The Art of Manliness Blog just posted a fantastic list of ten reasons why manliness should not stand in the way of “going green.”  This article hits home for me because I know a number of males who tend to shy away from eco-friendly activities because they do not believe the activities are ”manly.”  My favorite quote from the article:

Teddy Roosevelt fought with the Rough Riders and went on to lead the fight to conserve American lands. You can roll up your sleeves, talk tough and even clear some brush, but a real man does not react to important information by burying his head in the sand or excuse himself from rational inquiry and action with simplistic beliefs and cliche one-liners. Forget the faux cowboy schtick. Being a man isn’t about driving a truck and tearing into a bloody pork chop. If you really want to cowboy up, take the issues of your day seriously and do something about them.

Amen, brother.

conservation, eco-friendly, Environment, green, manliness, planet

Happy end of Earth Day, everybody.  Speaking of exciting Earth Day news, I just read that in 2009, an all-electric vehicle will be sold in the United States:

A Norwegian automaker backed by Silicon Valley investors plans to sell in the United States an electric car that goes 110 miles without a charge and costs less than $25,000.

Downsides?  It only goes 65 miles per hour and only has two seats.  But hey, if you’re commuting to and from a city all the time, this is a sweet ride.  I’ll have to do some more research when I get a chance to find out more… looks neat!

car, earth day, electric, electric car, Environment, fuel economy, gas

My car is currently on its deathbed.  My 1990 Toyota Camry has been so good to me for so long.  However, I took it in to a repair shop a few weeks ago because I thought the rear cylinders were leaking.  I wasn’t too worried because rear cylinder repairs are only a couple hundred bucks.

Turns out I was right… sort of.   Not only were the rear cylinders leaking (slightly), but both front CV joints on my car are cracked, I have a bunch of “valve issues” and I’ve got oil leaking on my timing belt.  Total projected repair cost: $1800.  My car’s blue book value: sub $500.  So I’ve come to the conclusion, that sometime in the near future, I need to find another car.

I’ve been looking around at new and used cars, and I’m probably going to go with the smallest, cheapest, most reliable thing out there, as I am a law student rapidly accumulating debt.  However, the one aspect of this decision that bothers me the most is that because the average car on the road is getting bigger, and more and more people are driving SUVs, roads have become more dangerous for drivers of smaller cars.  Essentially, it’s a prisoner’s dilemma of safety.  All else equal, you can be safer if you drive a bigger car, at the cost of making everyone else less safe.  The irony is that if everyone drives bigger cars, then we’re all just as safe as if we all drove smaller cars (or maybe even less safe if you factor in the increased likelihood of flipping over), because with each additional larger car on the road, there is an increased risk of being hit by a larger car, which will cause more damage than an equivalent accident with a smaller car.

Honestly, this will not affect my decision.  Because I believe that pollution, resource depletion, and congestion are such serious problems, I would be a hypocrite to go out and buy a big car.  Plus, the probability of getting into an accident where the “safety rating” of your car is an issue is insignificant – despite what commercials tell us.

Yet I can see how many people, especially those with families, choose to buy a bigger car primarily for safety concerns.  Ironically, the danger they are trying to protect against is generated by other people, just like them, who are trying to be safe.

car, congestion, drive, fuel economy, gas, oil, pollution, resource depletion, safety

Full Disclosure: This is not an advertisement, although the link to the Amazon Kindle is an affiliate link to Amazon.  I am actually going somewhere with this article beyond the Amazon Kindle. 

The Amazon Kindle is not getting the kind of hype it deserves.  Why?  Because although the Kindle is far from a perfect product – it’s not close yet – it is going to shine some much-needed light on E-Book readers.  This could potentially lead to the end – or at least the near death – of the majority of print media.

The Kindle is an E-Book reader.  It’s about the size of a book, it has a small keyboard, a cellular internet connection, and most importantly an “E-Ink” screen that displays books.  The battery can last for more than a week without recharging.  The Kindle’s main purpose is to read books.  If you want to buy a book, you can use the Kindle’s built-in online store to purchase books wirelessly, using its free cellular internet connection.  Additionally, you can subscribe to NEWSPAPERS/blogs/other publications on the Kindle, so that every morning when you wake up, today’s paper is ready for you to read.

