I've long thought that the anthropogenic global warming/overwhelming scientific alarmism campaign involves a nexus between politics and marketing, and that to this end, the average person (especially in the United States) is being kept in the dark as much as possible about how the practical, day-to-day applications of anthropogenic global warming theory might play out.

For example, telling people that they shouldn't eat meat is considered a hard sell (something which might generate voter backlash) and is thus very bad. Never mind that by the environmentalists' own "scientific" data, meat is responsible for more greenhouse gases than cars. People are conditioned to see Big Oil as evil, not farmers. An oil refinery is an evil image; a herd of cattle grazing in a pasture is not. I've argued this before, as I think it's vital to understanding the dynamics of the anthropogenic global warming argument, but there's almost nothing about it in the MSM, and despite the best efforts of PETA and a few other animal rights groups, the AGW evil of meat consumption is pretty much a taboo subject.

Of course, when activists get together (as they did at Al Gore's Live Earth fiasco), there's no way to avoid the touchy subject of meat, but again, it does not find its way into the MSM, and has to be scavenged from alternative journals by bloggers in search of incriminating nuggets.

Recently, Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters found lots of nuggets in a report from Life Style Extra:

Peta activists said that Wembley should take meat off the menu after a recent UN report found that the meat industry creates more greenhouse gases than all the cars, trucks, ships and planes in the world combined.

Absolutely fabulous. And, in reality, if the UN was seriously concerned about anthropogenic global warming, wouldn't they themselves remove meat from their cafeterias, and require all employees on the payroll - including IPCC scientists - to immediately become vegetarian?

So don't expect to read about meat in your local paper. There's more juicy stuff at Newsbusters, of course, and PETA is (rightly so, IMO) charging the Live Earth promoters with hypocrisy:

....Peta campaigner Yvonne Taylor said that it would be "hypocritical" if the damage caused by the industry was overlooked at the concert, and said that the group had written to the managing director of Wembley Stadium, Alex Horne, urging him not to sell meat at the event.

She said: "There's no such thing as a meat eating environmentalist.

If my driving is the planet's business, so is your eating!

Which brings to mind what Noel calls the best punch line:

"Researchers at the University of Chicago have determined that switching to a vegan diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius."

Why this almost calls for a bumpersticker:

"MY VEGGIE DIET BEATS YOUR PRIUS!"

Except where would a car-free vegetarian put it?

Another topic unlikely to prove popular with ordinary citizens is the turning off of their electricity to save the planet. While it wasn't widely reported in the U.S., London experienced an Al Gore sponsored mini-blackout called "Lights Out London":

Between 9pm and 10pm on Thursday 21 June, many of London's most famous landmarks, including Buckingham Palace, Clarence House, Canary Wharf, the BT Tower and at least one government department, will execute the black-out to raise awareness of global warming.

The campaign has the support of Al Gore, the former US vice president, who suggested a similar plan for Britain last week, only to be blocked by the National Grid. Gore had wanted a massive switch-off of lights by television audiences during next month's Live Earth concerts, a series of 10 shows across seven continents held over 24 hours. The politician-turned-climate campaigner, whose surprise hit film An Inconvenient Truth warns of the imminent dangers of global warming, had hoped that his gesture would be as emblematic as that made by he actor Will Smith when he coordinated people across the world to click their fingers every three seconds during the Live8 concerts in 2005 to convey the frequency with which children were dying in Africa.

The National Grid vetoed Gore's idea, saying the power surge when people switched their lights back on could cause disruptions in supply and even endanger patients on life-support machines in hispital.

The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, believes such events are powerful ways of encouraging individuals and businesses to spend an hour in active, thoughtful semi-darkness.

'I fully support the initiative,' he said. 'This campaign will bring Londoners together to demonstrate their willingness to tackle climate change. At 9pm on 21 June I will be making sure that none of City Hall's non-essential lights and appliances are on.'

Hmmm.... I wonder how many ordinary Londoners are old enough to remember the power blackouts that helped elect Iron Maggie Thatcher. Not that there's anything wrong with saving power or the spirit of voluntarism (especially when there's a war or other national emergency), but there's something about Al Gore's concert jet-setters which and the legendary quantities of fuel they consumed which tends to undercut the moral authority of their demands.

What would have been really embarrassing from a PR perspective would be if people had died:

IT WAS intended to be the symbolic gesture at a global series of rock concerts next month to alert people to climate change. Al Gore, the former US presidential candidate turned climate doomsayer, had wanted a massive switch-off of lights by television audiences, but the National Grid has vetoed the idea.

The inconvenient truth, it says, is that the power surge when people switched their lights back on could cause disruptions in supply and even endanger hospital patients on life support machines.

It would also have given Britain its biggest blackout since the blitz and the miners' strikes of the 1970s - and encapsulated the message of the urgency to save energy.

Maybe all citizens should be forced to spend an hour in active, thoughtful semi-darkness! And why stop at an hour? Why not just simply turn off the lights at rotating regular intervals, for as long as it takes to save the planet?

