I’ve long said that air conditioning was the beginning of the downfall of the Republic, because it made DC habitable, and attractive to all manner of power-hungry grifters.
Well, Glenn Reynolds agrees, and has some suggestions to allow our betters in the federal government to set a good example for the rest of the benighted:
…it’s hard to expect Americans to accept changes to their own lifestyles when the very people who are telling them that it’s a crisis aren’t acting like it’s a crisis. So I have a few suggestions to help bring home the importance of reduced carbon footprints at home and abroad:
Extend Smith’s bill to cover the entire federal government. We have Skype now, and Facetime. There’s no reason to fly to meetings. I’d let the President keep Air Force One for official travel, but subject to a requirement that absolutely no campaign activity or fundraisers take place on any trips in which the president travels officially.
Obama makes a great point about setting the thermostat at 72 degrees. We should ban air conditioning in federal buildings. We won two world wars without air conditioning our federal employees. Nothing in their performance over the last 50 or 60 years suggests that A/C has improved things. Besides, The Washington Post informs us that A/C is sexist, and that Europeans think it’s stupid.
In fact, we should probably ban air conditioning in the entire District of Columbia, to ensure that members of Congress, etc. won’t congregate in lobbyists’ air-conditioned offices.
Speaking of which, members of Congress shouldn’t be allowed to fly home on the weekends. Not only does this produce halfhearted attention to their jobs — the so-called “Tuesday to Thursday Club” — but, again, it produces too much of a carbon footprint. Even if they pay for the travel out of campaign funds, instead of their own budgets, they need to set an example for the rest of us — and for those skeptical foreigners that Obama mentioned.
This is terrible; I’m in shock. She was murdered last night, walking her dogs in her upscale Baltimore neighborhood.
I’ve known her for decades. I just saw her in March, at a NASA-sponsored workshop on space safety that she had put together at RFF. The report is due out any day.
In addition to being a wonderful woman, this is a huge loss to the space community; she was one of the few economists really focusing on the economics of space development. My condolences to her other friends, and family.
Huh. Like Glenn, I’m also old enough to remember when the Obama the Wise told us we couldn’t drill our way out of the energy situation. Reminder: Every resource is a renewable resource with sufficiently cheap energy.
It might be possible to live thirty years longer. I wonder to what degree treating diabetes with metformin will also extend life? I also think that people confuse cause and effect between aging and many of the “diseases of aging.”
I think there’s potential for much more than that. I don’t buy the notion that the body can’t be repaired indefinitely. It violates no laws of physics.
[Afternoon update]
The mystery of the Missing Link has been solved once again!
Joel Kotkin and Victor Davis Hanson have both written about the California oligarchy, but this piece points out their cruel but self-righteous youth:
“There are literally shanty towns underneath most highway overpasses in the city,” says Martínez. “But that techie kid who goes and gets his $5 single-origin, cruelty-free pour-over in some trendy coffee shop? He doesn’t give a s***. He just wants to get some liquidity around his shares and steps over the homeless guy en route to his yoga class.”
And, of course, as Ed Driscoll points out, and will come as no surprise to readers here, the dirty little secret is that they’re self-righteous Democrats.