The blind radicalism of treehuggers

Tidal Energy draws criticism

The Cornell Green Society has begun a campaign against a Cornell University Geological Sciences professor and his research into tidal energy. Quote: "What they call 'harnessing' the tides is actually depleting the energy of the moon's orbit." The Green campaign will be primarily focused on increasing campus awareness of the issue, by distributing "Save the Moon" signs to everyone passing by.

In a Green pamphlet, it calculates the moon's kinetic energy to be 6.579 X 10^28 J. If even 10% of the world's supply of electricity is supplied by tidal energy, then it would bring the moon to a full stop in 58.9 trillion years.

The professor candidly admits the claims to be technically true. In fact, he even said due to the inefficiency of prototype systems, the actual time required to bring the moon to a halt is only 57 billion years. He added, "Besides, the point is somewhat moot. The sun will burn out its supply of helium in a mere 11 billion years. In the meantime, tidal energy is a clean, safe source of energy, with moderate investment and low upkeep costs, and a very light impact on the environment.

Countered the Green spokesmen: "He is just trying to come up with flimsy excuses to justify handing over the future of our lunar gravitational resources - the resources of our children - to powerful, greedy, shortsighted corporate interests." This adds one more alternate energy source to the growing list of sources considered "no good" by Green societies all over America. Nuclear, hydroelectric, agricultural hydrocarbon and geothermal energy has all been regarded as environmentally unfriendly, leaving only wind and solar.

// begin sarcasm
They are still looking for the perpetual motion machine kept secret by evil oil companies.
// end sarcasm

This reminds me of a case where the construction of a children's hospital in California was stopped because it might endanger a rare butterfly. Sure, protect the Earth, but not to this degree.

BTW, that was a true story. No joke.

DMan, when you have a chance, could you please post some representative passages from their literature on this campaign? Pretty please? And, if they have a web-site, an URL would be fun as well.

I hate to say it, DMan, but I think that someone was pulling a prank on the students of Cornell. If you can find literature that they are publishing, or just maybe take a snapshot of the 'Save the Moon' signs, maybe we can start to figure out where these came from.

This is not an attack on you, DMan. If you are angry, the best recourse would be to fact-check my own nodes; God only knows how many falsehoods I've accidentally propogated here.

But the idea of a treehugger, or all environmentalists in general, is a good idea. It's an attempt to provide a counterpoint to the corporate view of the environment as nothing more than a resourse to exploit for monetary gain with no concern for the results. Sure, some jobs will be lost, some business opportunities missed, some profit that won't be gained - but do you think that the jobs of one generation are worth having that generation's children or grandchildren deprived of nature? Is short-term gain really worth sacrificing long-term survival?

Is this an anti-corporate view? Yeah, I suppose so. But then again, I can't recall a corporation that gives me reason to have any other perspective.

If concern for the environment, health, and survival in the future is blind radicalism, then I'm happy to be called one.