Yes, it's been a while. Enough about that. Back to blogging about physics and the environment, y'all. This stuff is for real.
A friend of mine alerted me today to a Bloomberg article about a proposed bill in Kansas to "outlaw sustainability." Now, a title like that makes you do a double take, but a good critic of science journalism always hesitates to take a sensational title too seriously, so I found the actual house bill, proposed by state congressman Hedke after, according to the Bloomberg article, "maybe a dozen" people had approached him about it.
(Man, I want to propose some bills in my own state, too! I want to propose one outlawing congressional stupidity! Maybe I should get twelve of my closest friends to give my congressman a call and he'll work something up...oh wait. Twelve of my friends aren't oil and gas lobbyists.)
Anyway, I was correct in my skepticism that "outlawing sustainability" is not exactly what this bill does--but in its own way, what the bill is actually doing is much worse. And, contrary to most hopelessly incomprehensible piece of legislation, it's also a surprising short, plain, and easy read. I've quoted it in it's entirely below, with emphasis on the things that especially stood out to me.
