Here’s a puzzle: General Mills is in trouble with the Food and Drug Administration for allegedly violating federal law by advertising Cheerios as “clinically proven” to do good things for you.
But the same federal government that runs the FDA is now pushing via the Environmental Protection Agency for carbon dioxide restrictions that would cost Americans hundreds of billions of dollars, on grounds that reducing CO2 emissions would be good for public health. Scientifically, and economically, no matter what you’ve been told by the United Nations or the EPA (or Al Gore or Barack Obama or Maurice Strong or the Man in the Moon) there is plenty of well-grounded skepticism about claims that lowering CO2 emissions will affect “global warming” (or combat “climate change” — or intercede at all in whatever aspect of the climate the eco-marketers have most recently latched on to).
So why is the FDA giving Cheerios a hard time, but doing nothing about the CO2 pseudo-science of the EPA? Here’s a prescription that would really do good things for you. Let the FDA go after the EPA over the CO2 racket, and leave the rest of us to hash out with General Mills the truth about Cheerios.
PJM Home
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
9 Comments
1. Brian:Heh . . . yeah.
Of course, there are a couple of issues here. First, there is the question of Global Warming: Is it happening?
Well, not so much in the last decade. Global temperatures have plateaued or (depending on your source) decreased. This was not predicted by the models.
Inconveniently, GW is not unique to Planet Earth. Mars, Triton (one of Neptune’s moons), parts of Saturn and (probably) Pluto warmed during the later 90’s and early 2000s. Given that the Solar System is something like 4.5 Billion years old, it is surpassingly coincidental that all this warming, has occurred at precisely the same nanosecond in the Solar System’s life. (Frankly, I blame Haliburton, BushHitler and Darth Cheney — and those pesky SUVs.)
Also, Global Warming on earth, cycling with Global Cooling, were happening things for the last — oh, I dunno — 600 million years or so.
The second issue is whether Man is causing Global Warming. Given the history of climate change on Ma Earth and on the other heavenly bodies, I know what I believe, but others have to make up their own mind.
As an aside . . . as a former scientist, I don’t like the central hypothesis underlying GW (that it is caused by humans) because it is not falsifiable. In its latest transmogrification, GW has morphed into “climate change.” How in Gods name can one falsify the hypothesis that climate changes?
May 13, 2009 - 8:38 pm 2. Professor Guvinof:Don’t pay attention to where your money goes. If you were legally able to consume your Cheerios, you would produce more carbon dioxyde, that’s just metabolism 101. Luckily, the FDA is trying to prevent this disaster.
On the other hand, this is going to make it harder for the EPA to punish you for the nasty stuff you failed to emit on account of holy cereal deprivation. Not to worry, the HHS has a fully tarped-up cool-aid remedial program, so your pursuit of happiness will be provided for eventually, and you will still owe the tax, so your patriotism will be preserved as well!
Happy mother’s day, Mr. President!
May 13, 2009 - 9:45 pm 3. Ed Driscoll » The Outer Limits — Of Regulation:[...] is nothing wrong with your Web browser. You are about to participate in a great adventure into governmental overreach. You are about to experience regulation and meddling which reaches from The Outer Limits to the [...]
May 14, 2009 - 9:40 am 4. Matthew M:This reminds me a little of the idea floated by some California bureaucrat to ban the color black from new cars since they absorb heat more readily which requires the air conditioning to run more, which uses more fuel, which despoils the planet, etc.
In response to that inanity, I conjured the WTF Rule for evaluating government proposals: if a reasonable person’s first response to a regulation is “what the f***?” then the relevant government department would have its budget cut in half. If the response continues “no, seriously! WTF?” then the department is history. Seems like it would have been a perfect position for the “governator.”
May 14, 2009 - 2:06 pm 5. Voltimand:My experience with enviro types is that they are closet fascists whose main gripe is not with the eivironment, but with OPs. “Other people” who do things that someone else doesn’t like. “You exist and breathe and make a lot of CO2, and therefore cause global warming and therefore make life difficult for me. There ought to be a law against you. We’ll call it ‘environmental progection.’”
May 15, 2009 - 4:01 pm 6. j man:This global warming hysteria is an excuse to get everyone joined together in a one world gvt. check out th quotes at this website to see what i mean… http://green-agenda.com/index.html
May 17, 2009 - 12:02 pm 7. Steynian 356 « Free Canuckistan!:[...] OF CHEERIOS and Climate Change …. [...]
May 18, 2009 - 2:33 pm 8. Steynian 356 | acorn 8:[...] OF CHEERIOS and Climate Change …. [...]
May 19, 2009 - 8:30 am 9. buddy larsen:Ms Rosett, i just dropped your piece into comments @ Belmont. Love your choice of targets, and your sunny rancor-free panache as you lop off their heads!
If you were to debate Climate Czarina Carol Browning, worlds would collide!
May 21, 2009 - 5:00 am