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Environmental activism in America is based on unrealistic idealism which -
in the real world - does more harm than good. Often these are
people who have the best intentions, but some of them will go to any lengths,
whether illegal, unethical, dishonest or otherwise, to accomplish their goals. Many environmental activists rely on propaganda, half-truths and one-dimensional statistics to convince others that the environment is fragile and the earth needs to be "saved" from humans. This inevitably results in friction between the environmentalists — some of whom believe that man is just another animal — and the people who believe the earth was created for man's use and stewardship. The environmentalist is more of an enemy to capitalism than a defender of nature. The poorest countries in the world (for example, Nigeria) are the worst polluters, yet the environmentalists concentrate their efforts in the United States, Canada and England. The Bible clearly states that God has made the heavens, with all their host, and the earth, and all things that are in it, and the seas, and all that is in them, and He preserves them all. (Nehemiah 9:6) God himself preserves the earth (and the oceans and the atmosphere), not governments, not environmentalists, not anybody else. Even so, we are to be good stewards of our natural resources. No sane person would intentionally poison the atmosphere and the lakes and rivers, but that's not what this page is about. Here we're talking about people who generate unnecessary strife and raise the cost of nearly everything by demanding infeasible solutions to problems that aren't really problems. Subsections: Leftist politics and bad ideas which often lead to bad laws Anti-capitalism motivates environmentalists The most radical environmentalists want to wipe out the human race The Endangered Species Act The high cost of protecting the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, which is probably extinct. The Polar Bear is used for emotional leverage. Environmentalists vs. Military Preparedness President Obama and the rabid environmentalists GE appears to be Obama's Halliburton Lies, propaganda, distortion and exaggeration New! Environmentalists Oppose Every Practical Source of Energy Newer! Environmentalism is a religion Environmental Propaganda Movie Reviews Eco-terrorism Environmentalism in public schools Environmental False Alarms about Alar, arsenic, mercury, freon, radon, etc. Other environmental false alarms: Coral Reefs Polar bears Polar ice Melting glaciers Rising sea levels Hurricane numbers and intensity DDT and Other Pesticide Scares ... including a subsection at the bottom about Rachel Carson. Low-level environmental terrorism ... keeping people alarmed helps retain political clout. Supposedly good ideas that may not be good at all, such as ... mass transit part 1, mass transit part 2, and more specifically Amtrak, ... ethanol, ... wind and solar power, ... green jobs, ... electric cars, ... and fluorescent light bulbs. ANWR — The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge CAFE — Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards The Environmental Protection Agency Media bias related to environmental issues ... including the media campaign against bottled water. Global Warming Global warming overviews Greenhouse Gases -- especially carbon dioxide, which, by the way, is produced in great quantities by volcanos and cows and termites. The Kyoto Protocol Environmental Propaganda Movie Reviews The United Nations IPCC Report on Global Warming Silencing the Skeptics in the Global Warming Debate Global Warming Subtopics and Sidetracks: hurricane intensity, polar bears, and rising sea levels. Global cooling -- That's right, there hasn't been any warming lately. Cap and Trade Global Warming is Blamed for Everything Property rights issues related to environmentalism Animal Rights vs. Human Rights The Hypocrisy of Eco-Celebrities The UN Earth Summit of 2002 The UN Climate Change Conference, Bali, December 2007. The Copenhagen climate conference, 2009. The Cancun climate conference, 2010. A list of troublesome organizations Other Environmental Topics Recommended Reading The discussion of 1.6-gallon toilets has moved to the top of this page. Let's start with the basics... Leftist utopian politics – the roots of environmentalism: Environmentalism and the Leisure Class: This week President Obama handed down what may prove to be one of the most fateful decisions of his entire administration when he rejected the plan to build the Keystone XL Pipeline carrying oil from the tar sands of Canada to the refineries of Houston. ... In turning down Keystone, however, the President has uncovered an ugly little secret that has always lurked beneath the surface of environmentalism. Its basic appeal is to the affluent. Despite all the professions of being "liberal" and "against big business," environmentalism's main appeal is that it promises to slow the progress of industrial progress. What Do Light Bulbs Have to do with the Commerce Clause? It's time for us to insist that there is no basis in the US Constitution for home appliance regulations designed to control the consumption of electricity or water. ... The central issue is how the Commerce Clause, previously distorted and stretched to underwrite any and every conceivable interference in our daily lives, may have finally found its high water mark under the conservative Rehnquist Court. California Issues Clown Car Mandate. [I]f we've learned anything in recent years, it's that industrial policy and telling consumers what they need and must have vs. what they want and find useful doesn't work. Only the marketplace can accurately pick winners and losers. The government, having no competition, usually picks losers. We have also learned that climate change is an overhyped fantasy based on ideology rather than science. Yet the fraudulent science behind it is used to distort the economy and misallocate resources toward green energy and green products that cannot compete on their own merits. The collapse of the green-energy bubble. The parallel-energy universe known as renewables, a place where dollars and economic theory know no bounds and make no sense, looks increasingly like a bubble set to collapse. Heads Up, America: Time to Take Back Our Kids. Fifty million babies have been aborted in America since Roe in 1973. Wacko environmentalists believe that all life, from a puppy to a toad, is equal to human life. Could abortion on demand and extreme environmentalism be contributing factors in our youth's lack of respect for human life? The dark side of green energy: In the annals of Canadian green energy policy, nothing stands out like Ontario's headlong rush into becoming a world leader in the business. In the belief that politics can defy economics, politicians all over the world are making the big bet that they can overturn the hard rules of supply and demand, the role of prices and the limits of innovation by pushing the right policy buttons. There isn't a jurisdiction in Canada, from provinces funding carbon sequestration to Ottawa's biofuels program, that hasn't spent millions and even billions to reshape the world in the image of green activists and green-industrial lobbyists looking for handouts. Making Eco-village in Green Mansions. Loudon County, Virginia, is one of the richest counties in the nation. They are now at the forefront of implementing the environmentalist green agenda of living in an eco-village. The residents are "a typical middle class mix of mostly white-collar workers." If we consider this group typical middle-class, we should consider the price of homes in this utopian "paradise." The last home bought in this Shangri-La in September 2011, a foreclosed home, cost $359,000. Some sell between $895,000 and $1.7 million. Obama's War on U.S. Energy. Global warming claims, the basis for EPA rule-making regarding emissions, have all been refuted and debunked. Antarctic sea ice is at a near-record extent and is expanding; so too for Arctic ice. The polar bear population is thriving. Sea levels are actually dropping. Global temperatures have been holding steady for a decade and the Earth has been in a cooling cycle since 1998. The frequency of U.S. hurricanes has declined along with the frequency of tornadoes. There is no evidence the Earth is experiencing unusual weather. This list of climate lies is a very long one. The Hype Surrounding Renewable Energy. As much as we all might wish otherwise, there really is no free energy lunch. Not so long as much or more needs to be put in to get it than it yields, that removes more valuable land and other resources from more beneficial uses than it is worth, that isn't reliably available in sufficient quantities when and where needed, that promises highly debatable environmental advantages, that costs consumers lots more than "nonrenewable" alternatives, and whose sustainability depends upon endless government mandates and subsidies. National Park Service has new land-grabbing tool. Big Green has an unlikely new sales pitch to convince Congress to fund ever-expanding land grabs by the National Park Service — save wildlife migration. A map overlay showing all the U.S. wildlife migration paths would blot out nearly half the nation — a very clever diagram for empire-building bureaucrats. The obscure but well-heeled Wildlife Conservation Society (2010 assets $764 million) unveiled the idea last week in "Spectacular Migrations in the Western U.S.," a 45-page report on the purportedly urgent need for a widespread network of wildlife migration corridors to avert countless extinctions. DC Resident Fined Thousands For Not Recycling Cat Litter. Dupont Circle resident Patricia White says she has been fined eight times for throwing homemade cat litter in her trash. The fines total $2,000. White says she shreds old newspaper and junk mail to use as cat litter. She believes she is helping the environment by reusing the paper and avoiding cat litter you will find in stores. After being fined several times, White says she called the Department of Public Works inspector who issued the tickets. According to White, the inspector admitted to digging through trash looking for violations. Climate Corruption 101. Never mind where you might stand on the question of global warming, global cooling, climate change or plain old weather. If there's one constant to this entire climate debate, it is that in the name of "climate," the United Nations wishes to regulate and tax the economy of the planet — stripping resources from the most productive economies to hand them out as assorted UN bureaucrats deem fit. DHS drafts 'environmental justice strategy'. President Obama's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) outlined an "environmental justice strategy" that would review how a variety of DHS activities, from interaction with local governments to granting regulatory permits, affect poor and minority populations. DHS defines environmental justice as "the commitment of the Federal Government ... to avoid placing disproportionately high and adverse effects on the human health and environment of minority populations and low-income populations." Climate Change Debate is about Global Wealth Redistribution. Conferees at the climate talks in Durban, South Africa feared that they would close the conference with no deal, but on Sunday [12/11/2011] in the waning moments after a heated debate, they were able to stitch together a package that the chair said "saved tomorrow, today." That's lofty rhetoric for an arrangement that is less about preventing global warming than it is about redistributing global wealth. A Stupid Energy Policy. The Department of Energy (DOE) reports that 24 states and the district of Columbia have renewable energy mandates ranging from Maine's high of 40 percent to Pennsylvania's low of 8 percent. Also known as a "Renewable Portfolio Standard" (RPS), these policies require that energy providers ignore practicality and price in order to obtain a minimum amount of electricity by a specific date from sources that environmental zealots consider "renewable," such as solar and wind. Drinking Global Warming Propaganda. [Scroll down] People do care about nature, a clean environment, recycling natural resources, including water, and preserving as many of the earth's species as possible. However, Paul Watson, the co-founder of Greenpeace has said, "The data does not matter, it does not matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true." Indeed, people believe what they are told, if repeated enough, no matter what the accurate scientific data bears. "We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis," said David Rockefeller, the Club of Rome executive member. Judi Bari, principal organizer of Earth First provides that major crisis, the supposed human destruction of the environment. "If we do not overthrow capitalism, we do not have a chance of saving the world ecologically. I think it is possible to have an ecologically sound society under socialism. I don't think it is possible under capitalism." Rotten Wind in the State of Denmark. The equation was supposed to be simple: green energy policies = cheap energy + green technology exports + green jobs + environmental benefits. What we have seen is not what was promised. The new green energy technologies produce more expensive, less reliable, less abundant energy at higher prices than conventional forms of energy such as fossil fuels, nuclear power, and hydropower. Households, particularly poor households, shoulder the brunt of higher energy prices, along with higher prices for goods and services, including food. Green Energy Skepticism. Ivar Giaever, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, resigned from the American Physical Society because of its position on global warming. So did University of California professor Hal Lewis. When Lewis resigned, he said that the global warming movement was a "scam" and a "pseudoscientific fraud." Even so, our government is imposing strict controls to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in hopes of staving off global warming even though earth's atmosphere is cooling. Meanwhile, the cost to you and me is higher energy prices, higher inflation, a lower standard of living, and fewer new jobs, since every product we buy has an energy cost component. Thanks in part to environmental rules, electricity bills are headed for double-digit increases. Shocking Costs Of Environmentalism. Yes, the environmentalists' bill is now coming due. Some cost hikes are unavoidable. The electrical grid, like other infrastructure, needs to be updated and improved. But the costs due to "tougher environmental regulations" are avoidable. They are the product of choices, not all of them sound. Trying to scrub and eliminate carbon dioxide emissions, for instance, is counterproductive. CO2 is not a pollutant. It's a naturally occurring gas necessary for life on Earth. But the environmentalists are extreme in their loathing of man-made carbon emissions, and their agenda is supported by many policymakers. Forest 'roadless rule': environmental victory or US job-killer? The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals moved closer to resolving a battle over a Clinton-era executive rule protecting national forests from new roads. But critics see the 'roadless rule' as a job-killing block on the country's natural resources. A Disastrous Presidency. The entire green agenda, which the president has been pushing since day one, is flawed policy. Alternative energy sources such as wind and solar are too expensive to be price-competitive with coal, natural gas, and oil. Yet Obama's plan is not to find a way to get the cost of alternative energy down; it is to make the price of fossil fuel energy "skyrocket" until alternative energy is cheap by comparison. Green Twilight. Rational opposition to the greens has consistently misinterpreted the movement's core beliefs. Critics have concentrated on arguments that wind, solar, and squirrel-on-a-treadmill power cannot replace brute force methods such as nuclear, coal, and oil. That electric go-carts are no substitute for technologically mature internal-combustion cars, that bullet trains cannot possibly compete with jetliners. All this is true — and all this is irrelevant. It's all irrelevant because green initiatives are not meant to replace anything. They are intended to form the basis of a new, deindustrialized society with minimal power generation, limited air travel (or travel of any sort, for that matter), and local, nonindustrial economies. In a green society, there will be no massive power plants, no private automobiles, no jetliners. The Bizarre World of Radical Climate Science. People who are ignorant concerning engineering or science may accept the notion that wind and solar are realistic sources of electricity. It is more difficult to explain why the government is dumping billions of dollars into these technologies, both in the form of cash and in the form of mandates that shift the cost to electricity users. At Gov't-Funded 'Green' Apartments, Teens Police Their Parents' Recycling Habits. A non-profit affordable housing developer that spent $33 million for "green upgrades" to an Alexandria, Va., apartment complex, also administers a "Teens Going Green" program at the site where, among other things, teens take the green agenda "back home," and are "policing their parents" to be more environmentally conscious. EPA Eco-Radicals Are Hurting Families at the Tap. If your water bill increased recently, you might want to call the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA has driven up the cost of water by cracking down on localities, forcing cities to borrow money to fulfill costly mandates, and in some cases forcing localities to clean water that is already safe to drink. Just look at what the EPA is doing to New York City's otherwise excellent water system. Top 10 Green Job Fiascos. President Obama pledged he would start a clean-energy revolution that would create 5 million green jobs over 10 years. Of course, when the government tries to intrude in the marketplace, bad things happen. Such as these... Solyndra scandal exposes the lie of government 'investment'. Beware of a company that claims it can make widgets for $10 each, sell them for $8 apiece, and then "make up the losses on volume." No banker or venture capitalist would invest in such a foolhardy scheme. But substitute "solar panels" for widgets and that is exactly what Washington's professional politicians and career bureaucrats did with $535 million in loan guarantees for Solyndra LLC, the now-bankrupt California company that was the centerpiece of President Obama's "clean energy future." Did someone mention the Solyndra scandal? Silent Spring II. It's not news environmentalists prefer trees, animals, and insects over people. In 1962 Rachel Carson chose nature, created a stink about DDT and millions of children have since paid the ultimate price. ... Now, President Obama has chosen a similar path. America is Under Attack. As early as 1946, the left began a strategy to use people's concern for the environment to impose government control over land use. They tricked people into accepting laws that on the surface appeared designed to protect some aspect of the environment, but always, with vague or ambiguous language, or clauses hidden deep within the legalese and gobbledygook, gave government the power to regulate and control our property, our businesses, and our lives. Today, we see this manifest in the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the totally misnamed Environmental Protection Agency. The UN Wildlands Project. The UN issued several policies at the 1992 Earth Summit, one of which was the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Compliance with this UN policy is being driven and managed by the Wildlands Network which shares the same goals as the CBD; to set aside half the land in America for animals. Seeing red over green activism. Pity the poor American consumer. ... Wages are stagnant, and at the same time, policymakers in Washington are taking a breather from the long-term budget fight that is doing little to help American consumers. As if that situation weren't bad enough, a cadre of wealthy professional environmental activists continues to pursue campaigns that raise the prices of consumer goods. These goods include staple products such as paper towels, toilet paper, grocery bags, schoolbooks and other school supplies. The Greens Just Love Us to Death. [Scroll down] In case I didn't mention it, "global warming" was a complete hoax, a fraud concocted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in order to gin up a market for the sale and trade of "carbon credits." Anyone — and I mean anyone — who tells you that humans are causing climate change is a charlatan or a dupe. Avoid them. My general recommendation is to avoid anything that has the word "green" attached to it. You are being conned into spending more for something than necessary. Enviros Go Straight to Jail. If Tea Partiers were really so vile, then why are arrests at a tea party gathering about as rare as hens teeth, yet when leftists come together, getting arrested is almost standard operating procedure? Yes. They plan it in advance. "Among the protesters who avoided jail Monday morning were Jane Kleeb, former head of the Young Democrats and now leader of Bold Nebraska, a grass-roots citizen organizing group," writes Politico. "She plans to be arrested Sept. 3." A Nutshell History of Climate-Change Hysteria. At a time when the push is on to subject humanity to more crazy, shortsighted progressive environmental programs (read carbon regulations) to "save the earth" from its human population, a brief look at progressive airy predictions of the past is in order. Enlightenment from the campus teach-ins of the 1960s and early 1970s slowly invaded conventional college classrooms so that the hippie-generation mentality of the time eventually became the hip academic norm. Supreme Court Rejects Environmentalists' Suit Demanding Power Plant Emissions Cuts. In the most significant global warming case to reach its front doors, the Supreme Court on Monday [6/20/2011] blocked a major lawsuit brought by states and environmental groups against five large power companies they accused of creating a public nuisance because of carbon dioxide emissions. Obama's Environmentalists Destroy Marine Environment. The most prolific marine ecosystem on earth is being systematically destroyed on orders of the U.S. Department of the Interior. ... The most prolific and "diverse marine ecosystem" ever recorded by marine scientists was created by the "facilities" the U.S. Dept. of the Interior is hell-bent on dismantling (offshore oil platforms). Acting as artificial reefs over the past half century, the natural beauty, teeming fish life, coral colonies, and "bio-diversity," created by these structures is amply documented in several studies commissioned by none other than the U.S. Dept. of the Interior. How Environmentalists Cause War and Repression: No other group has done as much to keep America dependent on foreign oil as the environmentalists have. After leading successful campaigns against nuclear power and domestic drilling, the green movement may lecture on "oil wars," but it is responsible for most of them. Climate Witchcraft and Post-Normal Science. French philosophers invented deconstructionism and postmodernism, or the theory that nothing means what it says. Followers of these ideas are adept at finding hidden messages of capitalist oppression in the most unexpected places. A related ideological disturbance is post-normal science. Post-normal scientists favor relaxing scientific rigor in order to better pursue political goals. Those goals often involve a reorganization of society that will elevate the importance of scientists. The Non-Energy Generating Department of Energy and the Smart Grid. The Department of Energy does not generate directly or indirectly one watt of electricity. ... The DOE seems preoccupied with "establishing the safety, reliability, and efficiency of energy supplies in a global marketplace." There seems to be almost an obsession with coordination with the global environment and Agenda 21 stewardship as if we already live under a one-world government of the United Nations. Is There No Safe Plane Fuel But Leaded Gas? Thirty-nine flight service companies asked a federal judge to stop the California attorney general from enforcing a state law banning the sale of lead-based fuel for piston-powered airplanes. They claim the environmental law will disrupt air taxi services and could cause plane crashes and deaths. Huge increase in electric bills seen in the next few years. [Scroll down] There is also a chance that actual shortages — you know, the kind that occur regularly in Third World countires — might hit the grid with rolling blackouts, brownouts, and perhaps even regulations that would outlaw HDTV's, certain refridgerators [sic], and other appliances that consume a lot ot electricity. Yes, but at least we'll stop global warming in its tracks... or not. For every atom [sic] of CO2 we stop emitting in the US, China and India will put two into the atmosphere. Their economies will boom. Ours will shrivel. Has there ever been a great nation that committed economic suicide for no real reason? U.S. Energy Crisis a Liberal Power Grab. It is no coincidence that U.S. oil production peaked in 1970, the year after President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act and the Environmental Protection Agency was established, just the beginning of a decade of laws that have made the United States the hardest place in the world to produce energy. When the federal government started taking over roles traditionally held by the states and expanding its reach into every corner of every economic activity in the country, those who love more government had the perfect proxy for justifying more power over the economy and over the way Americans live their lives. Why 'vote blue, go green' doesn't sound quite so clever any more. We may produce less carbon in the United Kingdom, but we still consume more, merely exporting the production to competitors, to no global benefit and our economic loss. And when, by 2015/16, some of our existing coal-fired power stations close down, there will be a panic about energy supply. Only conventional, non-green solutions will be available to make up the gap. The business to be in will be emergency energy (mainly gas). The other day, I heard that a top executive of one of our biggest power companies has had an emergency generator installed in his large house. One must assume that he knows something we don't. The Purposeful Flooding of America's Heartland. Some sixty years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) began the process of taming the Missouri by constructing a series of six dams. The idea was simple: massive dams at the top moderating flow to the smaller dams below, generating electricity while providing desperately needed control of the river's devastating floods. ... But after about thirty years of operation, as the environmentalist movement gained strength throughout the seventies and eighties, the Corps received a great deal of pressure to include some specific environmental concerns into their MWCM (Master Water Control Manual). US liberals really are the dumbest creatures on the planet. [Scroll down] They think the main reasons for the public's growing scepticism on Climate Change are 1. The media has been far too balanced on the subject and is not pushing the eco-message hard enough. 