Political Irony

I’m always complaining about false equivalences, like claims that all politicians are equivalently bad, regardless of party.

However, I have to admit that Kentucky just might be the exception that proves the rule. In a hearing about carbon emissions and global warming, both sides seem to be vying for the boobie prize of stupidity.

On one side was Republican Brandon Smith, saying “I won’t get into the debate about climate change. But I’ll simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There’s no factories on Mars that I’m aware of.”

Well, actually, I will dispute that, since the average temperature on Mars is actually –81 degrees Fahrenheit, being further away from the sun and having an atmosphere thinner than at the top of our tallest mountains. Not to mention the strong winds.

Representing the Kentucky alternative was Democrat Kevin Sinnette, who claimed that climate change didn’t kill the dinosaurs, so human beings should be just fine. “The dinosaurs died, and we don’t know why, but the world adjusted. And to say that this is what’s going to cause detriment to people, I just don’t think it’s out there.”

I may not like false equivalences, but these two are equivalent in falsehood!

The World Council of Christians, a global coalition of 345 churches representing half a billion religious members, has announced that it will pull all of its investments in fossil fuels, including oil, gas, and coal. According to them “The committee discussed the ethical investment criteria, and considered that the list of sectors in which the WCC does not invest should be extended to include fossil fuels.”

So now that fossil fuels have become a religious issue, will Republicans suddenly decide to stop subsidizing them with our taxes, and maybe even advocate a carbon tax? If so, maybe hell will freeze over which will definitely help combat global warming.

As I’ve been predicting in this blog for a long time, solar energy just makes way more sense than burning fossil fuels, even ignoring environmental issues and just going on pure economics. The only thing keeping fossil fuels going now is huge governmental subsidies.

The Guardian puts it bluntly — “Even if coal were free to burn, power stations couldn’t compete” with solar energy. Last week in Australia (where they admittedly get a lot of sunshine) the wholesale price of electricity went negative. Yup, the power stations had to pay people to take their electricity.

And it isn’t just a change in the source of energy, it is a complete change in the model. Most of the new solar is being installed in the same place where it is consumed. That eliminates the need for huge distribution networks and centralized power generation stations which use up valuable land. Just put a solar panel on your roof. Businesses are installing panels over their parking lots, which provides shade for cars in addition to cheap energy.

It has become a no brainer.

Sometime around 2018, solar will become the energy source of choice to power cities. By 2040, over half of all electricity will be generated in the same place where it is used. The amount of solar energy generated in Australia is expected to go up 6 times in the next decade alone. And with increased volume, the price will come down due to economies of scale.

With solar coming on so strong, most coal-fired power plants lost money in Australia. No wonder utilities are working so hard to raise taxes on solar power. But it doesn’t matter, even with huge subsidies for fossil fuels and taxes on solar, fossil fuels are doomed.

You just can’t compete with the sun. Free energy and a (bigger than) world-wide power distribution network to boot.

“BioShock Infinite” is a computer game set in the floating city of Columbia, which is run by a religious zealot and largely populated by xenophobic racists who wage war against the heathens of the world (i.e., those people who don’t live in Columbia). In this city the idea of “America” has become a kind of fetishistic religion and the founding fathers are worshiped as gods. Here’s an image from the promotional materials for the game:

I know, I know, you have to concentrate and remember that this is just a game. But “For God and Country, It is our Holy Duty to Guard Against the Foreign Hordes” is just too ironic since one of the figures in the image is a Native American Indian. Clearly the game is making fun of racism, but do the racists realize that?

Now here’s where we double down on the irony. The National Liberty Federation, a conservative “tea party” group from Florida. They post a lot of right-wing meme images and racist links to their Facebook page (which has 95K likes), and recently posted the above image. Seriously. A tea party group Facebooked an image meant to satirize the tea party.

And they aren’t the only ones identifying with a fictional racist video game. Over at Fox News, they illustrated a segment against immigration reform with the following logo:

In case that doesn’t look familiar to you, here’s the logo from the very same BioShock Infinite:

Apparently, Fox News not only blatantly copied their logo, they did it without realizing what it represents. Well, what do you expect from the same network that showed a waving American flag along with live images of the US bombing Iraq in 2003?