PETA gets it

No the world isn't ending. For a change I think PETA may actually be onto something and their $1 million prize to the first scientist to make the first commercially available grown chicken meat (H/T Instapundit) gives me a chance to blog about both the environment, entrepreneurship and innovation on earth day no less.

Despite the "end of the world" type rhetoric, most people who preach about global warming are the same ones who aren't willing to make any sort of meaningful sacrifice - take December's UN conference on climate change where so many sanctimonious bureaucrats and celebrities came together at luxury resorts that there wasn't enough space for their personal jets.

I think the appropriate response to people who worry about global warming and ramble on about how "we have to do something" is to ask them when they gave up meat for gaia. From the Guardian:

Producing 1kg of beef results in more CO2 emissions than going for a three-hour drive while leaving all the lights on at home, scientists said today.

Glenn Reynolds' perspective has it right - I'll believe it's a crisis when the people who say it's a crisis start acting like there's a crisis. Further, with this initiative, similar to the X-prizes, PETA gets it - the route to change isn't about restraining or depriving people of goods and services they want. Real and sustainable change will come from markets and ideas. If their prize really achieves their goal of spurring the research to manufacture meat that's indistinguishable from the real thing they will do more for the environment and for animals than any initiative they've had before.