BBQ alternatives absurd
This climate change vaudeville act continues to descend into the theater of the absurd (“Alternatives to barbeque reduce carbon footprint,” Sept. 12, page 2).
So let me get this straight: the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) is encouraging Taiwanese to reduce their carbon footprint by substituting the age-old practice of barbequing on the Mid-Autumn Festival with more healthy and “environmentally friendly” activities such as gambling and drinking bubble milk tea.
To continue in the same vein, I have a few more suggestions for the agency: Why don’t they encourage Taiwanese to drink more or maybe chew more betel nut? Why not? Hey, if the Taiwanese are going to be obese gamblers, they might as well be alcoholic, obese, betel nut-chewing gamblers. Human folly never ceases to amaze me. Someone needs to create an agency to protect the Taiwanese from the Environmental “Protection” Administration.
A note to the EPA: Try encouraging Taiwanese to reduce carbon emissions by driving fewer cars so you can clean up the horrible air pollution in this country.
A note to the Taiwanese: Reducing your carbon footprint to mitigate climate change is a waste of time because the climate has always changed and so-called global warming is an elaborate hoax whose scientific credentials are nothing short of what used to be called quack science.
Don’t believe it? Paul Watson, one of the founders of Greenpeace, was very blunt when speaking on the issue of climate change: “It doesn’t matter what is true; it only matters what people believe is true ... you are what the media define you to be.”
Or how about this piece of candid observation by the British Institute for Public Policy Research in a report entitled Warm Words: How Are We Telling the Climate Story and Can We Tell It Better?: “The task of climate change agencies is not to persuade by rational argument, but in effect to develop and nurture a new ‘common sense’ ... We need to work in a more shrewd and contemporary way, using subtle techniques of engagement ... The ‘facts’ need to be treated as being so taken-for-granted that they need not be spoken ... It amounts to treating climate-friendly activities as a brand that can be sold. This is, we believe, the route to mass behavior changes.”
The EPA will never be persuaded otherwise because you can’t reason someone out of a belief they never reasoned themselves into.
As for the Taiwanese: Keep barbequing, especially that cow on Kinmen.
JASON LAMANTIA
Jhongli City,
Taoyuan County
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