2. Big business is funding Climate Denialism. 3. Evil Conservatives — led by Evil Talk Show Hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck — are deliberately telling lies about Climate Change. 4. The Republican party is "anti-science". Stop Environmentalists' War on Women. Environmentalists and their government-regulating minions are quietly and methodically reversing women's progress with an onslaught of absurd regulations of highly dubious value. Low-flow toilets developed to meet government water-saving standards are a chronic irritant. ... Front-loading clothes washers are likely to be the next headache for women. Bowing to Department of Energy efficiency standards, manufacturers switched to front-loaders, reports the Wall Street Journal, "because they don't fully immerse their laundry loads [so] they use less hot water and therefore less energy." Yet they're more "expensive, often have mold problems" and Consumer Reports testing found that "they didn't clean as well as the 1996 [top-loading] models." ... Expect clean dishes from a dishwasher? Don't. Thanks to environmental laws enacted in 17 states, national manufacturers have reduced the critical ingredients in dishwasher detergents — phosphates, which dislodge food particles from surfaces — from almost 9% to 0.5%. The result: Dishes and flatware come out speckled with heat-encrusted food particles. Conservation Catch 22. We hear the same incessant bleating from the hard left environmental autocrats in the media, in our legislatures and in our schools. They force-feed us their unrelenting message that Americans must conserve, recycle, and protect the environment. They cry out that our natural resources are running out, we are poisoning the earth, swatting aside endangering species, melting the glaciers and forcing shivering polar bears to starve amongst the vanishing ice floes of the Arctic. A Big, Muddy Project Alright. Bill Mitsch is not afraid of big ideas. Mitsch, head of the Ohio State University Olentangy River Wetland Research Park, is using the catastrophic flooding this spring to recommend the establishment of a 1.5 million acre wetland park along the Mississippi River. That many acres would be a "park" about the size of Delaware, replacing some of the most productive farmland in the world with a swamp. Fast Train To Hell. Public sector planners appear to be smitten with rail as the answer to environmentally friendly transport that will reduce automobile use -- the b$#234;te noir of righteous greenies. And even better, rail transit adds considerably to their desire to re-settle populations to prevent "sprawl," a condition they find repugnant. Most Americans call sprawl "neighborhoods," however, little realizing that ramping up urban rail transit creates the cutting edge of the ax designed to control where they live. Localized rail transit is a planner's dream and a city's nightmare. More about mass transit. The Dangers of CFLs Even Greater Than Previously Known. The politicians who passed the law phasing out incandescents wanted a trophy they could hold up to the voting public and say, "See, we gave you something better than what a free market could give you. We advanced society." Instead of a trophy of success, they have a monument to the failure of their ideology and their ignorance of economics. Politics is no substitute for economics. It can only produce an uneconomic result: if the result were economic, it wouldn't require government coercion. Global-warming zealots to ban ice makers. Ice makers are the latest target in the left's ongoing war against the conveniences of modern life. Earlier this month, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued a report that may condemn this essential household item to the contraband list that already includes functional light bulbs, toilets, washing machines and showerheads. Back on EPA's enemies list: your fridge. Remember when the Environmental Protection Agency's ban on chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, because they punched holes in the ozone layer, forced refrigerator manufacturers to switch to more environmentally friendly refrigerants? ... It turns out that HFCs require more electricity to produce the same amount of cooling. Who knew? Which means that ozone-saving fridges make bigger carbon footprints than their ozone-destroying counterparts. Something Must Be Done before the fridge destroys the polar bear! But never fear. The EPA is already on the case. Feds Will Regulate Ice Makers To Save Climate. In its latest effort to save the planet from global warming, the U.S. government is on the verge of regulating ice makers commonly found in many refrigerators because they increase energy consumption by a good 12 to 20%. ... In a nutshell, the culprit is the tiny motor inside the freezing system that's used to release ice from the mold and into a tray. Because the motor is specially built to function in a cold setting, it requires an internal heater to keep it from freezing up. Tales of the red tape. For years, there have been rules that restrict the flow of water to a shower head. That was bad enough but now those rules have been tweaked. The flow restriction no longer applies to each individual shower head, but to the whole shower. The Energy Policy Conservation Act of 1992 set the restriction for each shower head at only 2.5 gallons per minute (half what Americans could have before then). Now, if you install a shower fixture with two nozzles, it's down to 1.25 gallons per minute per shower head — and so on, for those who want to have more than two. A Good Hot Shower. In an age of near universal regulation, censorship, and media conformity, an old-fashioned hot shower is one of the few pleasures of life that remain. Or so it would seem. In fact, the long arm of environmental extremism now extends even into your shower. Along with legislation to phase out incandescent bulbs and force nearly everyone to drive a snub-nosed hybrid, liberals in the Obama administration have been attempting to outlaw luxury shower heads. Renewable Electricity Mandates Raise Prices and Kill Jobs. Renewable electricity mandates are causing electricity prices to rise and killing jobs in the states that have enacted them. "Electricity prices are already nearly 40 percent higher in states with an REM (renewable electricity mandate). While the renewable mandates may not be the only reason electricity prices are higher in those states, these mandates likely contribute to higher prices and certainly are not helping to decrease the price," reports a recent study from the Institute for Energy Research. Climate Activists Target States With Lawsuits. A group of attorneys using children and young adults as plaintiffs plans to file legal actions in every state and the District of Columbia on Wednesday [5/4/2011] in an effort to force government intervention on climate change. Top Green Admits: "We Are Lost!" George Monbiot of the left-leaning British newspaper The Guardian has a must-read column in which he admits that because of a whole series of intellectual mistakes, the global green movement's policy prescriptions are hopelessly flawed. Read the whole piece for a thoughtful and brutally clear expose of the intellectual bankruptcy of the green movement from one of the smartest people in it. What Do Light Bulbs Have to do with the Commerce Clause? Rand Paul, freshman US Senator from Kentucky, at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing last month, summed up in a few choice sentences the Democratic Party progressive agenda: ["]You're really anti-choice on every consumer item that you've listed here, including light bulbs, refrigerators, toilets — you name it, you can't go around your house without being told what to buy... You raise the cost of all the items with your rules, all your notions that you know what's best for me.["] Why would OPEC give money to the American environmental left? As gas prices approach $5 a gallon, and some even predict $6 a gallon by summer, the White House has launched an investigation into what is causing the rapid price surge. But on Thursday's "Mark Levin Show," George Mason University economist Walter E. Williams said no investigation was necessary since the cause of the spike in energy prices was obviously the fault of Washington politicians listening to "environmental wackos." Celebrate Earth Daze! This Earth Day, we have more to fear from rising gas and food prices than from rising sea levels. We have long argued that wealthier societies are healthier societies and that reducing emission levels to those desired by such entities as the U.N.'s International Panel on Climate Change and treaties like Kyoto was a recipe for global poverty. Consider that a 2008 MIT study showed that even the carbon footprint of a homeless person in the United States is more than four times the U.N. recommendation. Earth Day Denigrates Capitalism — and Humans. Environmentalists have always admired Lenin. He was the first disciple of Karl Marx to capture control of a country, and the opening act of his seven-year reign commenced with the abolition of all private property — a Marxist priority. Despite overseeing a bloody civil war, a devastated economy, and a citizenry without hope, Lenin made it a priority to implement his signature decree, "On Land." In it he declared that all forests, waters, and minerals to be the exclusive property of the state, and he demanded these resources be protected from use by the public and private enterprise. Selling timber or firewood, mining minerals, or diverting water for farming was strictly prohibited. Earth Day and Environmental Insanity: Anyone who has been paying any attention to the environmental movement has got to have concluded it is insane. ... Environmentalism, worldwide and in the United States of America, is devoted to the collapse of every scientific and technological advance of the past century, along with the capitalist system that made them possible. The True and Ugly Story of Earth Day. While Christians across the world marked Easter and Jews marked Passover, liberals marked their annual ode to neo-paganism with hippy-dippy exercises in green self-righteousness. Of course, they neglected to mention that Gaia herself was a Greek hussy who mythologically created the oceans and the depths by an incestuous relationship with her son, Uranus. They also neglected to mention that one original co-founder of Earth Day was a murderer, that its first backers were tie-dyed socialists who hated capitalism, and that Earth Day itself was timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin. More about Earth Day. They're coming for your hand soap. Antimicrobial hand soaps and body washes are very popular, especially in cold and flu season. They've been found to be effective in limiting the spread of bacteria, which is why they're so popular. But, like anything people like, there are people who don't like it, and the people who don't like something are rarely content until their will is imposed upon everyone else. In this case, the people who don't like it are the left-wing environmentalists who don't seem to like much of anything humans concoct to improve people's quality of life. Their usual modus operandi is being followed in this case. Rather than trying to make a case for or against something, these groups have taken to the courts. Infra-red camera scheme put on hold over privacy concerns. A project in Boston designed to educate home owners about energy efficiency has been put on hold due to privacy concerns. The city was due to have a number of infrared cameras installed that would take aerial and street-level photos across approximately four miles in order to show heat loss in homes during the winter months. The Green Energy Economy Reconsidered. "Green" energy such as wind, solar and biomass presently constitute only 3.6% of fuel used to generate electricity in the U.S. But if another "I Have a Dream" speech were given at the base of the Lincoln Memorial, it would undoubtedly urge us on to a promised land where renewable energy completely replaced fossil fuels and nuclear power. How much will this particular dream cost? Energy expert Vaclav Smil calculates that achieving that goal in a decade — former Vice President Al Gore's proposal — would incur building costs and write-downs on the order of $4 trillion. ... Have we ever seen such a "green economy"? Yes we have; in the 13th century. Energy: A Tale of Two Narratives. When it comes to energy, two prominent narratives exist. The environmentalist narrative states that the world has only a limited amount of supplies of fossil fuel, so we need to enact steep taxes or other statist punishments to make people conserve what little they have. The classical liberal narrative, on the other hand, avows that there is no practical limit to most commodities people need, including fuels. Rather, as access to one type of fuel becomes less easy, the price of it will rise, which will encourage consumers to use less of it or more of a substitute. Several recent stories illustrate anew how much more accurate the classical liberal model is than the environmentalist one. Sitting in the Dark. Forget the World's Fair, we now have a new way to celebrate human accomplishment. Instead of going to see a vision of the future, we turn off the lights and sit in the dark for an hour. Earth Hour shows how far we have come from celebrating human accomplishment to celebrating the lack of accomplishment. For all its pretentious activism, environmentalism is a movement that promotes inaction. Don't build, don't create and don't do — are its commandments. Al Gore's seawater swindle. [Scroll down] According to the Montreal Gazette, power usage in Edmonton, Canada, actually increased by 1.01 percent during Earth Hour. Power usage did drop in Calgary, but as a power company spokesman explained, the drop "was so minuscule that it couldn't even be attributed to that particular event." As more of the cataclysmic predictions of the global-warming charlatans fail to pan out, these feel-good stunts will become more and more irrelevant. That's good news because Earth Hour is about hating automobiles and electricity, two of mankind's most important technological developments. Green Capitalism: Looking around the world, you can find a direct correlation between poverty and ecological disaster. Where people are poorest, the pollution and economic destruction are far worse than in more wealthy areas. Places where many poor people live in close quarters such as Calcutta, Beijing, and Mexico City are even worse. The main reason that poorer areas are such ecological disasters is because of the poverty. Economic stress causes people to stop being so fussy about how they find their next meal, or shelter, or clothing. When resources are limited, people begin choosing more critical needs over less, and picking up the trash stops being a priority, as does cleaning up waste, planting trees, and so on. Environmental groups have spent major green on political causes. While groups such as the Chamber of Commerce and Koch Industries often get chided for the political spending, green groups are making their fair share of financial contributions to political causes, too. According to data obtained by The Daily Caller, environmental groups have spent more than $125 million on political causes, advertising campaigns and lobbying since 2009. Nearly $40 million of that was spent in California in 2010 alone, mostly to campaign against the Prop 23 ballot measure that would have postponed the implementation of greenhouse gas regulations. A new religion complete with evangelists, tithes, indulgences and superstitions. Last night [1/31/2011] BBC Four aired a documentary which took a look at climate change sceptics ... The presenter of the programme, Rupert Murray, concluded by saying that despite the arguments of the sceptics he did not want to take the risk that they were wrong. He was, he said, willing to give up some of his freedom if it helped to stop climate change. This was a rather startling thing to say, especially as his own programme did not conclude that the warmists are right and the sceptics wrong. In fact he appeared to be saying he would give up his freedom just in case the warmists are right. There was worse still in the programme, with one scientist effectively saying that democracy might need to be suspended in order for governments to successfully prevent a climate catastrophe. 'Sustainable' Poverty: The Real Face of the Leftist Environmental Agenda. Since the seventies, the American left has warned of coming famine, overpopulation, total deforestation, urban sprawl, and overcrowding. The only problem is that none of this has ever happened. The left lied, and freedom died. The Green Dream Is an Economic Nightmare. The green vision — really, the green dream or delusion — is that the world is running out of fossil fuels, and we need to switch to so-called renewable/sustainable sources such as solar power, wind power, and biofuels. If we just embrace these "new" energy sources, the greens aver, why, jobs will just multiply like squirrels on speed. But if we continue to use fossil fuels, we are doomed to economic stagnation. Rand Paul's Toilet Tirade. [Scroll down] His unwitting victim was Kathleen Hogan, the deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency at the Department of Energy. "You're really anti-choice on every other consumer item that you've listed here, including light bulbs, refrigerators, toilets — you name it, you can't go around your house without being told what to buy. Bias alert: Rand Paul is right. The writer of the article above makes it sound as if Rand Paul's objections were irrational and unfounded. UK economy tanking from renewable energy stress. The United Kingdom didn't even have Arnold Schwarzenegger and Barack Obama and still managed to devastate its economy by demanding "renewable energy" replace what works and is affordable. Imagine what we can do. We have a report from James Delingpole, who may detest the global warming nonsense even more than we do. Just sit in the dark. For "progressives," few things are as virtuous as sacrifice. Especially if it's someone else doing the sacrificing. Thus, in the wake of Japan's nuclear crisis, you just know they'll be calling for less nuke power and greater energy-conservation efforts (preferably, by you). Obama is AWOL in Oil Crisis. We have a major oil crisis unfolding now and where's Obama? ... We now, this week, have oil prices busting through $100 a barrel. This will create major havoc to our already anemic economy. How did we get here? Our president has a moratorium on nearly all domestic oil production: we can't drill off our coasts, nor Alaska and certainly not the gulf. We can't build nuclear power plants, dam rivers, explore for natural gas or mine coal. We're stuck with windmills and failing solar power companies — companies that can't even stay in business after billions in taxpayer subsidies. This is an energy policy written by hippies. Deliberately making Americans poorer. So-called green energy often is not very green and cannot possibly serve as a substitute for most fossil fuels. Windmills and solar panels are far more expensive than coal and gas; their production is intermittent, unreliable and largely unstorable. Because of the physics of the electrical grid, wind and solar can never produce more than about 18 percent of electrical production — at least not until low-cost storage devices are developed. Many biofuels, and in particular corn-based ethanol, are not only more expensive than the natural fuels but have a bigger total carbon footprint. Environmentalists: Hands Off My Dishes!. [Scroll down] Our dishwashers are fine. The reason our dishes are dirty is that the environmentalists have succeeded in banning phosphates from dishwashing soap. Until recently, dishwashing soap contained about 8 percent elemental phosphorus. That's the magic element that "strips food and grease off dirty dishes and breaks down calcium-based stains." It also prevents food from reattaching to the dishes. Or used to. As of July 2010, the nation's detergent manufacturers, bowing to laws regulating phosphorus in 17 states, reconfigured the formula for all dishwashing soap to contain less than 0.5 percent phosphorus. Another Triumph for the Greens. In the last six months, a lot of people have suddenly discovered their dishwashers don't work as well as they used to. The problem, though, isn't the dishwashers. It's the soap. Last July, acceding to pressure from environmentalists, America's