Just what is it about California and its government’s increasingly creative ways of screwing up stuff? The latest example comes from the California Air Resources Board, aka CARB, the state’s evil twin of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Seems CARB wants to have all carmakers glaze car windows with tiny flecks of metal oxide.
Stay with me here.
This metal oxide is designed to reflect sunlight, which makes cars a little cooler in the summertime which means people don’t have to use their car air conditioners as much which means they won’t burn as much gas driving which means less pollution which means the Earth won’t fry under the withering heat that is Global Warming.
Still with me?
Trouble is this metal oxide window glazing reflects more than just sunshine and heat. It also reflects radio waves. You know, like the radio waves that provide data to your GPS unit, your cell phone, your Sirius or XM radio, your laptop, your garage door opener and, for you recently released prison inmates, your parolee ankle bracelet.
Toyota actually tried this in the late 1980s in Japan but the free market decided they would rather let the sun shine in than do without their radio gadgets so the automaker dumped the metal oxide window glazing.
Instead of heat reflecting window glazing, people who have a dog in this fight are suggesting CARB look at heat absorbing window treatments instead because people can still feelgood about saving the planet while listening to the 80s Channel and their Nuvi to find the office of a prospective client for their next appointment. Makes sense, right? Not to CARB.
I wish I was the first to berate CARB for this wackiness but Rush Limbaugh beat me to it with this scorching critique of the idea. 