you can help us prevent hurricanes

A while back I wrote an article about how to prevent hurricanes.  It’s been a really popular post lately, and for good reason — Hurricane Isaac was recently causing a swath of destruction along its path through the southern U.S.

Hurricane Isaac in 2012

The article explained some ways to prevent hurricanes, but there has been a noticeable lack of funds coming in.  So obviously investors either haven’t found it, or they didn’t take it seriously.  I realize the presentation could’ve been made in a more “professional” manner.  It started off with some rambling (also known as digressing), and some of the ideas were intentionally over-the-top for fun.  But I make no apologies for the format — this is a humor blog, after all.  Even when legitimate ideas are released into the blogosphere, they are accompanied with humor.  That’s just how I roll.  (Well, I do have a serious blog, and it could’ve went there, but then I would’ve had to edit out the randomness, and what’s the fun in that?)

The last idea was actually somewhat viable, though.  It could make a difference in so many ways.  Obviously we wouldn’t cover the entire Sahara desert with solar panels, but we’d have to make only a something-eight percent difference to improve the current status quo.  And as the post explains, this would reduce global warming AND save money from hurricane damages AND be a clean, green, unlimited, renewable energy solution.  So what’s the problem?  All we need is appropriate funding (and by appropriate I mean a LOT, like billions of dollars), but it would pay for itself many times over.

There may be some people who worry about tampering with Mother Nature, and there are valid concerns to address, but we’ve been doing it for years already.  If things do change for the negative somehow, people will just blame labels like “Global Warming” and “Climate Change” (partly because it gives them political power and enables them to raise taxes with the cleverly named “Cap and Trade”, but I’d better not rant on that or I will surely digress).  Besides, there are solar panels already installed in the southwest U.S., and nobody complains about that changing the weather.

It’s important that we focus on the key initiative here, and that is to solve numerous global problems at once.  Well, that and make billions of dollars in profit.  But as the saying goes, it takes money to make money.  And it takes money to save the world, unless you’ve got super powers like Superman.  However none of us are Superman, and as far as I know, no one on the Buffet o’ Blog staff has any of the super powers of Superman (or we’d know, because it would be awesome to use them).  So we need investment funding, which is another way of saying “send us your money”.  We’ll send you an official certificate saying you contributed to saving the world.  Plus you’ll feel all warm and toasty inside, and you’ll help extend the life of the Earth, and you can’t put a dollar value on that.

you’re no better than rocks

What would happen if “Mother Nature” had the same rights as humans?  There are some people trying to find out.  Van Jones, former “green job czar” of President Obama, is working with various obscure groups to give plants, trees, rocks, and such the same legal rights as humans.  Van Jones is also associated with a thinktank supported by George Soros, if that means anything to you.

Supposedly Bolivia has already given the rights of nature equal status with human rights in its legal system.  The President of Bolivia has often said “the central enemy of Mother Earth is capitalism.”  That sure makes this sound political…

Some constitutional amendments being pushed for are provisions that “Nature has a right to be completely restored”.  So does that mean any building can be torn down if nature was destroyed to build it?  Wouldn’t that include everything man-made?  If you take the concept far enough, the Earth was 100% nature before we built anything.

But even ignoring the worst-case scenario with that, it would mean that you could be sued for kicking a rock, or stepping on grass, or using firewood in your fireplace.  I know, it sounds silly.  But try to convince me there aren’t people stupid and greedy enough to do it…

Why can’t we all just get along?  I don’t have any beef with plants.  I’m even okay with eating less plants (except potatoes).

I wonder what vegetarians / vegans think about this legislation?  Some of them get mad at people eating animals, but what if people get mad at them eating plants?  This could get interesting…

Where is the common sense in all this?  Be responsible with the environment, but don’t give sticks and rocks the same rights as humans.  Is it really so difficult?  Sometimes I wonder what this world is coming to…