dishwasher detergent manufacturers decided to change their formulas. And the new detergents stink. One of the key ingredients in dish detergent is (or was) phosphorus. ... Traditionally, phosphorus was loaded into dish detergent in the form of phosphates, which are compounds of phosphorus bonded to oxygen. Prior to last July, most detergents were around 8 percent elemental phosphorus. Now they're less than 0.5 percent phosphorus. The result is detergents that don't work very well. The real cost of 'global warming'. The renewable energy industry is helping to destroy the UK economy and drive up unemployment says a new report. For every one of David Cameron's "green jobs" created in the renewable energy sector (mainly solar and wind), another 3.7 jobs are being lost in the real economy, says the independent study by Verso Economics. In total, measurable policies to promote renewable energy cost £1.4 billion in the UK and £168 million in Scotland in 2009/10. But this doesn't take into account the additional economic damage inflicted by the erection of enormous, bird-chopping monstrosities all over some of Britain's most attractive tourist spots — including, for example, the hitherto unspoilt island of Tiree. Defining "Clean" is the Energy Challenge. Clearly no sane person would be in favor of "dirty" energy standards, but there are many problems with the impossible goal the administration has set out to reach. First among them: the administration itself cannot agree on what it means by "clean energy." The remarks the president made in his State of the Union address to the nation last week are a case in point. President Obama posed the challenge that "by 2035, 80 percent of America's electricity will come from clean energy sources." There is an easy part of this pledge. Oil, the "dirtiest" of all among his environmentalist friends, already accounts for virtually nothing in electric power generation. The market saw to that over the past 20 years. How to Fight Back Against Sustainable Development. [Scroll down] Does the community plan call for reduction of energy use? If so, look for calls for energy audits and taxes on energy use. The audits mean that the government has set a goal to reduce energy use. It will follow that government agents are going to come into your home to inspect your energy use. Then they are going to tell you what must be done in your home to cut usage. That will cost you money. Don't fall for the line that it is all voluntary — to help you save money. They haven't gone to this much trouble to be ignored. Regulations are not voluntary. These are just a couple of examples of what to look for as you do your research. There are many more, including meters on wells to control water use, smart meters on your thermostat to take away your control of your thermostat; non-elected boards and councils to control local development and implement smart growth, leading to population growth; Public/Private Partnerships with local and large corporations to "go Green;" creation of open space; pushing back livestock from streams, enforcing sustainable farming methods that restrict energy and water use in farming practices; and much more. It all leads to higher costs and shortages, in the name of environmental protection and conservation. The Great 'Climate Change' Taxpayer Rip-Off of 2011. Over at the National Science Foundation (NSF), its budget of $7.4 billion (that's a lot of science!) includes a request for $480 million for Atmospheric and Earth Sciences, $765.5 million for NSF's Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability program and $19 million for a joint program with DOE "to promote education in clean energy research. An additional $10 million would fund "Climate Change Education" in the nation's schools. It's not education, it's indoctrination. Obama uses 'green' emissions standards to push truckers into Teamsters union. President Barack Obama's administration is using new "environmental standards" to force independent owner-operator truckers into becoming part of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a union that gave more than $2 million to Democrats in the last two election cycles. This is another way Obama is paying back the unions for their support. The £25,000 eco-classroom that can't be used. Eco-campaigners who built a classroom powered by the sun believed they were paving the way for the future. Instead they have been taught a valuable lesson — there is not enough sun in North London to sufficiently heat their building. The much feted zero-carbon Living Ark classroom was opened three months ago to great fanfare. They're coming for your hand soap. Antimicrobial hand soaps and body washes are very popular, especially in cold and flu season. They've been found to be effective in limiting the spread of bacteria, which is why they're so popular. But, like anything people like, there are people who don't like it, and the people who don't like something are rarely content until their will is imposed upon everyone else. In this case, the people who don't like it are the left-wing environmentalists who don't seem to like much of anything humans concoct to improve people's quality of life. Boy Bagged For Taking Eco-Unfriendly Ziploc to School. Isabel Theoret was preparing a sandwich for her 6-year-old son's Kindergarten class one day last week, when he screamed out, "No Mommy! Not a Ziploc!" The child, who lives with his family in the town of Laval in Quebec, explained that his teacher would exclude him from a contest to win a stuffed teddy bear if he brought an environmentally unfriendly plastic baggie to school. CALGreen: Regulatory Nirvana. Average Californians want a thriving economy, accountable schools, reliable police and fire services, a functioning penal system, and fiscal responsibility from the state. Sacramento is giving them instead a new set of regulations — for a dormant industry — which will employ hundreds of public servants to keep the CALGreen promise of reducing global GHG emissions .0096 percent by 2020. Meanwhile, the public is invited to rejoice that more of the cost of green regulation will be borne by the taxpayer. I'm not sure the art of regulation for regulation's sake can be perfected much more than this. NASA extremist advocates U.S. decline. Consider James E. Hansen, director of the taxpayer-funded NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Last week, blogger Marc Morano discovered a Nov. 24 blog post by Mr. Hansen calling on China to lead an international effort to impose fees on carbon-dioxide emissions, then lead the World Trade Organization to allow import fees on goods from any county — with the U.S. being the target — without such fees. The goal would be to punish America, causing "continual descent into second-rate and third-rate economic well-being," until the "fossil-money- 'democracy'" no longer "rules the roost in Washington." Mr. Hansen also praised communist Chinese leadership for "tak[ing] the long view ... in contrast to the West with its [lamentably] short election cycles." Fresno, Zimbabwe. Fresno, California, stands as the de facto capital of California's mighty Central Valley, the breadbasket of America. ... Yet far from being a paradise, Fresno is starting to resemble Zimbabwe or 1930s Ukraine, a victim of a famine machine that is entirely man-made, not by red communists this time, but by greens. State and federal officials, driven by the agenda of environmental extremists, have made it extremely difficult for the valley's farms, introducing costly environmental regulations and cutting off critical water supplies to save the Delta smelt, a bait fish. It's all driving the economy to collapse. Did someone mention Zimbabwe? Manmade famine in America. It seems inconceivable, but people in America are going hungry en masse due to a famine caused by political authorities. Fresno, California is not yet a sister city of Kiev, Ukraine, but the two cities, capitals of rich agricultural regions, share a history of mass hunger caused by central governments indifferent to the suffering of their people, in the pursuit of ideological goals. The Cost Of Green. The green lobby assured everyone it knew what it was doing when it got a judge to cut water to Central Valley farmers to save the delta smelt. But while the Valley economy is now ruined, it hasn't helped the smelt. Going Broke by Going Green. The administration's green policies are being thrust into a precarious American economy. Every "green scenario" shows raised energy costs across the board. Not only will the average person pay more for energy; many will lose their jobs as the forced transition to alternative power sources rocks the stability of current energy-producing and energy-using companies. Bootleg Lightbulbs Coming to California. Old reliable, the 100-watt light bulb — safe, cheap, and bright enough to read, write, cook, shave, and put on your makeup by, will be gone January 1. The California Energy Commission in September 2010 published its 226-page Appliance Efficiency Regulations, whereby the 100-watt incandescent light bulb will be outlawed at midnight on December 31, 2010. Californians with self-imposed rationing, running out of both energy and common sense, have declared that consuming electrical power is a social vice. Electric power must be curbed, along with banning Dr. Pepper and Happy Meals. And it's not just light bulbs. These appliance standards will regulate and ban hundreds of products including... Supreme Court to Hear Global Warming Case Against Power Companies. The Supreme Court announced Monday [12/6/2010] it will give further consideration to a closely-watched lawsuit filed by environmentalists, eight states and New York City blaming the problems associated with global warming on the carbon dioxide output of five major power companies. An ultimate judgment against the energy providers could lead to dramatic changes in the energy marketplace and ripple into other industries. Lame Duck Land Grab. "Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is hoping to pass a package of public lands and wilderness bills during the lame-duck session of Congress. Bingaman's panel has sent more than 60 bills to the floor this session that would create new national parks, monuments, wilderness areas and wildlife sanctuaries. Now he's hoping to bundle them into an omnibus measure for Senate passage before the 111th Congress adjourns, spokesman Bill Wicker confirmed today." Big Green leader warns House GOP to forget popular will. Republicans just won the biggest mid-term election victory since before World War II in a massive repudiation of President Obama's unprecedented expansion of federal spending, regulation and debt. But GOP leaders better not even think of doing what the voters clearly elected them to do, but instead they must do what they are told by the enlightened ones in the Big Green radical environmental movement. That's according to Francis Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Chris Huhne has a blueprint for a green, cold, dark Britain. As much of the northern hemisphere last week froze under the snows of the fourth unusually cold winter in a row, our ministers, led by David Cameron and Chris Huhne, the Climate Change Secretary, laid out a blueprint that promises to inflict on Britain a social and economic catastrophe unique in the world. The Green Movement: From Common Sense and Compromise to Coercion and Control. Today few argue that our environment should not be protected against man-made contaminants or that natural wilderness, where economically and socially practicable, should not be conserved. ... But the contemporary Green Movement, represented by a variety of national and international institutions, has far exceeded its original mandate to protect the earth. In modern times, this aggressive and extremely well funded campaign uses the environment as a shield behind which it seeks to advance a doctrinaire social and political agenda. Greenwashing America. Every time you see a product being sold as "green," and therefore supposedly safer for the environment, you can be sure that it is more expensive than a comparable product that does the same thing without making this claim. ... In a similar fashion, every time you hear a corporation claiming that it is concerned about the environment, you can be sure that it is trying to protect itself against lawsuits that will cut into its profits and dividends. The Slow Death of the Environmental Movement. Having observed the movement for decades, I think we are seeing a growing awareness that environmentalism is fear-driven, based on many false claims, a threat to the U.S. economy, fundamental freedoms, and humanity in general. Watch out for "Ecocide". Ecocide, a term coined by the former British barrister Polly Higgins, comes with a proposal that asks the United Nations to recognize it as a fifth "crime against peace" — one that could be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court alongside "genocide," "war crimes," "ethnic cleansing," and "crimes against humanity." Higgins defines ecocide as: "The extensive destruction, damage to or loss of ecosystem(s) or a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished." For this purpose, the definition of "inhabitants" includes plants and animals, as well as human populations. Goodbye Global Warming, Hello Biodiversity. After three decades of trying to push the global warming scam to a point where billions could be made selling and trading bogus "carbon credits", the global schemers have abandoned it in the wake of 2009 revelations that a handful of rogue climate scientists were literally inventing the data to support it. If there is one lesson to be learned from and about environmentalists, it is that they are utterly relentless. The Danger of Environmentalism. Earth Day approaches, and with it a grave danger faces mankind. The danger is not from acid rain, global warming, smog, or the logging of rain forests, as environmentalists would have us believe. The danger to mankind is from environmentalism. The fundamental goal of environmentalism is not clean air and clean water; rather, it is the demolition of technological/industrial civilization. Environmentalism's goal is not the advancement of human health, human happiness, and human life; rather, it is a subhuman world where "nature" is worshipped like the totem of some primitive religion. Motive Force Behind All Climate Change. There never was a compelling case for human caused global warming. The CO2 climate change hypothesis is not science, it is sorcery driven to hysteria by political opportunists. It is time to restore science to its rightful place. Dronism. The well-off like nice cars, tasteful homes, good food, and appropriate vacations — but not the oil, gas, coal, nuclear energy, transmission lines, timber, cement, farmland, water pumps, etc., that bring that to them. You're a Liberal/Progressive if You Believe... America's "addiction to oil" has nothing to do with technological reality, and that we can snap our fingers and a "green energy" future will magically appear. A nice corollary is the idea "electric cars" are a panacea. Sounds really swell until one remembers that 50% of our electricity is coal-generated. The Green Agenda. In keeping with President Obama's promise to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet, the Energy Department has set new efficiency standards for 26 appliances and household products. The list ranges from microwaves, to washing machines and dryers, to residential water heaters and dishwashers. The department reportedly claims the new standards will save consumers from $250 billion to $300 billion on their energy costs through 2030. But that's what Democrats always say about their green schemes: "We're doing this to clean up the Earth, and we're going to save you money while we do it." Don't believe it. How Washington Ruined Your Washing Machine. It might not have been the most stylish, but for decades the top-loading laundry machine was the most affordable and dependable. Now it's ruined — and Americans have politics to thank. In 1996, top-loaders were pretty much the only type of washer around, and they were uniformly high quality. When Consumer Reports tested 18 models, 13 were "excellent" and five were "very good." By 2007, though, not one was excellent and seven out of 21 were "fair" or "poor." This month came the death knell: Consumer Reports simply dismissed all conventional top-loaders as "often mediocre or worse." How's that for progress? The culprit is the federal government's obsession with energy efficiency. Second thoughts on Green dogma — from a surprising source. Germany has long been the titular and emotional leader of the "Green Movement" in Europe. No country has adopted more so-called environmental friendly policies. The German population has obediently gone along with environmental measures; in fact they have been the model people when it comes to green living. So it is doubly startling when Der Spiegel, the leading left-wing publication in Germany publishes an article entitled: "Is Environmentalism Really Working?" openly questioning the viability and cost of a myriad of green initiatives. 9th Circuit: Mud from logging roads is pollution. A federal appeals court has decided that mud washing off logging roads is pollution and ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to write regulations to reduce the amount that reaches salmon streams. The Smart Grid Trojan Horse. [Scroll down] Stopping the march to green serfdom will not be easy because a confluence of separate conflicts of interest are securing our fate. On one end, you have the green mafia, who are on the threshold of having their dreams fulfilled. On the other end are vendors who stand to make millions selling "greenware." Between are utilities that will finally secure the means to bear the financial pressures of environmentalism. On the periphery are engineering firms and installation contractors, many that would otherwise starve in this economy but for the Smart Grid initiative. How Obama Is Locking Up Our Land. Have you heard of the "Great Outdoors Initiative"? Chances are, you haven't. But across the country, White House officials have been meeting quietly with environmental groups to map out government plans for acquiring untold millions of acres of both public and private land. It's another stealthy power grab through executive order that promises to radically transform the American way of life. Our Hero Barbara Boxer. [Scroll down] Cap-and-trade is a Democratic Party platform plank, but ten senators from Boxer's own party sent her a letter explaining that they could not vote for her bill. June 29, 2009 left the high water mark for climate change policy. On that day, the House of Representatives enacted a cap-and-trade scheme, the Orwellian-titled American Climate and Energy Security Act. It was the first time the Congress had put a price on carbon, a.k.a. taxed energy. Environmentalists give Barack Obama a pass on oil spill. Some say there's little doubt that if a spill like the one in the Gulf took place on former President George W. Bush's watch, environmental groups would have unleashed an unsparing fury on the Republican in the White House. For their liberal ally, Obama, they seem willing to hold their tongues. Environmental Hazards. The partisan bad faith of the organized environmental establishment is glaring. Consider the case of the first President Bush, who pushed hard for a new Clean Air Act in 1990 (most environmental groups boycotted the signing ceremony on the White House lawn, though), and then went to the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, signing the U.N. treaty on climate change that set the Kyoto Protocol process in motion, and also signing a major biodiversity treaty. So how many environmental groups endorsed Bush for reelection in 1992? In round numbers: zero. 'Green New Deal' is a raw deal for the U.S.. In Europe, green ideas have been in fashion for two generations and have driven policy to a much greater extent than in the United States. Despite this, we have not witnessed a sizable green wave of new jobs, as evidenced by our unemployment rates, which are routinely several percentage points higher than in America. The green movement has succeeded in generating increased government spending and subsidies at taxpayer expense. Much of this spending has been directed toward inefficient renewable-energy projects, such as solar and wind power. Get your hand out of my shower. Before the advent of the modern environmental movement, Bill Buckley used to assert with a glint in his eye that a liberal is someone who wants to reach into your shower and adjust the temperature of the water. Man, oh, man, was he right. The liberals' environmental agenda has brought Buckley's satirical thrust uncomfortably close to reality. Obama Adviser's Green Manifesto. [Scroll down] "In the longer term, it may be that the solution to the employment problem will require a reduction in the amount of work done by each worker in order to create more jobs," wrote [John P.] Holdren and his co-authors. "Gradually shortening the work week (ultimately to 20 hours or less) or decreasing the number of work weeks per year (companies could have different spring-summer and fall-winter shifts) would accomplish this," they wrote. Soap Smuggling's "Thelma and Louise". What do you do when you can't get your dishes clean enough? Run across the state border of course, and smuggle in banned substances. Carole Spotts and her friend Susan Barrentine call themselves the real-life "Thelma and Louise." ... Carole and Susan are driving 70 miles round trip, to Idaho and back, to get a substance banned in their home state of Washington. Environmentalists Also To Blame For Exxon Valdez And Gulf Spills. Environmentalism did not cause the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, but it did help make it possible, just as 1989's Exxon Valdez disaster, which the Gulf Oil spill has now eclipsed, was also ironically made possible by a desire to protect the environment. The original plan when oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope was to build a pipeline directly to the northern border of the 48 contiguous states. Groups like the Sierra Club waged a major battle against both the Prudhoe Bay development and the pipeline. Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight. A record-setting heat wave has settled on the Beltway this week, resulting in my thermometer topping the 85°F mark by the time I came into work today. Did I mention my thermometer is inside my apartment? "Oh yuck," you're probably thinking. "You should get a place with air conditioning." But you see, my unit has air conditioning. The problem is that, under Virginia law, it can't be turned on until May 1. In the Company of Wolves. Hunting, once enormously popular and widespread, is today in the process of becoming an esoteric pastime. The more romantic strains of environmentalism often lead to animals of all types being protected, and in some places, cosseted. So we're getting generations of animals that have never been shot at and have no awareness that humans are the most dangerous animals of all. On Earth Day, Did You Thank a Hunter? Ten cents of every dollar I spent on my hunting and fishing toys funds Federal and State "conservation" programs. From my guns and ammo to my duck calls and decoys, from my rods and reels to my lures and gaffs, from my trolling motor to the very fuel for my outboard — ten cents of every dollar in this ghastly expenditure funds habitat for Spotted Owls, Red Cockaded Woodpeckers, Bald Eagles, Ospreys, Manatees, Snail darters, Black-Footed Ferrets, California Condors, Florida Panthers and Sea Otters. Climate Götterdämmerung: Exaggeration and alarmism have been a chronic weakness of environmentalism since it became an organized movement in the 1960s. Every ecological problem was instantly transformed into a potential world-ending crisis, from the population bomb to the imminent resource depletion of the "limits to growth" fad of the 1970s to acid rain to ozone depletion, always with an overlay of moral condemnation of anyone who dissented from environmental correctness. With global warming, the environmental movement thought it had hit the jackpot... Dave Matthews: 'Too Bad If We Have To Pay a Little Extra Money for Gasoline'. Grammy award-winning musician Dave Matthews told CNSNews.com it is "too bad if we have to pay a little extra money for gasoline" and coal because that is what "we have to do" to protect the environment. Green halo slips in study. According to a study, when people feel they have been virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of, say, organic baby food, it leads to the "licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour", otherwise known as "moral balancing" or "compensatory ethics". ... Its authors ... argue that people who wear what they call the "halo of green consumerism" are less likely to be kind to others and more likely to cheat and steal. Green Meanies. [Scroll down slowly] The researchers asked about 150 subjects to play computer games in which they could increase their money by cheating and lying about it. Mazar and Zhong found that the greener shoppers were more likely to cheat, lie, and steal than conventional consumers. Later, subjects were told to take their spoils from an envelope based on the honor system. Again, Greens were six times as likely to take more than they earned. Finally, subjects played a game where they were asked to share money with another player. You guessed it: Green shoppers shared fewer dollars than conventional shoppers. Social engineering at its worst. Canadian researchers have discovered environmentally conscious people are jerks. The researchers didn't put it that way, because they're Canadian. But the two University of Toronto psychologists say that people who buy ecologically friendly products — socially conscious types wallowing in their own moral superiority — use their enviro-cred to excuse bad behaviour. The study showed that, when playing games administered by the psychologists, green people are less likely to share wealth with those around them, and more likely to lie within the context of the those games in order to enrich themselves. 'This Is the End of Favoring Motorized Transportation at the Expense of Non-Motorized'. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced that federal transportation policies will no longer favor "motorized" transportation, such as cars and trucks, over "non-motorized" transportation, such as walking and bicycling. LaHood signed the new policy directive on March 11, the same day he attended a congressional reception for the National Bike Summit, a convention sponsored by a bicycling advocacy group, the League of American Bicyclists. In Canada: New eco fees catching consumers by surprise. Checking her receipt as she left a downtown Canadian Tire, Chris Colorado noticed a new charge. Her $1.99 bottle of dish soap was accompanied by a 13-cent "eco fee." The levy for thousands of new products, from pharmaceuticals to fire extinguishers, quietly came into effect July 1, the same day as the harmonized sales tax. Bill Gates, Environmental Kook. At the TED 2010 conference in Long Beach, California Bill Gates won a standing ovation by calling for the end of carbon-based fuels in forty years; literally, our CO2 emissions must drop to zero or we risk a warming world, lower crop yields, and starvation of the poor. It is absolutely stunning, as we read Gates' excerpts, to accept that a formerly unrelenting strategic genius has transformed himself into a conveyer of hackneyed global warming alarmism. Environmentalism Refuted: [Scroll down] The same intellectual quarter that a generation or more ago urged the totalitarian control of all aspects of human life for the purpose of bringing order to what would otherwise allegedly be chaos, now urges a policy of laissez-faire — out of respect for natural harmonies. Of course, it is not a policy of laissez-faire toward human beings, who are to be as tightly controlled as ever. Nor, of course, is it a policy that recognizes any form of economic harmonies among human beings. No, it is a policy of laissez-faire toward nature in the raw; the alleged harmonies that are to be respected are those of so-called eco-systems. Obama's Progressive Goose and Our Conservative Gander: The president has been trying to convert the country's energy sector to the "green" creed, which is sure to take the wrecking ball to the American way of life and dramatically reduce our standard of living. Obama's energy policy goes to the heart of the entire progressive agenda. After the downfall of communism, the left almost immediately embraced the next millenarian project — environmentalism — and concentrated its prodigious energies on a giant undertaking: to stampede the world and put the progressives in power, wielding the global warming scare as its latest cataclysm. Are the Communists Coming? [Scroll down] When a candidate uses terms such as "smart growth," and "sustainability," don't take these words to be meaningless. Know that they come from Agenda 21, a product of the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development. This is the same conference that produced the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Climate Change Treaty. Agenda 21, and its policies seek to take elected officials out of the policy-making arena and place that authority in the hands of appointed "stakeholder councils," and the like. "Stakeholder councils" serve much the same function as "soviets" in the old communist regimes. The Original Enviro-Nazis. Eco-fascism is rooted in history like a German oak tree. This is nowhere more shockingly evident than at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp. Buchenwald means "Beech Forest." The SS enjoyed a zoo just outside the camp, and in the midst of the camp are the remains of Goethe's oak. The famous scholar Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) blazed the trail for the German Romantic Movement. Goethe spent much time around the environs of that particular oak tree, the destination of his favorite forest retreat. Today, Romanticism is known as Environmentalism. When the Nazis cleared the ground for the construction of the camp, they carefully preserved Goethe's oak tree. Late in the war, the tree died during an Allied bombing raid. However, the stump still remains thanks to the special care that the Nazis gave to it at its funeral. Why do I call them Eco Nazis? Because they ARE Eco Nazis. A fascinating article by Mark Musser in American Thinker on one of the pioneers of apocalyptic global warming theory. Turns out — whoulda thunk? — that he was a eugenicist and a Nazi. The Green Nazis. With its strong emphasis upon celebrating the authenticity of the German folk people (das volk) indigenously rooted in the natural landscape of their homeland in great contrast to the liberalism of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, German Romanticism is one of the great foundational pillars of modern environmentalism. While in hindsight, some environmental historians may debate over how green the Nazis were in actual practice, the National Socialist aspirations for a greener Germany cannot be denied. The Green Nazi Deep Ecology of Martin Heidegger. One of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, foundational to the academic left and deep ecology of the greens, was committed to Nazism. The green Nazi/deep ecology connection in the life and works of Martin Heidegger have been routinely given a pass over the years by many western scholars who love his existential philosophy. Green is the New Brown. Perhaps the most evil idea to take root under National Socialism was the concept of "Blood and Soil", an idea stemming from Darwinian Natural Selection. "Blood and Soil" was the romantic notion that a People were evolved by the climate, landscape, and general environment to be what they are, and in the case of Germany many believed the deep, dark forests, the oaks and pines, the mountains and streams, had shaped the German People in character and indeed even in racial aspects. Blood and Soil meant that the People and the land were one. The Nazi Roots of Sustainable Development. Much of the European Union's green sustainable development plans are largely based on government controlled land use planning theories rooted in the lebensraum tradition. Literally, lebensraum means "living space." Lebensraum was originally developed by German geographer Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904) and then greatly expanded under the banner of National Socialism (1933-1945). Radical Muslims, Environmentalists, and the Green Jihad. [Scroll down] Something like environmentalism can be easily used as a jihadist tool in the hands of a green Muslim to help sabotage America from within. After all, [Abdul] Matin says that "Muslims have a personal connection to the color green," and that "the favorite color of the Prophet Muhammad was green." More troubling is that Keith Ellison's pilgrimage to Mecca in 2008 was paid for by the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, which is just another name for the Muslim Brotherhood. A Green Tea Party: A revolt against economic hardship imposed by unelected bureaucrats based on junk science is brewing. This Tea Party movement wants the faulty finding on carbon dioxide to be reviewed and dumped. The Great Green Land Grab. All across America, various environmental organizations are engaged in schemes to deter development such as housing, new energy plants, or the horror of a manufacturing facility that might actually employ people. In some states, the attack has been on farms and ranches, finding ways to punish their owners for improving their land in any fashion such as digging a drainage ditch. Enviros play dirty on coal, natural gas. They don't discuss the subject too openly outside their own circles, but environmentalists make crystal clear on their Web sites that they want to stop all coal-based power production in this country. They claim coal can never be made clean, so it must be eliminated before it's too late to do anything about global warming. Ted Nace puts it succinctly in a Grist Web site post: "The stakes, for all life on the planet, surpass those of any previous crisis." That may sound extreme, but Nace is merely expressing mainstream environmentalist thinking. Green trade shows are starting to feel recycled. The green scene has been flooded with conferences, conventions, trade shows and other events trying to capitalize on the popularity of sustainability and concerns about climate change. Most of the meetings deal directly with environmental issues such as carbon emissions, conservation or alternative energy. The Editor says... How ironic! People are using capitalism to profit from environmentalism, even though environmentalism abhors capitalism. Skating on thin ice for climate change. Energy Secretary Steven Chu didn't reach the pinnacle of his profession by treading the well-worn path of modern group-think. It's regrettable that the Nobel Prize-winning physicist is stuck in that rut now. ... You have to feel for a man of science trying to make the jump to politics. In science, facts speak for themselves. In politics, facts are often run to ground by baloney. As energy secretary, Mr. Chu has traded fact for fiction and now spends his days selling President Obama's discredited climate-change policy. Activist 'Green' Lawyers Billing U.S. Millions in Fraudulent Attorney Fees. Without any oversight, accounting, or transparency, environmental activist groups have surreptitiously received at least $37 million from the federal government for questionable "attorney fees." The lawsuits they received compensation for had nothing to do with environmental protection or improvement. The activist groups have generated huge revenue streams via the obscure Equal Access to Justice Act. Season's Greenies. This is a tough time of year for eco-friendly global planners. In Copenhagen they tried to put together a deal to save the world's forests while we rode around with millions of Christmas trees tied to our car roofs. Among the ruses that came out of Copenhagen, they called on rich countries to pay poor countries to not cut down their trees. NOAA's Ministry Of Propaganda. Despite failures at Copenhagen, the fraud of the IPCC and the farce of Climate-gate, the administration wants an agency to monitor climate change. Why must we fund one-stop shopping for climate charlatans? Mandatory recycling UK group fears trash bin spies. It's the new front in the nanny state: Microchips placed in garbage bins to monitor how much people throw away. £1,000 fine for using wrong bin. Householders could be fined up to £1,000 if they fail to comply with complex new rules on refuse sorting. Food scraps, tea bags and vegetable peelings thrown into the wrong dustbin could land them with hefty penalties under government plans to be unveiled today [3/18/2010]. Recycling bin 'contaminated' by scrap of bread. A London man has been left stunned after garbagemen refused to empty a recycling bin containing a "miniscule" piece of bread. South London resident Michael Carter returned from shopping last Monday to find the wheelie bin still full and marked with a red tag. Hundreds of households hit with bin fines bigger than those given to shoplifters. Figures obtained by The Sunday Telegraph have revealed that local authorities issued more than 1,240 fixed penalty notices last year for breaking rules on recycling and putting out rubbish. Councils are issuing fines of up to £110 for such infringements as putting their bins out for collection at the wrong time, over filling bins, or putting recycling into the wrong boxes. Oh, but that would never happen in this country, right? High-tech carts will tell on Cleveland residents who don't recycle. It would be a stretch to say that Big Brother will hang out in Clevelanders' trash cans, but the city plans to sort through curbside trash to make sure residents are recycling — and fine them $100 if they don't. The move is part of a high-tech collection system the city will roll out next year with new trash and recycling carts embedded with radio frequency identification chips and bar codes. Green Police Becomes a Reality in Cleveland. Remember Audi's absurd "Green Police" Super Bowl commercial where green cops arrest citizens for using plastic bags, plastic water bottles and sort through the community's trash cans to ensure they're recycling? Well, the absurdity is about to hit the streets of Cleveland. Granny's $100 ticket — for throwing out newspaper. An elderly Manhattan woman living on Social Security was slapped with a $100 ticket — for throwing away a newspaper in a city trash can. Delia Gluckin, 80, tossed the paper, which was in a white plastic shopping bag, in a bin right outside her Inwood apartment building Saturday morning [12/4/2010] and was immediately ambushed by a Department of Sanitation agent wielding a handheld computerized ticket book. Privacy No More! You may think this is crazy, but the Green Police are coming to a town near you! I am serious! Many think the [advertisement] put out by Audi during the 2010 Superbowl is funny and cannot happen here in the United States — think again; it is happening now! Seriously, your garbage and recyclables are being monitored (in some cities in the USA) via RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) either put on your garbage containers/recycling bins or on your garbage bags. Plus, there are people who are called "Green Police" or the "Eco Police" that can then give you a fine of $25-$100 for not recycling or not recycling correctly. In other countries in Europe you can go to court if you do not recycle correctly or not enough — these RFID can even weigh how much garbage is being picked up at each address and then it is used to see if each address is doing enough to recycle. The Editor says... The RFID chip is like a bar code. It can identify the person who has been issued a specific recycle bin, but the RFID chip is not a scale. The bin can be weighed by the garbage truck easily enough, and that's how they'll determine if you're not recycling enough. There are numerous ways around this problem, but I'll leave them to the reader as an exercise. Let's just say I'll never be accused of recycling too little. More about RFID chips as a threat to privacy and freedom. EverGreens: After Failure, Warmists Will Change Hats And Move On. The charge is that scientists only considered stations which showed warming, and tossed those which did not fit their preconceptions. What makes this delicious is that the stations Hadley chose had large chunks of missing data, and the stations ignored had uninterrupted records. This makes sense: it's easier to homogenize data that isn't there. The explanations to come will no doubt provide for some light comedy. Inexplicable italics in original. In Pursuit of Death. Over the last two decades, activists in the news media and popular culture have managed to mainstream radical environmentalism, leading to a "green veto" over the use of natural resources, as well as land and development policy for the nation. Major projects are routinely halted over dubious claims of damage to habitats or endangered species. The costs of EPA-mandated impact studies alone are daunting enough to nix needed projects before they begin. Environmentalism is no longer just a collection of disaffected youth, misguided conservationists, and touchy-feely, back-to-nature types; this once-harmless eccentricity has unveiled a dark side. Hitler's Green Killing Machine. Historians have either overlooked or forgotten that sweeping Nazi environmental laws, all signed by Hitler and considered to be his pet projects, preceded the racially charged Nuremberg Laws, reflecting the fact that Nazi racism was rooted in ecology. By the summer of 1935, right before the Nuremberg laws were set up, Nazi Germany was by far the greenest regime on the planet. The Animal Protection laws were followed up by a strong hunting law for Hermann Goering in 1934. In 1935, Hitler also signed the Reich Nature Protection Act, the high water mark for Nazi environmentalism. Here is seen the birth of environmental permits, environmental impact statements and environmental totalitarianism. Just Say No to Democracy. Actually, "democracy" is not only messy but also immoral and unworkable. The Founding Fathers saw that coming, as well. So we don't live under a system of simple majority rule for a reason, as most readers already know. The minority political party, luckily, has the ability to obstruct, nag, and filibuster the majority's agenda. Otherwise, those in absolute power would run wild — or, in other words, you all would be living that Super Bowl Audi commercial by now. Green Police Aren't Just in Super Bowl Ads. If you've been watching the daily scandals destroy the credibility of the U.N. IPCC, then you might not realize that Cambridge, Massachusetts is in a state of climate emergency. This is not hyperbole, but an official policy order, passed by the City Council in May 2009, "recogniz[ing] that there is a climate emergency" and requesting the City Manager "to direct the appropriate city departments to increase the City's responses to a scale proportionate to the emergency." The Green Police Take Over the Country. The most interesting element of the Super Bowl wasn't the Super Bowl. It was an advertisement for the Audi A3 TDI. The commercial depicted uniformed officials arresting Americans for, among other offenses, asking for plastic bags at the grocery, throwing away batteries, failing to compost an orange peel and installing incandescent light bulbs. Audi's Gorewellian Super Bowl Ad. [Scroll down] Some conservatives didn't like it because it makes light of what they believe is actually happening. After all, in America and Europe the list of environmental crimes is growing at an almost exponential rate. The ad is absurd, of course, but not nearly as absurd as Audi thinks. Audi Super Bowl Ad: Working Both Sides of Street? The main selling point, surprisingly, is not that this car, which won a "Green Car of the Year" award, is good for the planet, but that if you drive it, you won't be hassled, bullied, and jailed by the "green police." The ad tries to work both sides of the street. It attempts to appeal to those who believe SUVs are destroying the planet — and those who resent eco-elitists and busybodies telling them how to live. Capitalism and Climate Change. The goals of the climate-change crowd are not reduction in global warming but the enactment of a worldwide system of regulation that puts business under government control and transfers wealth from rich nations to poor ones under the guise of fighting climate change. Should the emissions come down on their own, as they are doing, the excuse for draconian legislation goes, well, up in smoke. Don't confuse environmentalism with science. Climatology is a science, not to be confused with environmentalism. The heart of environmentalism is not to be found in the natural sciences. It is ideology and nothing more. That is why it ends in "-ism." Environmentalism is itself not a monolith, but its dominant strand is distinctly statist in character. As such, its main nemesis is the science of economics, not climatology or any of the other natural sciences. A sound understanding of economics is all that is needed to discredit the emerging interventionist social agenda of the environmental movement. The methods that they recommend cannot deliver the results that they promise. Green Is the New Red. The inconvenience of the truth falls on Gore, not his opponents. Water levels have in fact declined slightly at Tuvalu, and the country's modest population shrinkage is due to economic migration. Malaria was much more prevalent in Nairobi a century ago, and has risen slightly in recent years only because of the ecologists' attack on the use of insecticides. The polar ice caps aren't melting at all; the ice sheets over the oceans are, but the ice over land is actually thickening, so water levels are not being affected. The Left's End Times. [Scroll down] Their chicken-littleism, preaching, and rants about global warming (or climate change, or whatever else they think helps sell the goods) is never portrayed as such — not, of course, by themselves or by a pliant establishment media. Theirs is "settled science," according to movement gurus, with Al Gore being the most conspicuous. Obama's "Progressives": With the collapse of the former Soviet Union, many former communists became "environmentalists," often playing major roles in the many organizations serving that cause. Among President Obama's ever-expanding circle of "czars" is Carol Browner, the former Clinton-era director of the Environmental Protection Agency (1993-2000), whose latest appointment also revealed that she served on the Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which is part of Socialist International. Her association with the group has since been scrubbed from their website. Most obvious and notorious is Van Jones, who has never made a secret of his political preference for communism and is Obama's new "Green Jobs" czar. The links between the environmental movement and communist goals are numerous; it should not surprise anyone that the "global warming" hoax was birthed in the bowels of the United Nations. British campaigner urges UN to accept 'ecocide' as international crime. A campaign to declare the mass destruction of ecosystems an international crime against peace — alongside genocide and crimes against humanity — is being launched in the UK. ... The radical idea would have a profound effect on industries blamed for widespread damage to the environment like fossil fuels, mining, agriculture, chemicals and forestry. Save the Planet by Banning Ice Cream. Notice that the environmentalists immediately claim superiority over us. They are the ones who have pointed out the error of our ways, and they are saving the planet that we very nearly destroyed with our selfish lust for material goods and endless modern comforts. They claim that if it weren't for