If the marketing class will come to order, we have an interesting case study today. We’re going to focus on a product, the market penetration of which is being limited by an attribute that–on first glance–would seem to be a good thing.
Environment
A Picture From the Front
We are in the midst of a culture war.
Hunting is on the decline in the United States, even though it is an essential activity for conservation and wildlife preservation. So-called “animal rights” groups are delighted, apparently unable to understand the basic issues behind preserving populations of wild animals in the world today.
There are a few reasons why the number of hunters is on the wane, but most people would agree that the one factor which has the greatest impact is that fewer fathers are teaching their children to hunt. Hunting is usually a family tradition, and it most often is the foundation of a true understanding of wildlife issues.
Let me show you the worst nightmare of an anti-hunting activist.
That isn’t my family, in case you are wondering. The mom is a friend of mine, and she sent the picture.
It seems that the younger kids were so excited about being out in the woods that they couldn’t sit still. They made so much noise that no one even saw any game. Their dad, the tall fellow pictured above, had to take his oldest son on a later hunt.
Please take a look at the young girl to the left. She was going on her first hunt, and she carefully coordinated her outfit. The pink shirt matches the pink gators on her feet.
It would be less than truthful for me to say that we are winning this particular battle in the culture war. But there is hope.
(Cross posted at Hell in a Handbasket.)
Sometimes it Takes a Marxist
…to really appreciate capitalism.
(link via Five Feet of Fury)
Quote of the Day
California and some Northeastern states have decided to force their residents to buy cars that average 43 miles-per-gallon within the next decade. Even if you applied this law to the entire world, the net effect would reduce projected warming by about 0.05 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, an amount so minuscule as to be undetectable. Global temperatures vary more than that from day to day.
Suppose you are very serious about making a dent in carbon emissions and could replace about 10% of the world’s energy sources with non-CO2-emitting nuclear power by 2020 — roughly equivalent to halving U.S. emissions. Based on IPCC-like projections, the required 1,000 new nuclear power plants would slow the warming by about 0.2 ?176 degrees Fahrenheit per century. It’s a dent.
But what is the economic and human price, and what is it worth given the scientific uncertainty?
My experience as a missionary teacher in Africa opened my eyes to this simple fact: Without access to energy, life is brutal and short. The uncertain impacts of global warming far in the future must be weighed against disasters at our doorsteps today. Bjorn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus 2004, a cost-benefit analysis of health issues by leading economists (including three Nobelists), calculated that spending on health issues such as micronutrients for children, HIV/AIDS and water purification has benefits 50 to 200 times those of attempting to marginally limit “global warming.”
Given the scientific uncertainty and our relative impotence regarding climate change, the moral imperative here seems clear to me.
Power… and the naive
Two frequent topics intersect in this Wall Street Journal article from today, October 29th titled “Power Firms Grapple with Tough Decisions”. The topics are 1) journalists that don’t understand what they are writing about 2) the impossibility of improving our US infrastructure in today’s legal and regulatory climate.
The journalist writes that “A year ago, it looked as if 100 coal-fired plants might get built.”
Only an incredibly naive person who didn’t understand anything about the history of the US energy industry would have assumed for an instant that ONE HUNDRED coal-fired plants could possibly be built in the US. Let’s sum up the power situation for you:
1) NUCLEAR – great, unless you worry about storing the radioactive waste
2) HYDRO – great, unless you love fish and babbling brooks
3) COAL – great, unless you worry about global warming
4) NATURAL GAS – great, unless you are paying the bill
5) SOLAR – great, unless you need power on peak and the sun isn’t shining
6) WIND – great, unless you don’t like the way they look, slice birds, and the fact that they are unreliable on peak