It's Not Easy Being Green but it is Very Lucrative

Salvador Cordova wrote Sanford’s pro-ID thesis supported by PNAS paper, read it and weep, literally. Quoting:

Cornell Geneticist John Sanford argued that Darwinism is wrong because the rate of genetic deterioration is so high that natural selection could not arrest it. If natural selection cannot arrest genetic deterioration, how then could it be the mechanism for evolutionary improvement?

Sanford predicted through his research that human genome is deteriorating. This was a daring scientific prediction, and now Michael Lynch of the elite National Academy published on the topic for his inaugural paper. The NAS has now made the paper available to the public free of charge.

Read it, and weep, literally:

Rate, Molecular Spectrum, and Consequences of Human Mutation

A focus on the human mutation rate is not new. It has been noted by James Crow- The high spontaneous mutation rate: Is it a health risk? and by Nachman and Crowell- Estimate of the Mutation Rate per Nucleotide in Humans. Nachman and Crowell take note of a paradox made apparent by the "high deleterious mutation rate in humans." They concluded by remarking that "the results presented here indicate that some form of positive epistasis among deleterious mutations is likely."

This quote appears at Telic Thoughts:

the impact of deleterious mutations is accumulating on a time scale that is approximately the same as that for scenarios associated with global warming

LOL.

Being ever alert in noting newly evolved species of social causes, that caught my attention. I think we could be witnessing a new cause in the making. This, like some many of its ancestors, holds forth great promise. The threat- high human mutation rates. The effect- disease and death. The genesis of a new social movement is apparent. After all the global warming movement was built around much less. From Crow's paper:

My concern, however, is not with mutation as a cause of evolution, but rather as a factor in current and future human welfare. Since most mutations, if they have any effect at all, are harmful, the overall impact of the mutation process must be deleterious. And it is this deleterious effect that I want to discuss.

Great stuff. All the elements are present. Concern. Human welfare. Motivating one to want to discuss deleterious effects. Can legislation be far behind? And oh that funding. Hope the tea baggers don't sabotage the fun. But there is more:

I conclude that for a number of diseases the mutation rate increases with age and at a rate much faster than linear. This suggests that the greatest mutational health hazard in the human population at present is fertile old males. If males reproduced shortly after puberty (or the equivalent result were attained by early collection of sperm and cold storage for later use) the mutation rate could be greatly reduced.

You can sense where this is heading. Go for it man. But alas there was this disappointing remark:

I am not advocating this.

C'mon, take a stand. Don't wimp out on us before the cause even gets untracked. We don't have the rules and (more importantly) the money arranged yet. Sometimes you just have to look at the pros to see how to ruin (or advance) a cause. From Greens Shackle National Security - and Renewable Energy:

A more likely reason is that the Chinese want to manufacture the finished goods, thereby creating countless “green” factory jobs, paid for with US and EU taxpayer subsidies, channeled through GE, Siemens, Vestas and other “socially responsible” companies that then install the systems across Europe and the USA.

The Chinese economy is not growing for lack of good planning and is seizing on opportunities that leftist zealots in the West present. Kermit said something about how good it is to feel green. The Chinese know of the wisdom of that frog. Let the west feel good while they take their money. All for the environment of course. The white west is soooo smart. No wonder arrogance is the norm on MSNBC while outrage pervades the electorate. And there is this too:

The Indian government is planning to launch a $11 billion fund to help finance the massive power generation planned during 2012-2017.

and this nugget:

Coal remains the backbone of the generation sector in India with more than 55 percent of the power generated by coal-fired power plants

Lest we forget China’s Thirst for Oil.

China’s growth has been stellar with high GDP numbers reported yearly. In 2009, Chinese crude oil imports accounted for 52% of the country’s total oil consumption, up from 45% in 2006. Importing more than 50% is recognized as an energy security alert. By 2020, analysts believe that 65% of the oil consumed in China will have to be imported. Not that long ago, China was an oil exporter in 1992.

Yes folks, those solar panels and wind mills made in China come out of some very fossil fuel run factories. So what are we looking at here? Vast increases in the amount of fossil fuels consumed in China, India and other developing economies in Asia and Africa. This outputs (and will output even more in the near future) vast amounts of CO2, dwarfing any savings in the prissy west. If you developed warm feelings for the green cause while attending an institution of higher learning and get the feeling you have been had you are right on. The white man's burden is heavy but it is not being shouldered by some very savvy businessmen in Europe and America who stay ahead of the regulatory curve. Rather the burden for our environmental fantasies fall on working class stiffs on both continents.

If we could get our green marketing directors headed over to Crow's lab they just might develop the seed of a good social cause and funnel some more cash to research into disease in the process. It would do more good than the current social justice mania.