them, we would soon wreck the planet and self-inflict the greatest wound ever suffered by mankind. The only way to redeem ourselves in their eyes is to turn back the clock on our lifestyle. How far should we turn the clock back? They won't say. For now, they just ask us to use less energy. Orwellian Nightmare: Science Is Whatever 'the Party' Says It Is. The Party — the political class of the world — does not want God to exist. Therefore, if the laws of physics and the laws of mathematics say He does, then the laws of physics and the laws of mathematics must be changed to whatever the Party wants. Therefore, God does not exist. He must not be mentioned, must not be prayed to in class. The Party wants the Earth to be warming, so that its members can establish their power over every aspect of our lives. The Earth has not warmed in a decade, in fact it has gotten colder. But the Party says warmer, and further, says that the warming is due to human addition of CO2 to the atmosphere. Steal this! A Canadian study shows that people who buy green products tend to lie and steal more than those who don't. A green, sustainable future that doesn't work. In the high desert of central Arizona, more than five thousand miles from the global-warming summit in Copenhagen, sits an aging and unfinished vision of the enviro-friendly, sustainable life that some climate change activists foresee for us all. It's called Arcosanti, created in 1970 by the Italian architect Paolo Soleri, and it is the prototype of a green community of the future. The only problem is, it doesn't work. And it never did. Can America Survive its Sharp Left Turn? Most Americans want a clean environment. They want to be able to enjoy green spaces that are clean and free from pollution. Most Americans also realize that our planet is much cleaner and healthier today than it was 40 years ago. The left sees people as bad for the planet. Given that they can't actually eliminate people, they insist people sacrifice their comfort and prosperity in the name of environmentalism. They are willing to shut down businesses and whole communities to save a tree or a fish. They are willing for you to pay much more for your energy in the hopes that you will stop using it. That is a threat to our livelihood. Energy to spare. Under the inspiration of the Green Zeitgeist, I cannot go into a magazine shop without finding some science-lite cover story on new prospects for harnessing solar, thermal, wind, tidal, or whatever "renewable" forces. There is an immense credulous audience out there, willing to be entertained by such nonsense. No one with a grasp of high school physics should take any of these schemes seriously. In each case, we are looking at a crank idea from the hippie era, which has not since been significantly improved, because it can't be. Saving the Environment Through Human Misery. The New Scientist describes 5 "eco crimes we commit every day"; acts of thoughtless decadence that are killing the planet. Are you a climate criminal? Listen to these indictments and decide if you engage in any of these heinous activities. Hurricane Expert Rips Climate Fears. There has been an unrelenting quarter century of one-sided indoctrination of the western world by the media and by various scientists and governments concerning a coming carbon dioxide (CO2) induced global warming disaster. These warming scenarios have been orchestrated by a combination of environmentalists, vested interest scientists wanting larger federal grants and publicity, the media which profits from doomsday scenario reporting, governmental bureaucrats who want more power over our lives, and socialists who want to level-out global living standards. Burning the home fires is a crime on bad air nights in Bay Area. Light a fire at home, pay a $400 fine. Burning wood fires in home fireplaces and stoves on bad air nights in the Bay Area becomes illegal again as of Sunday [11/01/2009], when the region enters its second cold-weather season with lighting up banned during Spare the Air alerts. The Editor says... This is the same state that had numerous wildfires this year, which burned hundreds of acres of trees, with no lasting effect on air quality. Fireplaces and campfires are not an air pollution problem. Banning these fires is just another step toward total control of every activity. National Sovereignty, Climate Mysticism, and You. The ostensible subject was the United Nations Copenhagen Climate Treaty, scheduled to take place in December. Anyone who doubts that environmentalism has become one of the most potent weapons in the quiver of the international Left should take a look at some of the treaty's proposed provisions. Basically, it is a wealth transfer scheme in which rich countries send money to poor countries because they, the rich ones, have (so the story goes) done more to insult the environment. (Isn't the real story that they have enriched the entire world beyond imagining? Yes — but that contravenes the left-wing narrative.) 'Climate Change' Treaty: The Supreme Law Of The Land? We hear it said that whenever the President signs, and the Senate ratifies, a Treaty, it becomes part of "the supreme law of the land". But is that True? Not necessarily! Carbon Pawprints. As polls show belief in global warming is dropping, a new study suggests that dogs and cats, like people, are a plague upon the earth. They say people should have edible pets. ... They do not actually say your wiener dog should be on the menu. But they've calculated the carbon emissions created by popular pets, taking into account the ingredients of pet food and the land needed to create them. They advise having pets like rabbits or chickens. Maybe we could start a Cash for Cluckers program. Obama's new world order. Global-warming alarmists are using the myth of climate change to impose an embryonic socialist world government. Following the collapse of communism, the West's progressive elites desperately searched for a viable ideological alternative. They found it in environmentalism. Although the Green movement wraps itself in the flag of empirical science, it represents the very opposite: a dogma that provides meaning and purpose to its rabid followers. Ask Not if the Science of Global Warming is True? "The idea of climate change," [Mike] Hulme writes, "should be seen as an intellectual resource around which our collective and personal identities and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us." In other words, socialists like Hulme can frame the global warming issue to achieve unrelated goals such as sustainable development, income redistribution, population control, social justice and many other items on the liberal/socialist wish list. Every Drop of Water in America. Some in the federal government want to exert control over ... every drop of water in America. It is an attack on private property and it is emblematic of the real agenda of environmentalists. It is Communism. The American Land Rights Association recently issued a notice. "Having been slapped down by the U.S. Supreme Court's two recent decisions that the words 'navigable waters' in the Clean Water Act limited federal agencies to regulation of navigable waters only, Democrats and liberal Republicans in Congress are striking back." America Needs a Climate Change Revolt. We've got until December — when world leaders meet in Copenhagen to hammer out a global warming agreement — to pound it into the thick heads of our elected officials that we want no part of it. It's fine to be for clean air and clean water. But we are heading toward a new world order on climate change — and that's NOT fine. Environmental laws put gaps in Mexico border security. In the battle on the U.S.-Mexico border, the fight against illegal immigration often loses out to environmental laws that have blocked construction of parts of the "virtual fence" and that threaten to create places where agents can't easily track illegal immigrants. Starting today, it is illegal not to recycle plastic bottles. Starting today [10/1/2009], that old soda bottle and empty milk jug are no longer just garbage. They must be recycled. A new state law is taking effect that prohibits all plastic bottles from being disposed of in landfills. Supporters of the law say it will boost North Carolina's burgeoning recycling industry, which has an unmet demand for old bottles that can be converted into new goods. The Myth that Liberalism is the Ideology of Science: The Left supported global cooling before latching onto the equally fictitious global warming. Its ban on DDT has led to the death of millions in Africa. Liberals clapped along when Paul Ehrlich predicted that we'd all be starving to death in the eighties and nineties. For all their insufferably smug talk about science, for the liberals, the pursuit of knowledge is always secondary to their political agenda. The Real Climate Agenda. Environmentalism generally and catastrophic man-made global warming specifically is a falsified diversionary scare distracting us from the fall of our Republic into the dark, stinking swamp of statism. ... We no longer have representative government, but are ruled by an alien ideology. Understand that the federal government is not us, it is them. Climate Of Control. Though the EPA says a cap-and-trade bill will do nothing if the developing world doesn't cut CO2 emissions, Democrats are intent on passing a global warming law anyway. What is their real goal? Is environmentalism the opiate of the liberals? Human nature abhors a religious vacuum. ... Just as environmentalism has replaced Marxism as the central economic theory of the far left, so too has environmentalism begun to replace liberal Christianity as the left's motivating religious force. Were it not for the presence of powerful black Protestant churches in the liberal alliance, environmentalism might have supplanted liberal Christianity already. The 'Green' Trojan Horse. Among the many controversies swirling around the White House's "green czar," none is more disturbing than his plan to use the green movement to socialize the economy. The Fall of the Red Czar. No thanks to the establishment media and Congressional Democrats, the Obama administration's "green jobs czar" Van Jones is out of a job. ... Now that Jones has stepped down, the media has rallied to his defense, depicting Jones as the victim of a "vicious smear campaign" by foes of his environmental politics — a charge echoed by the administration's Democratic allies. The less palatable truth is that Jones is a racial provocateur and opportunist who tried to capitalize on the administration's sympathy for the "green" agenda to bring his own brand of socialist and black radical politics to national prominence. More about Van Jones. What a 'Green Jobs Czar' Does. Citing this effort as "a major opportunity" and an "unprecedented opportunity" — both in the same paragraph, so please understand: this is an opportunity, people! — to address the problem of so many people taking up so much space (sorry, critical habitat) and using so much stuff, EPA and the Vice President have decided that "A systematic review of how a wide range of Federal policies affect the development of urban, suburban, and rural America is long overdue." They also can't resist citing carbon (sic) emissions as a reason to revamp policies with an eye toward telling people how to live. Green Jobs and a Green Economy Will Fail Like Van Jones. Van Jones perpetuated the view that environment and climate change are ideal vehicles for advancing total government control. In 1993 former Senator Timothy Wirth, now Director of the UN Foundation, said, "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy." Italics in original. Reducing Vehicle Travel Won't Make Much Dent in Greenhouse Gas Emissions. A highly publicized July report by the Urban Land Institute, titled Moving Cooler, also called for policies reducing the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by people in their cars. The reductions would be forced by highly intrusive land use policies allowing for only minor expansion of roadway capacity and forcing almost all new development to be within existing urban footprints. It would employ such radical strategies as forcing people to pay $400 per year to park their cars in front of their own homes. The Editor says... Allow me to simplify this issue: Leftist politicians want to raise taxes and restrict your freedoms in order to solve a problem that doesn't exist. The Green Nazi Hell and America's Future? When the Nazis seized power, environmentalism was surprisingly given a premier role in 1933-35. In fact, the Nazis passed the most progressive environmental laws found anywhere in the world at the time. The first was a law for the protection of animals called Tierschutzrecht, which forbid cruel experiments on animals, not to mention Jewish ritual slaughter. On the other hand... Save the planet: time to eat dog? The eco-pawprint of a pet dog is twice that of a 4.6-litre Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year, researchers have found. Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits, in their provocative new book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living. GE's 'net-zero energy home' scam. Beware: green or clean energy — whatever you want to call it — is the new snake oil. It's sad that the only sort of energy innovation occurring today is based more on financial shenanigans (cost-shifting, subsidies and worse) than technologies to produce more energy at less cost. Greening the Capitol. [Scroll down] In fact, getting any sort of cost-benefit analysis out of Green the Capitol is difficult at best. ... But if you do some digging on the site you can download the report submitted to Congress giving the details of the initiative. Buried 30 pages into the 60-page report is this pertinent information: In 2006, the House's energy costs amounted to $15 million. In 2008, after the implementation of Green the Capitol, the House was spending over $20 million. What Green Jobs? President Obama devoted nearly $60 billion of his stimulus package to building a new green-based economy rich in renewable energy and strategies to cut carbon. But despite the price tag, not one green job yet exists. It comes down to a problem of etymology. No one can yet agree on what a green job actually is. The Myth of the Expert. For some reason government scientists like Dr. [Phil] Jones that get millions in government research grants are considered to be disinterested experts. Yet anyone who has ever taken a dime from an oil company is bought and paid for. Of course that is nonsense. To politicians, scientists are just another interest group competing for favors. It's pay to play. To get their grant money scientists need to deliver science that helps argue for bigger government. And they do, especially in the climate sciences. The Alice in Wonderland World of the Greens. An irrational fear of 'climate apocalypse' has driven nature-worshipping green ideologues in every age generation. Being inherently anti-capitalist they care little whether their demands threaten to bankrupt modern economies, or deny poorer nations the same cheap, hydro-carbon powered industrialization path out of poverty taken by developed nations. For Green World, preposterous self-righteous claims are morally self-evident, Real World facts and reason mere irrelevancies. In Search of an Intelligent Energy Policy. No responsible energy policy can go forward that is rooted in the belief that man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions significantly contribute to global warming or "climate change" as it is now called. This article will address data from the historical temperature record as well as climate models that refute the theory that CO2 causes or to a large extend amplifies climate change. Based on the following data it appears that the only thing consistent about the climate is that it is always changing. Green nonsense. Waxman-Markey contains unpleasant surprises for Americans, including a provision which could prevent homeowners from selling their homes if they aren't retrofitted to meet federal "green" guidelines. But the House passed the 1,400-page bill before its members had an opportunity to read it, much less ponder its implications. Let's pray the Senate is more responsible. Phosphate phaseout has dishwasher soap makers scrambling for an alternative. Automatic dishwasher detergents with phosphates have handled a lot of dirty plates over the years, but new laws aimed at making the soaps easier on the environment are putting that to an end, and the industry hasn't been this agitated in years. Environmentalist Economic Strangulation. [Scroll down slowly] This green agenda is more than absurd, it is sinister. The real goal of greens is not "clean energy" but less energy. Energy is essential to economic progress, and many greens want to halt and reverse economic progress. Some radical greens have praised Fidel Castro for de-developing Cuba. Al Gore wrote in his book Earth in the Balance that U.S. policy should aim for slower economic growth. President Obama's chief science advisor John Holdren's top two environmental goals are to shrink the human population and to slow economic growth. Just another myth used to steal your taxes. The reality is that folks are catching on to the fact that man-made global warming is a hoax, an inconvenient truth attested to by more and more scientists. Like any good con man, Obama wants to hurry the shakedown before his mark figures out his game. Democrats actually said that "if we do not act now, the climate will soon be out of our control." This, of course, raises the question: Just when was the climate ever under our control? This can happen here, too. Environment Agency Sets Up Green Police. The boys in green are coming as the Environment Agency sets up a squad to police companies generating excessive CO2 emissions. The agency is creating a unit of about 50 auditors and inspectors, complete with warrant cards and the power to search company premises to enforce the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), which comes into effect next year. Cap and Trade: Political Alchemy, Economy Buster and Disaster for Poor. During recent years, with the support of radical environmentalists, a form of political alchemy is being foisted upon the public. ... During the last two decades, liberals have developed a way to demonize fossil-burning fuels. This strategy included the turning of carbon emissions into a commodity which can be assigned monetary value. The regulation of essential elements of life. The EPA is now considering designating CO2 a dangerous pollutant. The regulation of essential elements of life by our government scares me. It should scare us all. I am devastated by the notion that our own government founded on freedom would regulate and control the most fundamental aspects of life on earth. ... We generally have too much water where we don't need it and too little where we do. Are you planning to regulate water also? ... Carbon dioxide is just as essential to life as water and oxygen. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than oxygen or water. Communist U.N. Boss Praises "Mother Earth". Our media haven't found much time to cover the U.N. Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis underway at the world organization's headquarters in New York. But the Obama White House is working hand-in-glove with a Communist Catholic Priest who gave a bizarre speech on Wednesday devoted to saving "Mother Earth" from evil capitalists. Lovely Organic Oil. Environmentalists sit in their cozy air conditioned offices attempting to figure out something to do to raise money and keep their marketing businesses alive, so we are bombarded daily about catastrophes suppositions and wild what if scenarios. We are told about all the things that we should do to be "mainstream" and friendly to our planet. If you didn't know better you would think that plastic bags were sent from some evil alien planet to destroy us all, but this (just in case you were not sure) is not the case. Chicken Little Lays Egg. Ever since global warming made the leap from scientific theory to purported scientific law, there has been a shortage of discussion on the effects of the policies aimed to combat it. It is presupposed that if we want to solve this "climate crisis," we must ratify treaties such as Kyoto, shut down coal plants and not invest in any more oil refineries. The ramifications of doing so could be disastrous for America. The Ecopalypse, 96 Months Away? Capitalism is liberating: You're born a peasant but you don't have to die one. You can work hard and get a nice place in the suburbs. If you were a 19th century Russian peasant and you got to Ellis Island, you'd be living in a tenement on the Lower East Side, but your kids would get an education and move uptown, and your grandkids would be doctors and accountants in Westchester County. And your great-grandchild would be a Harvard-educated environmental activist demanding an end to all this electricity and indoor toilets. Environmentalism opposes that kind of mobility. It seeks to return us to the age of kings when the masses are restrained by a privileged elite. Why Anti-Growth Activism Does Not Help the Environment. Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) is closing down an El Dorado county sawmill that has been around since 1889. SPI will also close another sawmill and electric power plant in Tuolome county. Two more SPI mills in Plumas and Humbolt counties will also close, leaving hundreds of workers without jobs. One reason for the closings is the drop in new-home construction. Anti-growth activists will be happy about the shutdowns, part of their stance known as BANANA — Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone. EPA Endangerment Finding for CO2. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued its proposed "Endangerment Finding" for emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles. If the finding is finalized, these emissions will be subject to technological limitations under the Clean Air Act and would trigger a cascade of regulations on virtually all sources of regulated greenhouse gases, from backyard weed whackers to massive electrical power plants. Eight Fallacies about Global Warming: The reality is that there is no clear evidence that human emissions of carbon dioxide have any measurable effect on temperatures. Such a claim rests on climate models of unproven accuracy and on lines of physical argument that expressly exclude consideration of other known important drivers of climate change. ... At its most basic, if scientists cannot be sure that temperatures are today rising, nor establish that the gentle late 20th century warming was caused by CO2 emissions, then it is nonsense to propose that expensive controls are needed on human carbon dioxide emissions. 