The Kindle itself is not necessarily a “good product,” or at least one that I would purchase.  The Kindle is expensive, and the prices for books and newpapers subscriptions are not exactly generous.  Moreover, it seems like it is difficult to send your own documents to the Kindle, and the battery life is not so good if you leave the cellular internet connection on.  Additionally, the purchased books have DRM protection, making them difficult to manipulate if you want to save them to your computer for class/work/etcetera, or lend a book to a friend to borrow.  Additionally, you must purchase the books from Amazon, and not every physical book has a Kindle book counterpart available for purchase.  Additionally, and most importantly, you cannot mark up things you read on a Kindle.  There is no highlighting or note taking feature.  This is a must for students if they decide to put their textbooks on the Kindle.  [I would buy a Kindle in a heartbeat if (1) my law casebooks were available in Kindle format; and (2) I could use a stylus to write on the screen and save my notes.]

However, the Kindle should usher in a new generation of E-Book readers that will have a huge impact on the world today.  There is a serious amount of time and money that goes into printing presses for newspapers that must be delivered every morning at an ungodly hour.  However, if newspapers become electronic, society will no longer need to waste the time, effort, ink, and paper running printing presses all night long and sending out people to deliver the papers at 4:00am.  No longer will it matter if you’re on a business trip and you want to read the Wall Street Journal that you have a subscription for at your home address.  All in all – just for newspapers alone – E-book readers could save serious time, money, and even a substantial amount of natural resources that can be put to better use.

Moreover, book publishers will no longer have to “guess” at how many books to print.  If a book is a hit – as many electronic copies as needed can be delivered without any delays to print new books due to unanticipated demand.

Finally, and most importantly for me, those of us who lug tons of books around in our backpacks will now have much happier backs.  An E-book reader should easily be able to store hundreds of law casebooks, meaning instead of lugging three ten pound books around, I can carry one one pound E-book reader.

Although the Kindle is far from a perfect product – I would personally not buy one today – the fact that it sheds light on E-book readers in general is huge.  In the near future, I am certain new, higher-quality E-book readers will emerge on the market, whether they are the next version of the Kindle or a completely different product.  When these E-book readers emerge, reading will quickly become more convenient for consumers, and more efficient for producers.

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I believe that if you do not have the learning/ability/training to understand how climate change works, it is illogical for you to believe climate change is not a serious issue.

Let’s say you hurt your arm.  You go to nine doctors, and they all say you have a broken arm.  You go to the tenth, and he says your arm is fine.  Assuming all of the doctors are equally qualified, and you have no medical training, it is illogical to believe the one doctor who tells you your arm is fine.

This is analogous to what’s happening with climate change.  A large number of scientists believe that climate change is a serious issue, and a small number of dissenters believe it is not a big deal.  If I am going to make a choice about which side is right, and I do not possess the scientific training to grasp the climate change issue, I don’t know how I could justify logically agreeing with the dissenters.

Additionally, the scientists who are worried about climate change have published numerous studies in peer reviewed journals, and have come together as an international panel to address the issue.  As far as I am aware, there are few, if any, studies published in peer reviewed journals that dissent from the hypothesis that climate change is a serious issue that needs to be addressed soon.

I will admit that this article sounds a bit paternalistic in that it appears to discount whether people should read the evidence on both sides and make up their mind.  I think people should do so in all situations where they are qualified to do so.  If you can educate yourself to the level where you really and truly understand the climate change science at a comparable level as an expert, then by all means, you should pass your own judgment rather than rely on the scientific community.

However, most people only possess a layperson’s knowledge of climate change.  With a layperson’s knowledge, it makes logical sense to believe the vast majority of scientists over a small minority.

It does not follow from this article that I believe we should always defer to experts in every situation.  I just believe that in highly complex situations where laypeople do not have enough knowledge to make a reasonably thought-out decision, deferring to experts is smarter than taking a “guess” on your own.

Another criticism that will probably be raised about this article regarding the fact that Galileo thought the Earth was round, but most experts thought the Earth was flat, and it turned out that most experts were wrong.  The criticism says that because Galileo was right, we shouldn’t just ignore something because only a small group of experts said it.

This is a faulty criticism for two reasons.  First, Galileo’s battle with the flat-earth thinkers at the time was an argument between science and religion, not science and science.  Secondly, the criticism is just ex-post analysis.  Had I been able to go back in time, and 90% of experts told me the world was flat, and I were untrained to the point that I could not reason out whether the earth was flat or round on my own, I would believe the earth was flat.  I think that’s a perfectly logical conclusion for a layperson.

Please post comments.  This seems so clear to me that I’m sure I’m missing something important.

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