What's His Point?


What's the subtext in Dave's column dismissing Green industry as unable to unilaterally create full employment (Sept. 6, 2011 column)? That climate change is a hoax? Or that the science, as Rick Perry says, is "not settled"? Pardon me, but since when is 100 percent certainty the criterion for public policy?


We weren't 100 percent certain that ...

• Saddam had WMD, but we went to war anyway

• the Bush tax cuts would destroy the budget, but Congress enacted them anyway

• a nuclear arsenal would deter the Soviets (we still don't know that they did, but we can probably say that we don't know that they didn't)

• repealing regulations on business will lead to 20 percent GDP growth, 106 percent employment, and the Second Coming of Christ, but there's a lot of agitation for it

• Rick Perry would make a really lousy president, but he's running anyway
• there's an ominipotent, omniscient, ageless, timeless, unseen, bearded being in the sky, but lots of people believe it anyway, despite there being ZERO evidence for it

You see?

We do lots of things that we're not sure -- absolutely, positively sure -- will work. But we do 'em anyway. Like voting. And what a waste of time that's turned out to be.

What if there is global warming?

We'll only know for sure by the time it's too late to do anything about it.