'Job-Creating' Ordinance Makes Negligence of 'Green' Audit Criminal. The government is continuing to encroach on freedoms more and more in the name of climate change. Case in point: An ordinance that went into effect June 1 stating if you sell your home in Austin, Texas and you fail to get a clean energy "green" audit, you will likely face criminal charges. According to an ordinance passed by the Austin City Council in November 2008, any home 10 years or older will require an "Energy Conservation Audit. In Australia: Government's switched on energy move. All Australian homes will soon have to undergo a mandatory energy-efficiency assessment costing up to $1500 per property. The assessment has to be done before any property can be sold or rented under new laws to tackle carbon emissions. U.S. Energy and Climate Plans Would Drag Us Back to 1905 — or 1862. President Obama wants to prevent "runaway global warming," by slashing U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. According to Oak Ridge National Laboratory data, this reduction would return the United States to emission levels last seen in those halcyon days of 1905. But America's 1905 population was 84 million, versus 308 million today. We didn't drive or fly, or generate electricity for offices, factories, schools or hospitals. To account for those differences, we'd have to send CO2 emissions back to 1862 levels. Environmental red tape hurts families in California Fish Don't Vote. The Republican Party has long been fishing for an issue that will reach out to Hispanic and other minority voters. Now, a three-inch fish may be the key to establishing common ground between that voting bloc and the GOP. Land Grab, Air Grab, Water Grab — S 787. The CWA (Clean Water Act) regulates point source pollution discharges into "waters of the United States." The United States Supreme Court has interpreted the phrase "waters of the United States" to exclude isolated waters, such as ponds, intermittent streams, and wetlands which do not have a "significant nexus" to a navigable waterway. These bodies of water are not regulated by the CWA. S 787 would change the CWA to significantly broaden the scope of the bill. S.F. OKs toughest recycling law in U.S. Throwing orange peels, coffee grounds and grease-stained pizza boxes in the trash will be against the law in San Francisco, and could even lead to a fine. The Board of Supervisors voted 9-2 Tuesday [6/9/2009] to approve Mayor Gavin Newsom's proposal for the most comprehensive mandatory composting and recycling law in the country. It's an aggressive push to cut greenhouse gas emissions and have the city sending nothing to landfills or incinerators by 2020. Rain or Shine, Environmentalists Want to Control Us. This is the winter of environmentalists' discontent. They desperately want the earth to be warming to prove Al Gore's truth inviolate and they are going to make you pay thousands of dollars for it no matter whether it's true or not. But the weather has been inconveniently cold. The Climate-Industrial Complex. Some business leaders are cozying up with politicians and scientists to demand swift, drastic action on global warming. This is a new twist on a very old practice: companies using public policy to line their own pockets. The Geography of Carbon Emissions. No American city is among the top 50 cities in the world for air pollution according to the World Bank. Another list, 'The Top Ten of the Dirty Thirty,' compiled by the Blacksmith Institute of New York compared the toxicity of contamination, the likelihood of it getting into humans and the number of people affected. Places were bumped up in rank if children were impacted. No US or European sites made the list. Activists Motivated by Power, EU's Klaus Tells ICCC. Environmental activists are less concerned about any crisis posed by global warming than they are eager to command human behavior and restrict economic activity, the president of the Czech Republic told the opening session of the second International Conference on Climate Change. Vaclav Klaus, who also is serving a rotating term as president of the European Union, triggered the approving applause of about 700 attendees when he said, "Their true plans and ambitions: to stop economic development and return mankind centuries back." What Europeanization Will Really Mean: Since Mr. Obama and his friends would like us to be more like Europeans, my wife and I recently went on a great explore to find out what life is really like in Europe and what changes we should expect. Get out your bike because you will soon be riding it everywhere. That means you too, Grandma — no exceptions. The best way to cut down on that nasty CO2 is to chuck your cars and get on a two-wheeler. Of course, after a couple years with the government running two of our three major car companies, a bicycle may become an attractive alternative. An All-Out Deification of Nature. Since the introduction of bumper stickers calling for us to respect "Mother Earth," we have been careening towards an all-out deification of nature. And as the last decade has witnessed an unprecedented push for green cars, green energy, and green government policies, it seems environmentalism has finally become less about saving the planet and more about worshiping it. ... There is an undeniable infatuation with nature in our post-modern culture, and like all infatuations, this one causes people to rush to support solutions that are flatly outlandish in their claims. Green hysteria shackles our economic growth. I am surprised so many people in Europe, the US and elsewhere have come to support policies underpinned by hysteria over global warming, particularly cap-and-trade legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions and subsidies for "green" energy sources. I am convinced this is a misguided strategy — not only because of the uncertainty about the dangers that global warming might pose, but also because of the certainty of the damage that policies aimed at mitigation will cause. California adopts first regulation to limit greenhouse gas emissions from fuel. California took aim today at the oil industry and its effect on global warming, adopting the world's first regulation to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the fuel that runs cars and trucks. The state Air Resources Board voted 9-1 in favor of the complex new rule, which is expected to slash the state's gasoline consumption by a quarter in the next decade. Out West, Catching Raindrops Can Make You an Outlaw. Every raincloud that passes over her eastern Colorado ranch tempts state Rep. Marsha Looper to break the law. A long, hard drought has settled across the land, and on those rare occasions when the sky opens, Ms. Looper longs to set out some rain barrels to collect the bounty for future use. She'd like to use the rain to grow hothouse tomatoes. But she refrains. "I don't want to get thrown in jail," she explains. California May Ban Black Cars. The California legislature is considering regulating the color of cars and reflectivity of paint to reduce the energy requirements to cool them. ... The problem isn't the color per se, but the reflectivity of the paint overall. And dark colors just don't reflect well, so they are likely out. "Jet black remains an issue," says the report. Update: California Car Paint Proposal Parked For Now. California has backed down from a proposal on new cars' paint coatings. The state said it's looking for ways to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions by improving cars' efficiency. One way to do that is by making cars more reflective so that their air-condition systems don't have to work as hard. Public Land Mismanagement and Environmental Irresponsibility. Decades of fire suppression by the Forest Service have disrupted natural fire cycles and turned many western forests into tinderboxes waiting to burn. Dense stands of spindly deadfall and underbrush now occupy land once characterized by open savannahs and large, widely spaced trees. One result is larger, more intense fires that burn the publicly owned forests to the ground. Indeed, by the Forest Service's own estimates, 90 to 200 million acres of federal forests are at high risk of burning in catastrophic fire events. California appears poised to be first to ban power-guzzling big-screen TVs. The influential lobby group Consumer Electronics Assn. is fighting what appears to be a losing battle to dissuade California regulators from passing the nation's first ban on energy-hungry big-screen televisions. California considering banning giant TVs. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state's governor, has supported controversial proposals by the California's energy commission to impose strict energy consumption limits on TVs with screens that are more than 40 inches wide. The commission claims that California's estimated 35 million televisions and related gadgets account for about 10 percent of household energy consumption in the state. California To Ban TV: But Not For a Good Reason. Why is the California Energy Commission (CEC), a Gov. Jerry Brown creation, wanting to ban television sets? Well, it seems that a honking 48-inch plasma screen, that bright symbol of the bygone days of conspicuous consumption and purveyor of drooling vacuity, uses too much electricity, and electricity production makes too much greenhouse gas emissions (at least in America, where half of our electricity comes from coal — in France, a plasma screen would emit nary a CO2 molecule as the TVs there are nuclear powered). Green economics: It just doesn't add up. Green jobs will grow the unemployment rolls, concludes a study at Juan Carlos University in Madrid. Every green job created ploughs under 2.2 jobs elsewhere in the economy, and that doesn't account for the indirect job losses to come of the higher energy prices that accompany green energy technologies: Companies can be counted on to flee this green, or should we say gangrene, economy. The Myth of 5 Million Green Jobs. [Scroll down] The central finding of the study is that — treating the data optimistically — for every renewable-energy job that the government finances, "Spain's experience reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created." Despite expensive and extensive green-job policies, a surprisingly low number of jobs were created. And about two-thirds of those "green" jobs were just to set up the energy source, in construction, fabrication, installation, marketing and administration. Only 10 percent of the green jobs created were permanent jobs actually operating and maintaining the renewable sources of energy. Ruling hands greens a setback. The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday [4/1/2009] that federal environmental regulators can use cost-benefit analysis techniques when deciding how to upgrade equipment at power plants, a defeat for green groups who want the impact on the environment to be the chief or only consideration. The 6-3 ruling strikes down a victory for the Riverkeepers environmental group, which had persuaded the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that cost should not matter in its bid to require companies to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in system upgrades to meet what it claimed were Environmental Protection Agency regulations. California Gas Stations Shut Under Expensive Mandate. Nearly 100 California gas stations are being forced out of business by a statewide mandate requiring them to implement expensive new equipment to reduce vapor emissions at the pump. The mandate, issued by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), is known as Phase II of the state's Enhanced Vapor Recovery program. It requires gas station owners to purchase and install devices to prevent vapors from escaping when customers fill their cars. Hayward begins ticketing for smoking in public. Lighted cigarettes meant lightened purses and wallets for smokers who were caught puffing in public this week, as the city began enforcement of a smoking ban that technically went into effect last summer. The law, passed by the City Council last May, mandates a $50 fine for smoking on sidewalks, streets and other public places, including a 20-foot no smoking zone around outdoor patio areas of restaurants and bars, as well as parks, sports fields, playgrounds and municipal parking lots. That zone also applies to windows, doors and ventilation ducts. Pelosi's Toy Story: Under a new law set to go into effect February 10, unsold toys, along with bikes, books and even children's clothing are destined for the scrap heap due to an overzealous law to increase toy safety. The damage comes from new rules governing lead in children's products. After last year's scare over contaminated toys made in China, Congress leapt in to require all products aimed at children under 12 years old to be certified as safe and virtually lead-free by independent testing. California's 'Green Jobs' Experiment Isn't Going Well. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was all smiles in 2006 when he signed into law the toughest anti-global-warming regulations of any state. Mr. Schwarzenegger and his green supporters boasted that the regulations would steer California into a prosperous era of green jobs, renewable energy, and technological leadership. Instead, since 2007 — in anticipation of the new mandates — California has led the nation in job losses. Green power's hidden agenda: Wind, solar, and geothermal, by contrast, are the most expensive alternatives to coal. A kilowatt of power from such renewables typically costs about ten times as much as a kilowatt from coal — and more than six times as much as a kilowatt from nuclear or hydropower. Alternative energy promoters, including former vice president Al Gore, promise that these prices will decline if only the government subsidizes the necessary technological innovation. Those promises have not come true over the past three decades, and it's extremely unlikely that they ever will. The 100-Meter Gasp. The Beijing Olympics [exposed] the environmentalist fraud that the U.S. is the world's biggest polluter. Compared with China, we get the gold medal for energy efficiency. The Great Global Warming Swindle. I have followed green politics for a while now. ... It is transparently obvious that the greens sit squarely in the tradition of Romanticism. Like the romantics, they hate industry, love nature, idealise peasant life, they think capitalism is wicked, they think people in modern society lead depraved shallow lives and have forgotten the true value of things, they don't like cars or supermarkets or lots of proles taking cheap long-haul holidays, etc, etc. Environmental Myths Masterfully Debunked: Greener Than Thou, the new book by Terry L. Anderson and Laura E. Huggins of the Hoover Institution, ... debunks four environmental myths: 1. No price for environmental purity is too high. 2. Materialism and concern for nature cannot coexist. 3. Constraining markets and the use of private property protects the environment. 4. Malthusian population growth will outstrip resources. Suddenly being green is not cool any more. Julie Burchill can't stand them. According to her new book, Not in my Name: A Compendium of Modern Hypocrisy, she thinks all environmentalists are po-faced, unsexy, public school alumni who drivel on about the end of the world because they don't want the working classes to have any fun, go on foreign holidays or buy cheap clothes. Judge scales back ruling on roadless national forests. A federal magistrate judge ruled Tuesday [12/2/2008] that a Clinton-era ban against new road construction and development on millions of acres of national forest would apply only to 10 western states. Two years ago, Judge Elizabeth Laporte invalidated a 2005 Bush administration rule that overturned the 2001 "Roadless Rule," which protected 58.5 million acres of federal land in about 40 states. But in August, a federal judge in Wyoming invalidated President Bill Clinton's Roadless Rule, leading the Bush administration to request that the two judges modify their conflicting rulings. The Long Awaited Re-Emergence of the Silent Majority. Radical environmental legislation, in the form of endangered species acts, clean water acts, salmon recovery acts, inhibiting or outright prohibiting energy source extraction, power generation by any energy means, or the construction of oil refineries, and the fraud that is man-caused global warming in the form of CO2 emission limits and the insane cap and trade policies, has cutoff American creativity, ingenuity, industriousness and its envied economy, bringing the economy to its knees and rendering the United States a third-world country. Environmentalism: Freedom's Foe for the '90s. At the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, some young people, intimidated by the pace and complexity of modern life, were looking either to rebel or to retreat -- to tear down "the System," or to withdraw to nature for a "Colorado Rocky Mountain high." ... [T]hey preached the inherent goodness of untouched nature and undisciplined emotion; the corrupting influence of reason, culture, and civilization; economic egalitarianism and small-scale participatory democracy; the mystical infallibility of the collective will and the sacrifice of the individual to the group. And they were united in their hatred of a common enemy: modern American, capitalistic society. High cost of hitting climate panic button. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's handpicked global warming guru Ross Garnaut has issued his third apocalyptic theory unencumbered with any hard scientific evidence. Again, he calls for Australia to take a lead in controlling emissions though he admitted on ABC radio yesterday [9/30/2008] that any mitigating action taken by Australia to control so-called hothouse gases would have absolutely no effect on global climate change. Garnaut's prescription would however throw more Australians out of work even as Australia's economy wilts in the global economic meltdown. How the Greens Captured Energy Policy: Through its influence in the media and government (both bureaucracy and congress), the Greens effectively abolished nuclear power, curtailed domestic oil production, and left the American energy industry in the comatose state in which it abides to this day. Nor this was an error or overreaction — it was a deliberate effort to fulfill the Green agenda. Govt. Energy Star Program A Farce. The federal agency recently swayed by the industry it regulates to conceal a hazardous chemical has been duped into labeling bogus products as greenhouse emissions-decreasing energy savers that qualify for government rebates. This certainly indicates that Uncle Sam's highly-touted Energy Star program, which offers hundreds of millions of dollar in rebates to those who use "energy efficient" products, is a big joke or at the very least a waste of public funds. Obama's EPA Gave Energy Star Certification to Phony Products, GAO Says. The Environmental Protection Agency certified that a "gas-powered clock radio" was an energy-efficient product under the government's Energy Star program, despite the fact that neither the clock nor its manufacturer ever existed. The clock and 14 other phony products were part of an investigation into the Energy Star program conducted by the Government Accountability Office, which submitted 20 fraudulent Energy Star applications from four fake companies. The EPA evaluated 16 of those products while the Department of Energy (DOE) evaluated four. California may adopt energy standards for new TVs. Many large TVs are energy hogs, however, and California regulators want to get the biggest offenders off store shelves. The California Energy Commission is expected to adopt rules this summer requiring retailers by 2011 to sell only TVs that meet guidelines of the federal Energy Star program, which is generally voluntary. The proposal includes labeling that tells California buyers how much of their utility bill goes to powering their flat-screen. The Editor says... Energy Star guidelines were voluntary. But that was just the first step. Naturally, California leads the way in the incremental march toward a mandatory environmental utopia. State considers ban on big screen TVs. In their continuing quest to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, state regulators have uncovered a new villain in the war on global warming: your big screen TV. Couch potatoes, beware. The California Energy Commission is considering a proposal that would ban California retailers from selling all but the most energy-efficient televisions. Critics say the news standards could take 25 percent of televisions off the market — most of them 40 inches or larger. Who Should Decide the Size of Your TV? As part of its effort to combat global warming, California is considering a proposal to regulate big-screen TVs off the market. Freedom, not climate, is at risk. As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. The Environmentalists' Real Agenda: Once in a while the truth accidentally tumbles out on global warming activists' real agenda. That's exactly what happened at the U.N., when Bolivia's leader called for ending capitalism to save the planet. This sums up the global warming issue pretty well... Baby, Baby It's a Cold World. Global warming has nothing to do with climate or science. What it is all about is the great, historic class struggle between working people and the ruling classes. Global warming is a great excuse for a massive expansion of government power. That, not science, is why the overlords, from the New York Times to the United Nations to Al Gore, so heartily embrace it. The U.N. thinks global warming is a perfect reason for the U.N. to be transformed into a world government. Climate Reality Bites. Thankfully, the American system makes it hard for colossal tax and regulatory burdens to foxtrot into law without scrutiny. So we hope our politicians will take responsibility for the global-warming policies they say they favor. Or even begin to understand what they say they favor. For a bill as grandly ambitious as Warner-Lieberman, very few staff, much less Senators, even know what's in it. The press corps mainly cheerleads this political fad, without examining how it would work or what it would cost. Taking Us Back To Mud Huts And Loincloths. Time's Joe Klein probably thought he was being clever when he wrote his late June essay on the evils of cooling headlined "Kill Your Air Conditioner." Instead, he wrote yet another chapter in the left's book of environmental silliness. … Predictably, Klein believes Americans should sacrifice. Sounds noble, but he leaves out the part in which sacrifice slowly mutates into government rationing. Neither a Borrower Nor Lender Be. Liberalism, as an experiment against common sense, undermines every institution it touches, including financial ones. ... Indeed, given the choice between economic decline and political correctness, liberals always choose the former. To preserve the kangaroo rat, they will cut jobs. To advance faddish global warming theory, they will undercut whole industries. Testimony before a Texas Senate Hearing on Wind Turbines: Despite what activist groups and the renewable power industry may tell you, alternative power mandates will not create jobs or boost the state's economy. Indeed, simple common sense tells us that if a product makes economic sense, you don't have to subsidize it to make people produce it, and you don't have to put a gun to somebody's head to make him or her purchase it. Australian homeowners may be forced to turn houses green before sale. The Master Builders Association wants laws to make it compulsory for owners of all existing homes to meet minimal environmental standards before they are allowed to sell them. Spy planes with thermal imaging camera to snoop on homes wasting energy. Our movements are already tracked by CCTV, speed cameras and even spies in dustbins. Now snooping on the pubis has reached new heights with local authorities putting spy planes in the air to snoop on homeowners who are wasting too much energy. Thermal imaging cameras are being used to create colour-coded maps which will enable council officers to identify offenders and pay them a visit to educate them about the harm to the environment and measures they can take. A scheme is already underway in Broadland District Council in Norfolk, which has spent £30,000 hiring a plane with a thermal imaging camera. Eco town dwellers may be monitored for green habits. Residents of the planned eco towns in England could face strict monitoring of their travel habits, home insulation and even wasted food, to ensure they are truly living a "green" lifestyle. Experts advising the government on its plans to build up to 10 eco towns by 2020, yesterday called for ministers to toughen environmental standards for the developments with monitoring to ensure their carbon footprint is three times smaller than the British average. British government sending heat detector vans to snoop on 'wasters'. Town halls are photographing houses in the middle of the night to see whether they are wasting energy. The thermal images, which show heat escaping though windows, doors and roofs, will be sent to homeowners to encourage them to insulate. Tens of thousands of properties have been photographed over the past few months and there are plans to extend the scheme to every house in the country. Aircraft may spot energy wasters in Australia. The Christchurch City Council says it may "shame" people into more energy-efficient ways by using an aircraft with infra-red imaging to identify poorly-insulated houses. The proposed aerial thermal imaging map is part of an ambitious plan to slash Christchurch's $1.6 billion annual energy bill and cut energy use by every city resident by 9 percent. The scheme will be rolled out this winter. The nine-bin nightmare: Families forced to follow green zealots' new recycling diktats. Families are facing a nightmare future of recycling confusion. In a regime set to spread across the country, residents are being forced to juggle an astonishing nine separate bins. There has already been a storm of protest with warnings that the scheme is too complex and homes simply don't have the space to deal with the myriad bins, bags and boxes. Going green means having green to spend. The dirty secret of the environmental movement is how indifferent it can be to the poor. Consider the widespread ban on DDT. As environmental groups celebrated the recovery of bald eagles, parents in poor countries buried 20 million children who died from the ensuing malaria outbreak. Now we see another crisis looming from the fight against global warming. Food riots are breaking out in poor countries as motorists in wealthy countries burn grains and oils in gas tanks. We are green for one simple reason: We can afford it. California threat to sue US govt over ship, aircraft emissions. California said Thursday [8/31/2008] it planned to sue the US government for failing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from ships, aircraft, construction and agricultural equipment. In the latest legal threat from the state against the Environmental Protection Agency, California's Attorney General Jerry Brown said the body was "wantonly ignoring" its duty to set pollution standards. Inhofe Report Exposes Environmental Groups as 'Massive Democratic Political Machines'. U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, today released an updated comprehensive investigation into the financial and political activities employed by charitable and environmental organizations claiming to be non-partisan. Here is the full report: Political Activity of Environmental Groups and their Supporting Foundations. Following the League of Conversation Voters' endorsement of Senator John Kerry for President, The Hill, a Capitol Hill publication, published an article featuring the financial connection between the League of Conservation Voters and Heinz family foundations. The article further featured the connections between the League of Conservation Voters and other well-known environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense and their financial links to Heinz family foundations as well. North America's first carbon tax rolls out under fire. Civic leader Scott Nelson says he is as worried as anyone about global warming, but that does not make him happy to be one of the first North Americans to pay a carbon tax to curb climate change. The Editor says... Well, then Mr. Nelson should quit bellyaching about one or the other. Here's a clue: One is a big problem and the other is not. First In Nation 'Pollution Fee' Coming To SF. