The Environmental Issues Page
News and opinions about environmental activism, especially that which is taken to the extreme by anti-capitalist troublemakers.
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 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 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
Lies, propaganda, distortion and exaggeration
New!  Environmentalists Oppose Every Practical Source of Energy
Environmental Propaganda Movie Reviews
Eco-terrorism
Environmental False Alarms about Alar, arsenic, mercury, freon, radon, etc.
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, like windmill generators, recycling,
  ...  and mass transit,
  ...  and ethanol,
  ...  and compact fluorescent bulbs.
  ...  including a subsection about windmill power proposals by T. Boone Pickens.
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
   Greenhouse Gases -- especially carbon dioxide.
   The Kyoto Protocol
   Environmental Propaganda Movie Reviews
   Silencing the Skeptics in the Global Warming Debate
   Global Warming Subtopics and Sidetracks:  hurricane intensity, polar bears, and rising sea levels.
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.
Other Environmental Topics
Recommended Reading


Let's start with the basics...
 Leftist utopian politics – the roots of environmentalism:

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.

Now we can see where the environmental movement is headed.  Encouraging families to have fewer children seems innocuous, perhaps thoughtful.  It's easy to dismiss those who support such measures as harmless busybodies, not ill-willed environmentalists.  Beware, however, of apparent banality.  Groups such as England's Optimum Population Trust have to be subtle.  While a planet with few people — or perhaps no people — is their ideal, they know they can't say that.

Enviro Mentalists Call For Culling Of Human Population.  A disturbing move is afoot by several "green" groups to associate climate change with over population and suggest that the solution is to implement depopulation policies and punishments for those who flout them.  The London Times reports today that a report to be published by green think tank the Optimum Population Trust says that children are 'bad for planet and 'having large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags.

Doctors:  Third babies are the same as patio heaters.  A pair of doctors have said that British parents should have fewer children, because kids cause carbon emissions and climate change.  The two medics suggest that choosing to have a third child is the same as buying a patio heater or driving a gas-guzzling car, and that GPs should advise their patients against it.

Global Warming Game Tells Children They Should Die.  Are global warming alarmists encouraging children to commit suicide because their carbon footprints supposedly are harming the planet?  It certainly appears so in a children's game concocted by the state-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Science Department, available online.  The game is called Planet Slayer.  Using it, children can calculate their carbon footprint — how much impact their carbon emissions allegedly have on global warming.

The Anti-Human Agenda:  Some environmentalists think if we could just get rid of all the people on the planet it would be a great place to live.  Generally over-population is a major part of the environmentalists' argument that humans are causing all the problems, including climate change.

Global Warming:  The Left's Latest War on the Family.  Procreation is killing the planet, and traditional religion is to blame, Global-Warming cultists insist.  First the industrial revolution had to go.  Then it was to the wall with oil company executives, those malignant Carbon Interests.  Next, SUVs were declared enemies of the planet.  Now, the left's attention has shifted back to its perennial targets — large families and "patriarchal" religion.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Church of Green:  At its core, environmentalism is a kind of nature worship.  It's a holistic ideology, shot through with religious sentiment.  "If you look carefully," author Michael Crichton observed, "you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths."  Environmentalism's most renewable resources are fear, guilt, and moral bullying.

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.

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.

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.

Lord Lawson claims climate change hysteria heralds a 'new age of unreason'.  [Scroll down] Lord Lawson closes on a note that others of us have struck in trying to puzzle out the deeper reasons for this great climate panic.  He recognises that in many ways the global warming ideology has filled the vacuum left by the collapse of Marxism:  "Green is the new red."  He sees parallels with the apocalyptic visions held out by certain religious movements in the past.  He is alarmed by the fanatical intolerance shown by many believers in global warming to any heretic who dares question their certainties.  He ends by describing "the new religion of global warming" as "the Da Vinci Code of environmentalism.  It is a great story and a best-seller.  It contains a grain of truth and a mountain of nonsense."

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.

Environmentalists Want You to Eat Bugs.  Science has two speeds:  "proven as fact" and "not sure."  Like it or not, the scientific theory that humans are causing the Earth to warm is still in the "not sure" camp.  Nonetheless, we're racing ahead in an anti-global-warming frenzy.  Some global-warming advocates have turned the issue into a religion — the believers shall be exalted and the deniers shall be burned at the stake.

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.

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.

Global warming:  the bogus religion of our age.  What is so tragic is the way that this dubious ideology has achieved such dominance in our public life.  Politicians love the green agenda, of course, because it means more control, more regulation, more taxes, more summits, and more opportunities for displays of self-important zeal.

Origins of Environmental Religions:  Green religion competes with old-style religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam.  Environmentalists passionately believe its stories and predictions to be as accurate as fundamentalists view the Old and New Testaments or the Koran.  While the old religions encouraged charitable activities toward others, the new Green religion grants dispensation by bicycling to work, recycling beer cans, and voting for the most "progressive" candidates.

