Thoughts on the policy stupidity of it. As noted, truckers already have plenty of incentives to get their trucks as fuel-efficient as possible. This also applies to CAFE (which in turn is equally stupid to the new light-bulb rules).
[Update a while later]
The single-entry bookkeeping of the Left. This is particularly the case with carbon mitigation, which the warm mongers always ignore, or fantasize that it will be less than the cost of changes in the climate.
So a lot of people have been discussing this paper, that shows that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to think that it is, but I question its results because the methodology seems flawed. They should have first asked the question: “Do you understnd the difference between astronomy and astrology?” Because there’s a possibility that some of the respondents were simply confused, and thinking the latter was the former. Which is a form of ignorance, but nowhere near as bad as knowing what astrology is and thinking it scientific.
Some extensive thoughts from Steve McIntyre.
Eleven charts that show what’s wrong with it.
It’s particularly interesting that the “obesity epidemic” started about the time the pseudo-scientists started recommending cutting back on dietary fat.
Have they found a genetic basis for it?
It was always kind of loopy to imagine there isn’t one. That’s the sort of thing that only a leftist could believe.
How they’re alike:
Nutrition science and climate science share some common challenges: complex system(s) and many confounding factors. Severe tests for nutrition science can in principle be done, but they are very expensive and take decades. Severe tests for climate science require better observational evidence, particularly in the past.
When there’s no evidence to falsify what is merely a supposition,we are left with ”magical theories that explains absolutely everything – including diametrically contradictory phenomena, lack of logic and absence of evidence.”
There’s a lot of junk science associated with both.
James Delingpole is envious.
Helps you lose weight.
The notion that you should drink reduced-fat milk is based on two theories that have zero scientific basis — that calories per se make you fat, and that saturated fat is bad for your heart. They’re both nonsense.
[Update a couple minutes later]
The author still gets that part wrong:
Whole-milk dairy products are relatively high in saturated fat. And eating too much saturated fat can increase the risk of heart disease. So many experts would agree that adults with high cholesterol should continue to limit dairy fat.
I repeat, there is zero empirical evidence that saturated fat increases the risk of coronary disease. It is based on the flawed theory that high cholesterol causes heart disease and that eating cholesterol increases your cholesterol. Again, neither is true.
No, it is not doomed:
By the likes of The Week, Salon, and Politico in quick succession, we are said to be in “deep trouble,” likely “doomed,” facing a “wipe out.”
This is in part a tale of lazy reporting and even headline cribbing.
None of the writers of these articles ever called National Review. They didn’t ask what our chances in court were, or even bother to get basic facts about the case right. Damon Linker of The Week, the one who got this meme rolling, made rudimentary mistakes without trying to check them, and then lectured us about journalistic standards.
You’d think people who write about media and the law would know, instinctively, to consider this factor: libel insurance.
You’d think that, until you realize that they’re leftist hacks, and idiots.
The biggest problem with this piece (by a professor of journalism) is its fundamental false premise — that the purpose of human spaceflight is science.