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District's board of directors on Wednesday [5/21/2008] approved new rules to charge businesses a fee for the pollution they emit. The group's board of directors voted 15-1 on unprecedented new rules that will impose fees on factories, power plants, oil refineries and other businesses that emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. Certain dishwashing detergents to be banned in Whatcom County. Starting July 1, all dishwasher detergents for sale in Whatcom County can't contain more than 0.5 percent phosphorus. The new law affects only detergents for automatic dishwashers, such as Electrasol and Cascade. No driveway carwashes, Washington state says. Along with wild salmon and steelhead trout, the Pacific Northwest soon may have another endangered species — the driveway carwash. Washing your car or boat in the driveway or street is a residential ritual as American as backyard barbecues. But the state of Washington is telling its local governments they must prohibit home car washing unless residents divert the wash water away from storm drains, where they say it causes water pollution. San Francisco's $100 fine for visible recycling bins: San Francisco residents, already facing some of the highest housing prices and parking fines in the nation, now have a new nightmare to watch out for — $100 tickets if their garbage or recycling cans can be seen from the street. … Under a law passed two years ago by the Board of Supervisors, it's no longer good enough just to get your cans off the sidewalk once they've been emptied — you have to get them out of sight as well. Completely out of sight. Seattle Imposes Stricter Mandate for Recycling. The City of Seattle has announced a new program requiring residents to increase recycling of food scraps, plastics, and other materials not currently covered in the city's recycling mandate. The new plan will create a significant increase in garbage pickup prices. … Seattle currently requires residents to recycle certain materials, including paper and some types of plastic. If either the trash collector or a City of Seattle inspector believes more than 10 percent of the content of a trash bin is recyclable, they can flag the can and refuse to pick up the trash. Los Angeles to experiment with table-scrap collection. First it was bottles and cans. Then it was cardboard and lawn clippings. And next month, Los Angeles officials will ask a select group of residents to reuse coffee grounds, eggshells and other leftovers — by placing them in yet another recycling bin. Take Out the Trash Precisely, Now. It's the Law. When Gareth Corkhill, a bus driver, was fined $215 — and given a further $225 fine and a criminal record when he failed to pay — for leaving his garbage can lid slightly ajar this spring, Whitehaven's residents banded together in dismay. They raised the money to pay the fine, and they began to complain. Overfill your bin and you'll be treated worse than a shoplifter. Families who overfill rubbish bins are to face bigger fines than those imposed on drunks or shoplifters, the government has told local authorities. New guidance instructs councils to impose fixed penalties of "not less than £75" and up to £110 in what the opposition has attacked as a "new stealth tax". S.F. mayor proposes fines for unsorted trash. Garbage collectors would inspect San Francisco residents' trash to make sure pizza crusts aren't mixed in with chip bags or wine bottles under a proposal by Mayor Gavin Newsom. And if residents or businesses don't separate the coffee grounds from the newspapers, they would face fines of up to $1,000 and eventually could have their garbage service stopped. Gang Green: Earlier this month, while visiting a friend in San Francisco, I almost spilled my latte in my lap when I read this on the front page of the Chronicle: "S.F. Mayor Proposes Fines for Unsorted Trash." The story began: "Garbage collectors would inspect San Francisco residents' trash to make sure pizza crusts aren't mixed in with chip bags or wine bottles under a proposal by Mayor Gavin Newsom." Isn't that what homeless people do -- rooting around in other people's garbage? Earth Day Is a Holiday For Liars. I have followed the apocalyptic claims and the legislated mandates of the environmental movement since the 1970s and their single unifying factor has been the lies told to achieve various elements the Green agenda. … By blocking access to energy such as the ban on oil extraction in ANWR or off the coasts of the United States, by lobbying against the building of coal-fired and nuclear electricity generation plants, by arguing for inefficient, highly subsidized solar and wind alternatives, Greens are creating a national energy crisis. Climate alarmists pose real threat to freedom. The climate alarmists believe in their own omnipotency, in knowing better than millions of rationally behaving men and women what is right or wrong. … We have to restart the discussion about the very nature of government and about the relationship between the individual and society. We need to learn the uncompromising lesson from the inevitable collapse of communism 18 years ago. It is not about climatology. It is about freedom. Climate rhetoric does not justify bad policy. Like the spices that have been used since ancient times to hide the flavor of spoiled meat, a liberal reference to 'stopping climate change' has become the perfect ingredient to hide bad public policy. Speech writers sprinkle the oratory of politicians with repeated allusion to 'stabilizing climate' and other virtuous sounding, but impractical green rhetoric whenever they want to avoid serious debate. The Little Car that Environmentalists Love to Hate. Car A gets a fuel efficiency of 46 miles per gallon. Car B gets about 50 miles per gallon. Car A is called the Toyota Prius and is hailed by environmentalists as a step towards solving global warming. Car B, a new car called the Tata Nano unveiled by an Indian company, is reviled by environmentalists as disastrous for global warming. The New York Times devotes an entire editorial condemning the Tata Nano. Columnist and author Tom Friedman calls for the Tata Nano to be "taxed like crazy." The reason for this extreme criticism? The Tata Nano is cheap — very cheap. It is a revolutionary new car design that will cost only about $2,500 and will bring car ownership within reach of millions of new people in the developing world. Why I Left Greenpeace: At first, many of the causes we championed, such as opposition to nuclear testing and protection of whales, stemmed from our scientific knowledge of nuclear physics and marine biology. But after six years as one of five directors of Greenpeace International, I observed that none of my fellow directors had any formal science education. They were either political activists or environmental entrepreneurs. Ultimately, a trend toward abandoning scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas forced me to leave Greenpeace in 1986. The Greenpeace Scam: In the early 1990s, an encyclopedic book, Trashing the Economy, by Ron Arnold and Alan Gottlieb, closely examined the many environmental organizations, including Greenpeace. It was and is quite revealing, noting that Greenpeace was founded in 1971 by a group of draft dodgers living in Vancouver, Canada. "Confrontation, civil disobedience, inflammatory lies and physical harassment are Greenpeace's methods ..." Greenpeace gained fame protesting the whaling industry and went on to attack the timber industry. Time to grow up. Greenpeace, in addition to wanting economies to be fair and for us to quit using limited resources … also wants "an energy revolution" to stop climate change, disarmament (I know, that one's always good for a giggle) and to change farming practices that actually feed people to "socially and ecologically responsible" farming. Say hello to the $10 loaf of bread. Lights out? The recent campaign urging people to turn off their lights was a futile gesture by environmentalists. … Measuring the avoided climate impact for the indefinite future, the entire combined efforts of the queen, many companies, and the city halls of Copenhagen and other cities yielded $20 worth of good. When 'green' is shorthand for environmental idiocy: Consider the recent "lights out" campaign … the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) quickly called it an amazing success. Newspapers around the world dutifully wrote feel-good stories about how engaged environmentalists celebrated as the lights went out around the world. Nobody, it seemed, wanted to spoil the party by pointing that the event was immensely futile, that it highlighted a horrible metaphor, or that it caused much higher overall pollution. Earth Hour all sour. During Earth Hour — from 8 to 9 p.m. last Saturday — we were all supposed to turn out our lights and quit using energy because … because … using energy is bad. If ever there was a stunt that revealed the true nature of the radical environmentalists, this was it. Earth Hour was a preview of what they want for us on a 24/7 basis. They want us to: Sit in the dark. Not watch TV. Let our dirty clothing fester in filthy piles. Allow bacteria to grow on our used dinner dishes. Live like some savage in a reed hut located somewhere unpleasant. The Real Meaning of Earth Hour: Earth Hour is intended to showcase public concern about global warming and to inspire people to take practical actions to reduce their "carbon footprints." But it is far from indisputable that we face any sort of planetary crisis. Predictions of catastrophic global warming have long been disputed, and continue to be disputed, by numerous serious scientists skeptical of the global warming "consensus." Furthermore, what is never mentioned is the fact that reducing greenhouse gases to the degree sought by global warming activists would, itself, cause great harm. Sit in the Dark — or Power to the People? Which is the better answer to the world's growing energy requirements: feel good gestures or creating new energy sources that can feed our needs? Being an incurable right wing redneck whacko, I tend to favor finding solutions that actually do something. Feel good gestures such as turning out your lights and sitting in the dark for an hour (as in the recent "Earth Hour") may save us some energy — though media reports said electrical consumption in my city actually went up during Earth Hour — but it doesn't address the real problems of a growing society that requires ever-increasing amounts of electricity in order to power the machines that make our civilization possible. Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About: The liberal environmental movement takes for granted that strict government regulation and public ownership is necessary for the preservation of the environment. Yet who, in the end, is responsible for the great environmental catastrophes of the recent past? According to Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the real answer is: environmentalists themselves. They Mean To Bug Ya: Greenies promote entomophagy. A May 29th Time magazine article extolling the virtues of "entomophagy," or bug-eating, has drawn a few snickers from conservative commentators. When viewed in the context of a broader public relations campaign, however, it becomes apparent that it won't be laughed off so easily. … In the Far East, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, they tell us, bugs are often seen as a delicacy. Dump Cars, Nix Air Travel, Climate Alarmists Say. "The car is doomed," says Damon Honnery, an associate professor at Australia's Monash University. In an interview with the Melbourne newspaper The Age, Prof. Honnery [says] car travel should be cut by 80 percent, road construction halted, air travel drastically cut, and public transport boosted if Australia is to meet carbon emission targets set by the Kyoto Protocol. Why daylight saving time is bad for the environment: The annual time change has long been sold as a way to save energy, but the opposite might be true. Always sold as a conservation measure, the practice of daylight savings actually jacked electricity use in homes across one central U.S. state by up to four percent, according to a new American study. The great daylight saving scam. Four years ago, Congress in its infinite wisdom extended daylight saving time (DST) by a month, with the goal of saving energy. Lots of energy. The bill's champion, Rep. Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Democrat, said it would save consumers a generous $4.4 billion over 15 years. Of course, Mr. Markey was just repeating what has long been an established truism among policymakers: Setting the clocks forward in the spring saves energy because people don't have to turn their lights on as much as at night. Just one problem. While daylight saving time might "save" daylight, it doesn't appear to save energy. In fact, it very well might do the opposite. California's Potemkin Environmentalism: [Governor] Schwarzenegger's reputation as an environmental trailblazer is in keeping with California's recent history and self-perception. … In truth, however, the Golden State's energy leadership is a mirage. California's environmental policies have made it heavily dependent on other states for power; generated some of the highest, business-crippling energy costs in the country; and left it vulnerable to periodic electricity shortages. Its economic growth has occurred not because of, but despite, those policies, which would be disastrous if extended to the rest of the country. Laurel, Maryland Considers Ban on Dry Cleaning Chemical. The city of Laurel, Maryland is considering a ban on the most efficient and inexpensive dry cleaning chemical, even as a similar ban in California is chasing dry cleaners there out of business. Perchloroethylene, known simply as "perc" in the dry cleaning industry, is the primary chemical used in more than 80 percent of the nation's dry cleaning businesses. Environmental group files lawsuit over fire retardant. Fire retardant has an impact on the environment, according to the nonprofit Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, and so the organization is challenging the U.S. Forest Service's decision to continue using the firefighting tool. Enemies of the Poor: The WWF, Greenpeace, Oxfam, Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network and other multinational activist corporations battle mines in Romania, Peru, Chile, Ghana and Indonesia; electricity projects in Uganda, India and Nepal; biotechnology that could improve farm incomes and reduce malnutrition in Kenya, India, Brazil and the Philippines; and DDT that could slash malaria rates all over Africa, where it kills 3,000 children every day. Greenpeace Farming Plan Would Reap Environmental Havoc around the World. A new report from Greenpeace International, Cool Farming, includes organic farming recommendations that would impose severe hunger on half the world's humans or force the clearing of the world's remaining forests to plant more low-yield crops. Environmentalism's Dangerous Campaign for "Safety". Green Communism routinely uses any method of deception or propaganda it can to justify eliminating, or hampering US Industry and growth. Their goal is classic Marxism, the capture and management, even elimination of all means of production. The red menace is kind of green. The décor inside the national headquarters of the Communist Party USA, or CPUSA, is more Macy's than Marx. Glass walls rise from the floor to form state-of-the-art work spaces, nontoxic linseed oil burnishes the work surfaces, and biodegradable blue carpet is underfoot. … The Reds went "green" for their $1 million overhaul, including various environmentally conscious features in the design. The Seeds of the Global Warming Police State: Czech President Vaclav Klaus, drawing on his memories of Soviet oppression, recently declared that the global warming hysteria had replaced Communism as "the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy, and prosperity." The environmentalists continue to do their best to prove him right. The Gore Global Warming Agenda and our Energy Future: With the help of the Hollywood Elite and liberal friends in Congress such as Senator Barbara Boxer, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, this radical environmentalist agenda is gaining momentum towards legislation that would bring drastic change to our everyday lives. If Mr. Gore gets his way, Congress will likely push forward new taxes and restrictions on our energy consumption including a total ban on the incandescent light bulb and a moratorium on any new coal plants in the United States. Who Will Control Your Thermostat? In California, we have 236 pages of state-mandated standards for building energy efficiency, known as Title 24. … What should be controversial in the proposed revisions to Title 24 is the requirement for what is called a "programmable communicating thermostat" or PCT. Every new home and every change to existing homes' central heating and air conditioning systems will required to be fitted with a PCT beginning next year following the issuance of the revision. Each PCT will be fitted with a "non-removable " FM receiver that will allow the power authorities to increase your air conditioning temperature setpoint or decrease your heater temperature setpoint to any value they chose. During "price events" those changes are limited to ±4°F. and you would be able to manually override the changes. During "emergency events" the new setpoints can be whatever the power authority desires and you would not be able to alter them. In other words, the temperature of your home will no longer be yours to control. The Editor says... I can think of a couple of ways to defeat that FM receiver without touching it. And I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before some hacker figures out how to shut off (or turn on) every air conditioner in town. California Seeks Thermostat Control. Next year in California, state regulators are likely to have the emergency power to control individual thermostats, sending temperatures up or down through a radio-controlled device that will be required in new or substantially modified houses and buildings to manage electricity shortages. The Editor continues... Scroll down to the end of the article to see a quote from Nicole Tam, a spokeswoman for PG&E, who claims that the thermostat control signals are hacker-proof because they "are encrypted and encoded". What a relief! We all know that no encryption scheme has ever been cracked by hackers. California Proposes Taking Control of Thermostats. The California Energy Commission has proposed requiring thermostats that allow the government to control the temperature of homes and businesses in case of high energy prices or shortages, a measure that some critics are calling "draconian." States, environmental groups ask EPA to regulate plane emissions. A coalition of states and environmental groups is urging the federal government to curb global warming pollution from planes and other aircraft. California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia plan to file a petition Wednesday asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from domestic and foreign aircraft departing or landing at American airports. [They apparently assume that airplanes use fuel only during takeoff and landing.] Cool it! You can give birth. Good news! Kevin Rudd will next month stop global warming, so you won't have to cull your children, too. He'll sign that Kyoto Protocol, and pfft — problem gone. Such a relief, if a little late for Toni Vernelli, who works for PETA, the animal liberation group. Like all smart people, Vernelli believes in apocalyptic man-made global warming. But she's not an Al Gore hypocrite, flying around the world to tell mugs to cut the gases she's just blown out the back of her jet. Environmentalism's Outer Limits: Enviro-fanatics are sterilizing themselves to reduce their "carbon footprint." We dread where their nihilistic ideology — that mankind is an evil planetary force — will lead next. Handy ideas to make us green and mouldy. By now you'll be in a panic, wondering how to save yourself from the apocalypse to come. After all, when the Profit of Doom, Al Gore, says global warming risks "ending all human civilisation" you'll have figured it will take more than a few low-energy light bulbs to save us. Too right, so I've collected the best and most original tips of many experts on how to slash the gases they say are killing the planet. A New Environmentalist Manifesto: When I see enviro-luddites burning down homes and torching SUVs, when I see so many people transfixed on punitively taxing carbon and subsidizing allegedly better alternatives, when I see anti-intellectual hysteria over a degree Fahrenheit of global warming over a century's time, and when I see all sorts of anti-business taxes and regulations masquerading as necessary for the environment, I see a lot of negative unintended consequences. I see people standing in the way of progress. I tend to view today's collection of largest environmental interest groups, replete with anti-human population control worldview and socialist overtones, as — at best — neutral for the environment in the short term and terrible for the environment over the very long term. The Soylent wing of the Green movement examined. The enviroloonies seem to have found their way out of the asylum again: this time to tell us that 70 percent of Britons should die for the sake of Gaia. That's not quite the way they put it, of course. Sorry, no more babies. Eco-doctor's orders. Doctors have called time on big families. A recent editorial in the British Medical Journal talked of discouraging patients, on environmental grounds, from having too many children. The more people, the bigger the drain on global resources. 