Earth Day, the holiday founded by Ira Einhorn, most famous for having murdered his girlfriend and then composting her body in the approved environmentalist fashion, has come and gone unnoticed by most people. The day is usually accompanied by virtue-signaling pronouncements about how we should preserve the Earth, illustrated by photos taken of our home planet by NASA. All of this save the Earth stuff is well and good, but the question arises as to 'how?' It turns out, if a recent Daily Caller article is accurate, saving our planet consists of doing things that the environmentalists don’t want you to do.
The counter-intuitive advice from the Daily Caller
One piece of advice offered by the conservative magazine is to cut down redwood trees. The logging industry, as it turns out, is not the enemy of the environment that it has been made out to be but instead helps to preserve old-growth forests by thinning them. Fewer trees are left behind to compete for sunlight and soil.
The idea of using plastic bags is a controversial one, to say the least. However, as it turns out, cotton bags cause more pollution since cotton plants require more fertilizer. However, you really should recycle the bags after using them. One way that local and state governments should encourage the practice is to enact a return deposit system by the pound.
A lot of food products these days come advertised as “Non-GMO,” catering to the paranoia of hipsters who think that genetic manipulation of food plants is a bad thing. However, GMO plants need less fertilizer and pesticides. They tend to have larger yields, have a longer shelf life (which cuts down on food waste) and are more nutritious.
Organic gardening is an excellent hobby, but on a farm scale, it is an excuse to charge more for food from the credulous.
Another suggestion: support nuclear power
Climate change may be an exaggerated problem if we believe Judith Curry. However, if you think that fossil-fueled power plants are hurting the environment by pumping out CO2, you ought to support nuclear power.
To be sure, high profile nuclear accidents such as occurred at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima have fueled opposition to nuclear energy. However, the technology has two advantages over other forms of power production. Nuclear energy does not emit greenhouse gasses. Unlike solar and wind, nuclear power plants produce a lot of energy. Modern plants have safety features that make the possibility of a nuclear accident quite low. The idea that nuclear power is environmentally benign may be hard for some to accept, but the facts speak for themselves.