Amazonia was once savannah, until the Andes arose and trapped the clouds that grew over the Indian Ocean.

Things change, and only an arrogant fool would think to stop it.

The late John Martin, an oceanographic scientist (marine biologist) once quipped that he could start an ice age with half a tanker of iron. His theories on phytoplankton blooms have now been proven. There need be no global warming, cyclic, man-made or whatever.

Dean,

We start doing cost-benefit analysis of things and all of a sudden we'll find that most of our recylcing efforts have really been about lining the pockets of a few favored businessmen who got the ear of local pols...and who, of course, bought off the enviros with some donations. Beware the do-gooder; its not in his interest to actually have any good done.

Well, certainly most recycling--other than tin cans--is environmentally pointless or outright destructive to the environment. That's certainly one of many areas where we need more such appraisals.

Dean,

Be cool if we could get a constitutional amendment requiring anyone who submits a law for passage to provide a peer-reviewed cost-benefit analysis, wouldn't it?

Probably only get one or two laws per year....

Well, he does say some silly things, nonetheless - what is he proposing, a $150 billion carbon tax to provide clean water and sanitation to the huddled masses? That $150b/year to slow global warming by 6 years strikes me as something he plucked from where the sun don't shine, or one of these shiny new environmental lobby groups who just happen to be funded by Exxon Mobil or Shell or somesuch.

How is most recycling pointless or destructive to the environment? Just asking.

Max: The $150 billion a year is the cost that the advocates for the Kyoto treaty use themselves.

Jeff: Depends on what you're recycling. But paper may be the worst offender. The energy costs to recycle the paper are higher than those to harvest the tree farms. Furthermore, there are very substantial chemical waste and air pollotant issues created from the neeed to wash the ink off the paper for re-use.

By comparison, the vast, overwhelming majority of trees chopped down for paper are grown on tree farms that are devoted specifically to that purpose. In other words, those trees are like corn or wheat or beats, on an only slightly longer than normal schedule: they're planted specifically for the purposes of harvesting, and when they're harvested they're replanted.

Indeed, the more recycled paper used, the less incentive there is for private industry to create tree farms, and the more likely they'll use the land for golf courses or housing developments or to grow some other crop like corn or wheat or beats or....

Then there's plastic. Guess what? The energy it takes and the chemicals it produces to recycle consumer plastic products is more damaging to the environment than just extracting the necessary ingredients from the ground.

Most recycling does nothing to help the environment, but sure makes people feel good.

Note: there is an exception. Aluminum cans are an efficient and environmentally friendly form of recycling. But paper and plastic are not.

(Oh, and by the way, we're nowhere near running out of landfill space. I mean nowhere near it. I mean, like, we won't even come close to running out in the next 10,000 years even at current growth rates. Just in case you were wondering.)