Yesterday I was in Houston helping to wrap up my project and create training materials. I was scheduled to fly back home on the 4:30 flight to Dallas-Love Field. I arrived with plenty of time to spare. What I haven’t mentioned is the torrential downpour that had been happening in north Houston on Thursday. Apparently the weather delayed the flight… and most every other flight flying into Houston. For the flights that it did not direclty delay it delayed the crew who were to work each individual flight so everything just went crazy.

By about 3:30 my flight had been delayed until 5:11, which was fine. However the gate changed from gate b70 to b65 which was in another hub. So I walked there. Once I had arrived I noticed that the gate had then changed to b81, which was in another hub. I walked to b81 to find that the flight had been delayed until 8:20… OK. I waited in line and spoke to a service rep ho gave me a standby pass for the 6:30 flight (which was previously the 5:30 flight). It was in b84f, which was an extension hub of another hub on the opposite side of the terminal. I walked down there. b84f. After walking down there and going to the bathroom I thought I would go have some dinner. Schlotzsky’s. It was good for airport food. I then walked out to double check which flight was doing better. My first flight or the flight that I was on standby for. The standby flight had been moved to b63 or something so I walked there. After reading for a bit I looked up and the gate no longer had info on it for dallas-love. I walked and checked the monitor… it had been cancelled, but my original flight had been moved up to take it’s place at 6:30. It was in another hub.

I walked there. At this point everything becomes fuzzy. I think I remember having to swap to another hub only to find out that it was still going to be taking off from b81a. I had a nice relaxing sit in the b81a hub area. To my consternation my flight was now listed on the monitors as departing from terminal b-… yup b-, no number. I asked the service rep what was going on. He said the dallas flight was still taking off from there but the terminals were now overbooked so it was left without a number. I sat and read. After sitting waiting at b81a for flight 2155 to Dallas-Love it turns out that that it is to take off from b83… but it was only a few feet from my current sitting position. The plane took off at about 7:20, and I made it home safely.

You might be wondering what the title of the blog post has to do with anything. I always keep a magazine or two with me on these business trips. In situations like this I can’t read a novel as easily, and magazines are perfect since I can devour an article in a few minutes. “The Economist” got a good read from cover to cover and “The Atlantic” was about 3/4 finished when I landed in Dallas. If you have never read the economist, let me describe it to you. It’s dry. There is no fluff. Imagine a magazine full of editorials on politics, business, trade, and world news. No celebrities, no movies, no entertainment, no fluff pieces, or even embedded reports (there may be embedded reports but the they avoid personalizing any articles). It consists of stats, projections, opinion, and politics. I love it. It’s concise and it’s now my first line of world news. This last issue was the energy issue. There was a proud number cruncher feeding the writing staff, and the writing staff ate it up. Their consistency has thoroughly convinced me that a $30 tax or offset per metric ton of carbon equivalent emissions would represent a proper counter to the negative externality of climate change on the energy market. They mentioned it about a dozen times.

I agree. Seriously. After Bailey argued for it, I’m for it too. Except that I’m not. I can’t figure out how the poor would cope, with such a substantial increase in their already high energy prices.

Tags: airport,flight,global warming,hub hopping,silliness,the economist,walking
Categories: BJ, BJ's Life
1 Comment »

There’s a great article in the latest reason magazine that has Ronald Bailey looking for a solution to global warming. As a reason magazine science correspondent he’s about as libertarian as you can get.

It was neat to see the author of Eco-Scam: The False Prophets of Environmental Apocalypse to then say this in 2005.

Anyone still holding onto the idea that there is no global warming ought to hang it up. All data sets—satellite, surface, and balloon—have been pointing to rising global temperatures. In fact, they all have had upward-pointing arrows for nearly a decade.

You can read the full text at reason online.

Obviously they believe the private market should solve the issue, but there’s no real reason for them to do so. Their proposals, spoken through clenched teeth it seems, are either a cap and trade system or carbon taxes.

The only true effect of all this is to make a competitive market and begin to quanitify the negative externality of climate change as related to greenhouse gas emissions by energy producers. I suggest reading the article.

Tags: global warming,libertarian,reason,reason magazine
Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
2 Comments »

I’ve written similar things before, but like any discussion on global warming I’d like to frame my personal stance. I believe humans have a drastic affect on the environment. From straight pollution to the destruction of habitat to global warming, the existence of man has a significant effect on the world around us. I think we’re causing global warming, but I disagree that it’s in humanity’s best interest to fight it using the currently proposed methodology. I feel there are other concerns to human life that are more important. Disease, war, hunger, and poverty should all take priority over global warming. These are tangible things with easily verifiable statistical results in the longevity of humans.

In my arguments I appear to be a global warming denier. I’ve mentioned before that global warming is a red herring, and I stand by that assertion, but I also firmly believe that humans are causing it, or at the very least exacerbating it. Yesterday the new Wired was deliverd to our door, and in was an article on how to combat global warming. They obviously framed the article as a straw man, but the article makes a wonderful point in subtext, coincidentally it’s the same argument I have made in the past. Give it a read. And go through each of the different sections to see what they surmise as to be the best ways to combat global warming the quickest.

The comments are getting pretty crazy on the wired page. Evangelical environmentalists are up in arms, and they seem to be missing the point. The article is a straw man that is trying to point out what’s wrong with the current discussion of climate change. Rather than focusing on man as a part of the world, environmentalists are rallying behind something specious in the grand scheme of perpetual human inhabitation of the Earth. Ecological footprint is the discussion we need to have. Global warming is just an aspect of our ecological footprint, and not even the worst one, but it is being sold as the whole deal.

It does however miss the quickest way to control global warming. Kill off 2/3s of the world’s population… they get credit for mentioning the black plague though.

Read the Article at Wired.com

Tags: efficiency,global warming,wired
Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
2 Comments »

I’ve posted about this in the past, but a recent cato daily podcast spells it out succinctly. I share the expert’s opinion on this, and please note that it is not denying that climate changes exists and is most likely caused by human greenhouse gas emissions, it only draws comparisons to other dangers that threaten human life. Give the podcast a listen, it’s only about 10 minutes long.

A few thoughts: Climate change is a red herring. The end result of a marketplace shift towards “green” tech would lower or eliminate reliance on foreign oil, subvert large corporate strangleholds on areas such as automobiles, power, lighting, utilities themselves, and force better manufacturing practices among companies. It is a smart idea to adopt green technology in your personal lives where it is economically feasible. Higher efficiency saves money. One major point brought up in the podcast is the human destruction of undeveloped lands for the purposes of agriculture. One of the proposed solutions to our need for a renewable portable fuel source is biofuels. Given our need for portable and easily distributable fuel ethanol and biodiesel are currently being pushed as green technologies. Not only does a huge market increase in these items put a strain on the current agricultural production of our currently developed lands, which in turn drive up prices for those who need these fundamental food sources, but it will lead to expanding the US agriculture industry as they need more and more land to fulfill not only our food needs but our portable fuel needs as well. This could be disastrous for local environments, not only in the razing of land, but the increased pesticide usage. GM crops could help solve these issues and the normal green mentality of not consuming GM crops would be avoided as we’re not actually eating the crops.

Biodiesel from algae might be a decent short term solution but everyone is stuck on ethanol. I’d like to thank Iowa and the corn lobbyists for that.

Tags: cato,climate change,global warming,podcast
Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
2 Comments »