Time’s Global Warming Plan Ironically Calls for Only Right Turns

Dan Gainor
April 2nd, 2007 6:04 PM
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If you can survive reading Time magazine, then you should be able to handle all 44 pages of “The Global Warming Survival Guide.” It’s chock full of diatribes, calls for increased regulation and “51 Things You Can Do to Make a Difference.” Unfortunately, recycling your Time magazine before reading it didn’t make the list.

Time has a bit of a bias – for Mother Earth and against all the rest of us. According to the lead story, “we can also be shortsighted and brutish, hungry for food, resources, land – and heedless of the mess we leave behind trying to get them.”

I could go into detail about all the craziness and discussion of our “250-year industrial bacchanal,” and I do, but let’s explore the fun stuff – the crazy 51 ideas. Readers were supposed to ride the bus, move to a high-rise, pay the carbon tax, skip the steak and only make right turns. (UPS found that its trucks idled more waiting for left turns.)

The 51 are almost more entertaining than “The 300,” so all this week the Business & Media Institute will be addressing the most enjoyable or ridiculous of the suggestions. Time even rated them based on their “impact” and “feel good factor.” I’d feel better if I never had to read it.

Here are two highlights:

  • #6 “Ditch the McMansion” – Time thinks oversized houses are “architecturally offensive,” so it wrote about former art professor Jay Shafer, who “dwells alone in a home fit for a hobbit.” It’s 100 sq. ft. Impact: 5. Feel good factor: 2. (Especially for Shafer.)
  • #5 “Pay the carbon tax” – In one of the most outlandish superlatives seen in the magazine, Time claimed, “Everyone agrees that it’s necessary to reduce carbon emissions around the world.” What better left-wing way to approach that faulty claim than to tax the heck out of everyone? Impact: 9 (especially on politicians who promote it.) Feel good factor: 2. (Even Time couldn’t claim Americans want to be taxed.)