'Medieval Environmentalists' attack CO2 in their efforts to derail civilization. Why are carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, particularly the relatively small amount emitted by human activity, the sole focus of most climate change debates? In scientific circles, CO2 is referred to as a 'trace gas' that, for hundreds of thousands of years, has remained at or below five ten-thousandths of the atmosphere by volume. Even among the so-called 'greenhouse gases' (GHG), CO2 accounts for less that 4%, with water vapour being by far the most significant GHG. CO2 is clearly a miniscule component of the massive mechanisms that create climate and cause climate change. Film Exposes the 'Dark Side of Environmentalism': The one big advantage environmental activists have is the presumed purity of their motives. They claim they want only to protect the Earth from a few particularly greedy people, and they say their efforts benefit everybody. That's their story, anyway, and they're sticking to it. The reality is a far different matter…. Green Goodies: It's payback time for another left-leaning lobby. First came Big Labor. Then the tort lawyers. What special interest lobby remains for the Democratic majority to reward for services rendered this past election? The answer rests in the ecstatic press releases tumbling out of the nation's largest environmental groups, as they oversee the House's pending energy legislation. Green Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: There is little more annoying for a policy analyst than when two types of wrong-headedness conspire to undermine his case. Such is the case for policies driven by the pursuit of a pesticide free — or at least pesticide diminished — future, which will cause an increase in insect-borne disease. When this happens, as it surely will, climate alarmists will claim it's due to your greenhouse gas emissions, not their policies, and will press for more stringent controls. 'Green fatigue' leads to fear of backlash over climate change. In Britain, people have made no noticeable changes to their behaviour and are taking increased numbers of car journeys, going on more flights, pumping out more carbon dioxide and using more electricity to heat their homes. At the same time there is deep antagonism towards green taxes and the introduction of wind farms to the countryside to generate carbon-free electricity. Forest Reforms in the Crossfire. A small yet fanatical group of eco-activist groups who argue that forest thinning projects kill habitat and species are challenging efforts to prevent forest fires. Wildfires and environmental obstructionism: Environmentalists blame global warming for the problem, but guess who's standing in the way of a solution? Litigious environmentalists! Global Warming Is Not the Cause of the California Wildfires. Attempts by activists to make the ongoing California wildfires a global warming issue are patently ridiculous. The modest warming of the twentieth century has resulted in moister soil conditions and reduced drought frequency and severity. Arguing that global warming is causing more drought and wildfires is like arguing that increasing crop yields is causing more starvation. Our Burning Forests – the Legacy of Radical Environmentalism: Fire is nature's way of keeping conifer forests healthy, as even the Sierra Club is now belatedly beginning to comprehend. Without the small regular fires that we have been putting out in our forests for the last 100 years what we now have are forests overrun by brush that not only strangles the conifers but also changes the ecology of the conifer forests. Kennedy makes connection between democracy, environment. Appearing before a crowd of Westminster College students along with area residents Tuesday night [9/25/2007] as part of the second annual Symposium on Democracy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he was "really happy the connection has been made here between democracy and the environment. "The primary measurement of how effective a democracy is, is how they distribute the goods of the land," Kennedy said. The Editor says... Mr. Kennedy is either a socialist masquerading as a Democrat, or he is astonishingly ignorant. First of all, we do not live in a democracy, and secondly, the distribution of wealth — evenly or unevenly — is not the proper role of our government. Environmentalism is a religion This subtopic is now on a page of its own, located here. Climate Change As Religion: The Gospel According To Gore. Global warming (aka "climate change") has become a religious mantra, a call for action in a crusade against larger evils we have perpetrated against nature, a punishment for our sins. ... Global warming has been effectively marketed by doom-speakers because it provides really exciting visual impressions: icebergs calving, polar bears exhausted from swimming, and such. Endless "authorities' will back up these images with scary prophesies regarding just how bad things are likely to get based upon speculative theories and unproven computer models offered as articles of faith. Earth Day instead of Easter? Some Catholics are concerned with what they see as an attempt by environmentalists to hijack Easter for their own Earth Day purposes. In a letter dated April 1 to churches across the country, the environmentalist group Earth Day Network encourages priests to remember Earth Day Sunday, even though Easter is that same Sunday. "This year we again invite you to celebrate Earth Day Sunday and share with your parishioners a story of creation care that will impart to them the importance of protecting a nurturing the planet that was provided to us," the letter reads. Do as our eco saviours say, not as they do. Take Al Gore. He is the world's loudest climate-change warrior. He believes the Earth is a "ticking time bomb". Or does he? Dogged reporters in the US make the point that Gore can't really be concerned about the planet because he has three homes, including one in Nashville with 20 rooms, eight bathrooms, a guesthouse and a pool. … Either the planet is coughing, spluttering, dying and in need of urgent action, or it isn't. Heather Mills Questions Why We Don't Drink Rats' Milk. Yesterday, Mills arrived at Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park to give a lecture on how eating meat and dairy is contributing to global warming and harming the earth. From the onset, Mills did her case absolutely no favors by arriving in a mileage-challenged Mercedes 4x4 SUV. Nice move. Once inside, she started her speech saying, "'Why don't we drink rats' milk, cats' milk or dogs' milk? The startling truth is that animals farmed for meat and dairy are now one of the greatest threats to the planet." Other sources for the same story: [1] [2] [3] [4] The Editor says... For some reason my neighborhood grocery store doesn't carry rats' milk. Maybe Heather should invest in a rat dairy, if she feels so strongly about it. The Green Counter-Establishment: How it Holds Power. The Nature Conservancy, the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, and the National Wildlife Federation are examples of traditional conservation organizations that underwent a radical transformation during the rise of modern environmentalism. ... Whether through land deals, foundation grants, government funding, individual contributions or membership dues, the big environmental groups have found a way to stay big and rich. The Man Who Saw Tomorrow: [Warren] Brookes warned of Americans "being led in part by a dangerously shallow media to engage in the reckless regulatory pursuit of zero risk, and a flat-earth assault on science and technology" and a nation "more willing than ever to give up big benefits to control either imaginary or infinitesimal risks." "Just as the toddler on a tether is safer than the child running free," Brookes continued, "a risk-free society is one on a very tight leash." Governor's budget plan grows green staff. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's … latest budget proposal calls for no fewer than 211 greenhouse-gas busters to be sprinkled throughout state government, at an annual cost of $55.4 million. That's 77 more greenies than are on the payroll this year. The new jobs range from $36,000-a-year accounting technicians to $102,000-a-year attorneys to draft and enforce green regulations. Too costly to go green. [Scroll down] Certification standards for these green buildings may also end up putting a strain on the budgets of governments and businesses. The installation of low-flow faucets, shower heads and toilets could be particularly burdensome for small businesses, restaurants, laundromats and small retailers. The call for 75 percent to 90 percent of school classrooms to have a significant amount of windows to produce natural light. … The reduction of outdoor lighting, and the level of wattage used in outdoor lights, may be difficult for college campuses focusing on safety and security as a major priority. Seattle Mayor wants to curb landfill dependency — is recycling table scraps next? First, Seattleites were told to recycle glass, paper and aluminum, or risk having their garbage left on the curb. Now the city wants residents to recycle food scraps starting in 2009. Mayor Greg Nickels and City Councilmember Richard Conlin on Thursday proposed stricter rules for sorting trash as part of a comprehensive plan to raise the city's recycling goals and limit the amount of trash sent to landfills. City to require table-scrap recycling at homes in 2009. All single-family homes in Seattle must sign up for table-scrap recycling in 2009, the City Council decided Monday. While residents will have to pay for the service, the city will not check whether they are actually dumping food in the new separate bin. The Editor says... Oh no, they won't check. Not at first. But history shows us this kind of incremental change only goes in one direction. Within a few years, they'll start enforcing it more vigorously. S.F. mayor proposes fines for unsorted trash. Garbage collectors would inspect San Francisco residents' trash to make sure pizza crusts aren't mixed in with chip bags or wine bottles under a proposal by Mayor Gavin Newsom. And if residents or businesses don't separate the coffee grounds from the newspapers, they would face fines of up to $1,000 and eventually could have their garbage service stopped. An Inconvenient Truth or Convenient Fiction? No serious person is genuinely anti-environmental, and the obvious similarity between "conservative" and "conservation" suggests that in some ways care for the environment — or nature — is wholly compatible with conservative principles. And there are genuine environmental problems in the world; just because they are exaggerated by environmentalists or over-regulated by bureaucrats doesn't mean they don't exist or should be ignored. So it is important to take this issue back from the extremists and the mindless bureaucrats and apply sensible remedies to our genuine problems. 2008 Candidates Rely on Private Jets. A flock of small jets took flight from Washington Thursday [4/26/2007], each carrying a Democratic presidential candidate to South Carolina for the first debate of the political season. … No one jet pooled, no one took commercial flights to save money, fuel or emissions. Flighty Hill Changes Planes — Constantly. Jet-setting Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton is a fussy frequent flier who used three different planes in a single day during a recent campaign swing through South Carolina. The former first lady even grounded one aircraft — a chartered Gulfstream II — in Columbia, S.C., last Friday [4/27/2007], demanding a swankier Gulfstream III replacement for a flight out west. Unmasking Global Warming: The Case of Mikhail Gorbachev. It is as paradoxical as it is revealing that the man who now parades as an angel of ecological salvation is by virtue of his actions at Chernobyl and elsewhere responsible for more environmental destruction than any other person alive. Environmentalism vs Creativity: [Environmentalists] support like-minded politicians who've invented nothing but obstacles to innovation. They march in protests that have created nothing but vandalism. And they rage against capitalism the only system by which worthy creations can effectively be financed, marketed and widely distributed. One woman is admired by her fellow environmentalists, not for pouring her time and energy into, say, inventing a new kind of generator or more fuel-efficient engine, but for spending two years perched atop a redwood tree! If Environmentalism Succeeds, It Will Make Human Life Impossible. Earth Day approaches, and with it a grave danger faces mankind. The danger is not from acid rain, global warming, smog, or the logging of rain forests, as environmentalists would have us believe. The danger to mankind is from environmentalism. The horse: Is this the secret weapon to beat global warming? They may previously have appreciated it more for its culinary value, but the French are discovering a new green form of transport: the humble horse. More than 70 French towns have already gone back to the future by introducing horse-drawn carriages to replace petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles for local tasks such as collecting rubbish, street-cleaning and taking children to school. And at least 30 more are set to join the revolution next year. The Editor asks... Is this where the environmentalists want to take us? Do you want to commute from the suburbs in a horse-drawn wagon? Going Against the Green: Green is the universal sign of conspicuous virtue, of concern for planet, of a new paganism that worships the goddess Gaia and treats the Earth as itself a single living organism. Anyone who questions this newly fashionable faith is regarded as a dangerous heretic to be cast into the outer darkness. San Francisco votes to ban plastic bags in stores. San Francisco's Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 this afternoon [3/27/2007] to make the city the first in the nation to prohibit petroleum-based plastic checkout bags in large markets and pharmacies. Beware the Eco-Industrial Complex. President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously warned Americans in 1961 against the growing and unwarranted influence on our government of a "military-industrial complex." The 2007 version of this concern should focus on the looming eco-industrial complex. Global Warming as European Imperialism: The great Global Warming scare is only the latest eructation of European imperialism. Euro-imperialism used to be known as socialism. Before that, it was just called British or French imperialism, because those countries were very proud of it. There was no need to lie. The only reason today's huge European effort to control the world isn't called "imperialism" any more, is that its supporters hate that word. The reality of imperial control is fine with them. Pull plug on motorway lights to save the environment, say experts. Motorway lights should be turned off at night to protect the environment, experts have said. Light pollution stops us enjoying the beauty of the night sky and could be disrupting the delicate life cycles of birds, bats and other wildlife, according to the Royal Commission of Environmental Pollution. The Editor says... If "light pollution" is such a problem, why not ban headlights on automobiles? The answer is obvious: The safety of people is more important than the comfort of animals. Brussels in push for 'green crime' laws. A series of "green crimes", enforceable across the EU and punishable by prison sentences and hefty fines, are to be proposed under a contentious push by the European Commission into the sensitive area of criminal lawmaking. The drive by Brussels to apply penalties for ecological crime reflects concerns that some countries treat offences such as pollution and illegal dumping of waste more seriously than others, allowing criminals to exploit loopholes. The draft directive, seen by the Financial Times, lists nine offences ranging from illegal dumping of waste to the unlawful "taking or damaging" of protected wild flowers. [Fines for "light pollution" and picking wild flowers? They're serious! Please note that "light pollution" only occurs in countries where there is such prosperity that electric power is abundantly available at night. This naturally excludes Communist countries like Cuba and North Korea.] Motorway lights are switched off at midnight to cut pollution. Motorway lights are being switched off at midnight across the country in a move critics warn could compromise safety. Seven stretches are now plunged into darkness until 5am every night in a bid to cut carbon emissions and reduce light pollution. How Elite Environmentalists Impoverish Blue-Collar Americans: The great Central Valley of California has never been an easy place. Dry and almost uninhabitable by nature, the state's engineering marvels brought water down from the north and the high Sierra, turning semi-desert into some of the richest farmland in the world. ... The depression conditions in the great valley reflect more than a mere water shortage. They are the direct result of conscious actions by environmental activists to usher in a new era of scarcity. Anti-capitalism motivates environmentalists China-style dictatorship of climatologists. November's election made it quite clear that the people of the United States do not want to radically change our society in the name of global warming. Pretty much every close House race went to the Republicans, while the Democrats won all the Senate squeakers. The difference? The House on June 26, 2009, passed a bill limiting carbon-dioxide emissions and getting into just about every aspect of our lives. The Senate did nothing of the sort. The nation's most prominent publicly funded climatologist is officially angry about this, blaming democracy and citing the Chinese government as the "best hope" to save the world from global warming. He also wants an economic boycott of the U.S. sufficient to bend us to China's will. Capitalism Under Fire From Highly Self-Interested Dictators And Diplomats. [Scroll down] The so-called "climate change" agenda has essentially nothing to do with trying to change the climate or "saving the planet," and everything to do with self-interested politicians trying to control the world's economic resources. A convenient lie. Radical environmentalists are forging a new socialist post-democracy that is slowly undermining representative government. ... The 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall should have exposed the failure of socialism. It didn't. Instead, the left simply moved from championing the class struggle to global-warming alarmism. Its goal, however, remains the same: to smash free markets and impose economic collectivism. The revolution continues, only today it is being fought under the green banner. Where's the Beef? This slogan did not sit well with many on the Left, either; there had been a movement for decades to do away with beef. Vegetarianism had been a part of some Asian religions for centuries (and liberals love to push alternatives to our Judea-Christian ethos), and meat avoidance had its place among left-leaning Protestant sects during the 19th Century. Environmentalists hated beef because it used land which the tree-huggers wanted to return to pasture or forest; anti-capitalists hated beef because it was a symbol of the triumph of wealth over poverty. The Environmentalists' Real Agenda: Once in a while the truth accidentally tumbles out on global warming activists' real agenda. That's exactly what happened at the U.N., when Bolivia's leader called for ending capitalism to save the planet. Enviro-Harassment: The environmental movement, which has largely become a loose league of global warming hysteria peddlers, is almost rabidly anti-business and tends to be offended by corporate profits. Think of how they respond when oil companies announce record profits. Take note of the venom they routinely spew toward business and commerce, portraying honest businesses as eco-villains out to despoil the Earth. When green was easy: Now that the Soviet Union has collapsed and socialism in general has miserably failed, the left has been reenergized by New Age environmentalism, like Marxism a quasireligion that provides an even more comprehensive justification for restricting individual freedom and its economic expression in the form of market capitalism. The leftist project of replacing socialism with environmentalism as an ideological organizing principle has culminated with global warming theory, an apocalyptic scenario that has proved much more salable than anything Karl Marx could come up with. Going Green = $4 per Gallon. Going green (its real name is sustainable development) has led to Orwellian regulations resulting in the destruction of American businesses and the jobs that go with them, including manufacturing and industry; the locking away of American natural resources like oil, timber and minerals, forcing expensive imports; the near abolishment of private property, the bedrock of any economy's source of wealth; and massive invasion of the farming industry to assure it is "sustainable," including the mandated use of corn for the making of ethanol, leading to food shortages and higher prices. The Eco-Radicals' Real Motives: The driving force behind the eco-radicals' fierce efforts to strangle the free market with environmental regulations is their virulent hatred for a free, prosperous economy. Yet behind this hatred is an even deeper one. To understand why they try to wreck our economy, you have to grasp the shocking fact that many eco-radicals hate the human race and Western civilization. Obama Supporters for $10 Gas. "The people at this rally made the mistake of telling the truth about the left's energy policy," [Ed] Frank told Townhall in an email. "From the ban on American oil drilling to proposed global warming legislation, the entire point is to drive up the cost of oil and gas so Americans are forced against their will to use alternative energy sources that by and large aren't viable. For Greens, the Energy Crisis Is Not a Problem, It's the Solution. Two of the problems our presidential candidates are being called upon to solve are the spiraling cost of energy and the "crisis" of man-made global warming. … "The notion that these two issues can be addressed simultaneously is nonsense," said Dr. Keith Lockitch, resident fellow of the Ayn Rand Institute. "No policy aimed at 'fighting global warming' can help solve the energy crisis. An energy crisis is the proposed 'solution' to global warming. This is where environmentalism is headed: Environmentalists want to wipe out the human race. To save bandwidth, this subtopic has been moved to this page. "Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs." |
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Document location http://www.akdart.com/environ.html Updated January 31, 2012. Page design by Andrew K. Dart ©2012 |