Thursday, March 17, 2005
FILTHY OLD CARS WILL SAVE US ALL
Ever wondered how to reconcile apparently contradictory statements in the Koran? Bilal Abu Aisha has the answer:
The Prophet ordered naming newborns on the seventh day. That is as soon as they were born. Allah’s Messenger said: “Every child is mortgaged with its Aqeeqah, which is to be slaughtered for it on its seventh day. On that day, it should also be named, and its head should be shaved.” On the other hand the Prophet said: “A baby boy was born for me this past night. So I named him with my (great grand) father’s name, Ibrahim.” The best way to reconcile between the Prophet’s statements is by allowing both of them to hold simultaneously.
Sorted. The Green faith, popular in the west, may have to adopt a similar stance. Next Monday the ABC will broadcast a BBC program on the horror of global dimming, allegedly responsible for “many thousands of deaths through drought and famine”:
Global dimming is a product of the fossil fuels that cause global warming. It is the result of tiny airborne pieces of soot, ash and sulphur compounds reflecting back the heat of the sun.
By allowing less sunlight to reach the Earth, global dimming is cushioning us from the full impact of global warming, climatologists say. They fear that as we burn coal and oil more cleanly, and dimming is reduced, the full effects of global warming will be unleashed.
Torch that Prius! Ban catalytic converters! The dimming must be maintained!
The overriding concern expressed by climate scientists in this program is that our climate will be radically altered, rendering many parts of the planet uninhabitable - unless concerted action is taken to combat both global dimming and global warming.
But combating global dimming will only expose us to the even greater threat of global warming. Never mind; as Bilal reminds us, “The best way to reconcile between the Prophet’s statements is by allowing both of them to hold simultaneously.” (Incidentally, most of our planet is already uninhabitable; we call these areas “oceans”.) Green is a religion, of course. Look what happens when ecological holy objects are threatened:
For the past four weeks, a group of protestors has been camped outside the General Motors facility in Burbank. They’re not upset about labor or wages or jobs going off shore, although they certainly could be. No, these people are irate because GM is about to destroy many of the last of the EV 1 electric cars that it built in the 1990s.
GM made one thousand of the clean ‘green’ cars, but leased most of them. Last August, when those leases were up, GM took back the cars. Since then, according to the protestors, GM has been crushing the cars in Mesa, Arizona.
Because nobody wants them. It’s just as well for global dimming that these anti-dim machines are meeting the crusher; greens should applaud, and demand the continued manufacture of Iran’s dim-friendly Paykan:
You may be able to smell Iran’s boxy national car five minutes before it rattles into view, but the imminent end of its production line has stirred mixed emotions.
The square-cut and gas-guzzling Paykan, Persian for arrowhead, is familiar to Britons because its design is the same as the Hillman Hunter car of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the Paykans spluttering through the tides of Tehran traffic are well over 30 years old.
They will save us from the warming. Hail Paykan, blocker of the sun!