

If Earth Hour was so very important, then why don’t they try it every night? Or would that make them miss Desperate Housewives and “Grey’s” (as it has annoyingly become known)?
All about priorities, I guess. Like the hypocrisy of those “eco-warriors” giving their desperately ill child drugs which had been tested on animals. Or the Noordhoek residents who drive 120km round trip to work each day, but consider themselves “green”, because “they do their bit for the environment”.
Oh yes. They certainly do. Probably not in the way they imagine though.

What the whiners about Earth Hour don’t seem to realise (aside from the fact that it made almost completely no difference to South Africa’s energy consumption) is that not everyone chooses to share their point of view. I didn’t go out of my way to waste electricity for 60 minutes. That would have been unnecessarily antagonistic, expensive and equally pointless. I just sat there and watched a bit of Top Gear, while eating a spicy lamb pizza. Apathetic, you might call it. Conscientious objectionism, I might argue.

But even my expressing my viewpoint is apparently not allowed anymore and the vitriol and bile has been free-flowing from the greenies.
Well, sod them. Their continuing insistance that Earth Hour made any sort of difference (especially here) and their ongoing nastiness towards non-participants invite ridicule. If you have more to say, you’re welcome: the comments window is just below.

Bring it, Swampy.