Speaking of the power grid, one of its principles has long been that electricity is a fungible commodity, something freely tradeable. Thus, (as John Beck explained when I wondered about the possibility of an Internet shutdown by government fiat), electrical power flows freely through a myriad of places.

I guess I need to get over that idea, for in New Jersey, the power that supplies the power grid is not longer fungible. At least, so says a new law which I suspect the average New Jerseyan is about as likely to have read as the legislators who congratulated each other and Al Gore at the signing ceremony.

Yes, the same Al Gore. The law is such a big deal that Al Gore flew in as a visiting dignitary for the signing (which was timed to coincide with the concerts that have saved the earth):

Al Gore, the former vice president turned environmental activist, was on hand Friday as Gov. Jon S. Corzine signed legislation requiring the Garden State to achieve ambitious reductions in emissions of global-warming gases.

New Jersey became the third state, behind California and Hawaii, to pass a comprehensive greenhouse gas reduction law.

"In order to inspire hope and build the enthusiasm necessary to get this crisis solved, it's great to be able to tell 'em in every country that yes, the national government is not doing the right thing yet, it's true, but you need to know that state governments are beginning to take the lead, cities are beginning to take the lead, and citizens of this country are beginning to take the lead," Gore told an enthusiastic crowd of lawmakers and environmental activists who had come to the Meadowlands sports complex to witness the bill signing.

The signing of New Jersey's "Global Warming Response Act" took place on the eve of a series of concerts around the world drawing attention to global warming, including one at The Meadowlands in New Jersey that Gore said he would attend.

"This is the strictest global warming law in the country for two reasons," said David Pringle, campaign director of the New Jersey Environmental Federation. "Because of the mandatory emissions reductions and because of a provision that says out-of-state power producers can't move power through New Jersey without meeting New Jersey standards."

We all hear talk about various "agendas" (usually covert), and what they plan to do if the activists get their way. I've been around left for most of my life, and I have never until now seen such an all-encompassing way to get control over literally aspect of human existence. It's a totalitarian's dream which would allow government to control how we live, where we live, what we drive, what we eat, where we are allowed to travel, what time we have to turn out the lights, and if Big Brother sees fit, when we reenter the Dark Ages. I call it "totalitarianism," but because it's dressed up as science, ordinary people don't understand the implications. That's because the science is over their heads, and the argument is framed in such a way that the political control is said to flow directly from the scientific arguments without passing "go." Of course, ordinary people (the type most likely to become irate if they understood the implications) aren't likely to get past the "science," mainly because they don't have time, patience, educational background, or scientific training. So they are told "the debate is over" without even understanding the nature of the debate.

My position is that they shouldn't be debating the science, because the political conclusions are so built into it that it's not real science. Forget anthropogenic global warming theory, whether there is an overwhelming scientific consensus, and what it might be. Denial is for libertarian crackpots, free market Republicans, old-fashioned socialists, and nerds.

What the little guy in the street needs is not denial of science, but defiance.

In this light, maybe go veggie campaigns and power blackouts aren't a bad idea.

And why is Hillary's loud silence about all this being so overwhelmingly unreported? Is she going to be allowed to get away with silently sitting around and letting Al Gore's antics make her look reasonable?

I mean, seriously, Where does she get off describing Al Gore's gas tax as "hardly politically palatable at this moment"?

I'll just bet she feels the same way about vegetarian diets and power blackouts, but she'll never say anything. Needless to say, this makes me feel completely triangulated, because I have to wear myself out wasting my perfectly good anthropogenic global warming defiance on Al Gore, who isn't running for anything, but whose continuous presence ensures that the anthropogenic global warming crowd will stay in the Democratic Party (while making Hillary look "reasonable" to the people who don't have time to think).

I hate scientific double standards.

MORE: Via Glenn Reynolds, an incredibly cool way to cut back on online activities:

When employees of The State came in to work following a three day weekend, they found their workstations overloaded with "cannot logon" and "Exchange communication" error messages. The Network Services folks had it even worse: the server room was a sweltering 109° Fahrenheit and filled with dead or dying servers.

At first, everyone had assumed that the Primary A/C, the Secondary A/C, and the Tertiary A/C had all managed to fail at once. But after cycling the power, the A/Cs all fired up and brought the room back to a cool 64°. At the time, the "why" wasn't so important: the network administrators had to figure out how to bring online the four Exchange Services, six Domain Controllers, a few Sun servers, and the entire State Tax Commission's server farm. Out of all of the downed servers, those were the only ones that did not come back to life upon a restart.

They worked day and night to order new equipment, build new servers, and restore everything from back-up. Countless overtime hours and nearly two hundred thousand dollars in equipment costs later, they managed to bring everything back online. When the Exchange servers were finally restored, the following email finally made its way to everyone's inbox, conveniently answering the "why"

I got a keycard from [the facility manager's] desk and shut off the A/C units. I'm sure you guys can deal with it being warm for an hour or two when you come in tomorrow morning.

Aren't hospitals also wasting a lot of power making patients, you know, comfortable?

MORE: Here's Ace describing his "favorite hobby":

clear-cutting forests using the most fuel-inefficient machinery available.