Some years ago we used to watch a sitcom on TV called "Wings", it was about this small airport on Nantucket. This one character was a smart aleck lady who ran the snack bar. Whenever somebody would ask her to do them a favor or something, they would usually say, "Can you do this for me?" and the lady would reply, "Can, don't want to." This is similar to what you said about people who don't want to do something claiming that they don't have time. The more I think about it, I think that you and that lady on "Wings" are both right. Then again, sometimes they might mean that they wouldn't mind doing it, there are just other things they would rather spend their time on. If they had nothing else to do at the moment, they might do it, but that seldom happens because the other things that keep them busy are things they really want to do. Then again, sometimes they might mean that they have obligations, like a job or something, and that has to take priority. Be that as it may, I think you're right when you say that, if a person doesn't want to do something, they should just say so.
This ties in to what you said about wanting to learn from people who are smarter and more sophisticated than I am. I would agree with you if they were trying to teach me something that I wanted to learn but, if it's something that they want me to learn, then I figure that it's their job to make the material accessible to me, and I shouldn't have to kiss their ass to get them to do it. It's like when these kids begged me to go play baseball with them because they didn't have enough guys to fill all the positions. I told them that I didn't know anything about baseball, and they promised to teach me how. Then, when we got there, all they did was make fun of me because I threw like a girl. It would have been different if I had asked to play with them but, since I was doing them a favor, I think they should have been more accommodating to me.
Truth be known, those managers at the paper mill weren't being pricks about teaching us statistical methods, but it seems that, if they wanted us to learn it, they could have at least translated it into English for us. As it turned out, we didn't need to learn how to do the equations anyway because they were getting computers to do that for us. All they really wanted us to do was become familiar with the terminology so that we would know what the computers were trying to tell us. Later they did implement statistical methods of quality control, but it didn't work very well and they eventually abandoned it. It was one of many "great new things" that came and went over the years, kind of like what you said before about all the new teaching methods that go in and out of fashion from time to time.
Okay, back to global warming: You said that solar and wind power are not cheaper than conventional energy sources. That was the point I was trying to make, they should be cheaper, but they're not. How can they justify charging us more for "green power" when it should basically be free once you get past the start up costs? As far as I know, the government is already subsidizing this stuff, and still they want to charge us more for it. Then there's the fact that power from all sources is fed into the grid, and there's no way to separate the green power from the regular power when it gets to your house. If you pay more for green power, it's just an accounting exercise on paper. How do we know that they aren't selling the same green power over and over again?
Then there's bio fuel. A few years ago they started making a gasoline substitute out of corn. This was used as an excuse to raise the retail price on corn, every product that contains corn, and every animal that eats corn. So where is the bio fuel? I understand they are blending it in with the regular gas, but they had already been doing that for years. To run pure bio fuel in my truck would require some kind of mechanical conversion, which I would be willing to do if a reliable supply of pure bio fuel was readily available, but it's not. The newer vehicles can change back and forth with the flick of a switch, but mine can't, so I'm not converting over unless I can be assured of a reliable supply. I have heard that this stuff is cheaper than regular gas, but it doesn't get as good mileage, so the cost would be about the same if they had it available, which they don't. Meanwhile, we are still paying more for all kinds of food because of the bio fuel that we don't have.
The most promising thing that I have heard of is the hydrogen fuel cell. They suck hydrogen out of the atmosphere, which contains more of it than it needs anyway, and put it into something like a battery, which runs your car instead of a gas engine. The only emission that comes out of the tailpipe is water vapor. This is not experimental, it's off-the-shelf technology. The only problem is it requires cheap electricity to produce this stuff. They have been using it in Iceland for years because they get all their electricity from geothermal sources, which they have plenty of because Iceland is basically one big volcano. So first they need to provide us with cheap electricity, which they could do if they weren't scamming us about the windmills and solar panels. Then, use the cheap electricity to produce hydrogen, but really do it this time, not just issue false promises like they did with the bio fuel. So why aren't they already doing all this? "Can, don't want to."
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