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.

The March Of The New Luddites:  Global-warming alarmists now want to limit our use of toilet paper.  What's next, one-room shacks with bamboo fences?  Don't laugh.  That's also on their list of recommendations.

California Hotels Go Green With Low-Flow Toilets, Solar Lights.  Visitors to the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa won't find the Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer.  Instead, on the bureau will be a copy of "An Inconvenient Truth," former Vice President Al Gore's book about global warming.

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.

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.]



Anti-capitalism motivates environmentalists

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.


The Gore Who Stole Christmas.  Yesterday's foes of the free market were socialists, communists, and Keynesians.  Today's are greens who want government engineering to "stabilize" the climate and ensure "sustainability."

Climate ideology control:  America's vital traditions of free speech, association and debate are under assault.  Al Gore bristles at anyone who raises inconvenient truths about climate alarmism.  Greenpeace calls us "climate criminals."  Grist magazine wants "Nuremberg-style war crimes trials" for climate disaster skeptics, probably followed by hangings, since burning at the stake would release greenhouse gases.

Democrats Prepare Global Warming Push.  Newly empowered Democrats in the 110th Congress appear ready to make a major push to solidify their "global warming mantra" on the American people.  Get ready for a new Democratic barrage asserting that there is "scientific consensus" the earth is getting warmer because of greenhouse gas emissions from burning hydrocarbon fuels.

New York's 'green' mayor gets ride to subway.  Mayor Michael Bloomberg's regular trips on the New York subway, which he has boasted are environmentally friendly and a sign he is an ordinary guy, are not quite as straightforward as they seem. … A five-week undercover investigation by the New York Times has revealed that a quarter of his journey takes place in a large sports utility vehicle.

Environmental activists' suits damage wildlife in the long term.  Environmental groups are unwittingly destroying forests and killing wildlife with lawsuits.  Ironically, they are doing so while claiming to save them.  Activists again are filing lawsuits to stop forest management, and the government pays them to do it.  They craft settlements that pay them handsomely with taxpayer money so that they can live well and file the next lawsuit.  No wonder they are inflexible.

Live Green, Die Green.  The media have been all over stories of eccentric families' toilet paperless lifestyles and their green weddings, but now CNN has pushed the peripheries of ecological awareness to the end of life by making the case for a green funeral.

Greens Reveal their Plan for Global Domination.  According to the Greens behind this plan, "Increased transport also uses drastically increased fossil fuels, adding to the problems of climate change, ozone depletion, and ocean, air, and soil pollution."  There is a very big problem with the assertion quoted above.  None of it is true.  If the US, let alone the rest of the world, did not have airports, seaports, roads, rail-lines, pipelines, dams and electric grids, you would not be reading this, nor would there be too many goods in your local supermarket or mall.

Losing the Greens.  As Democrats take control of Congress, once firm opposition to the green lobby's campaign of imposing carbon emission controls is weak.  Panicky captains of industry have themselves largely to blame for failing to respond to the environmentalists' well-financed propaganda operation.  One government official says "industry appears utterly helpless and utterly clueless as to how to respond."

Make poverty history:  first by getting rid of the greens.  As protesters and green activists gather in Melbourne this weekend to lay the usual blame for poverty on the greed of developed nations, a powerful new documentary shines light on a different villain.  Mine Your Own Business, which opens this week, shows that the "powerful group telling the world's poor how to live, how to work, even how to think" are not the world leaders gathered in Melbourne.  They're not even wealthy multinational corporations, but wealthy multinational environment groups such as Greenpeace.

Save the planet, eat a vegan.  According to new research, power stations and transport produce lots of carbon dioxide, but in addition they also produce lots of aerosols that, in the short term at least, help keep the planet as cool as a deodorant model's armpits.  So who has come up with this new theory?  Some half-crazed nitwit with a motoring show to protect?  George Bush?  A bloke in the pub?  No.  In fact it comes from an organisation called EarthSave, which is run and funded, so far as I can tell, by the usual array of free-range communists and fair trade hippies.

Green CEOs Bad for Business.  Bill Ford just announced that he would step down as CEO after a disastrous 5-year reign during which company shares lost two-thirds of their market value.  While Ford Motor's woes can't entirely be blamed on Ford, you have to wonder what Ford Motor's board was thinking when it selected him as CEO. … Ford always appeared more concerned about being green than being profitable.  In May 2000, he declared that SUVs — his company's most profitable product — harmed the environment.

What Happens to Companies That 'Go Green':  Mutual fund manager explains why consumers, shareholders and business leaders should be skeptical of global warming regulation lobbying and 'market-based' solutions.

Incumbents Supported by Environmental Groups Lose in August 8 Primaries.  Incumbent politicians rarely lose elections in the United States, so when they do, it's significant.  It is even more newsworthy when an incumbent loses a primary election.  On August 8, three incumbent members of Congress lost their primary elections.  All three were seen as supporters of environmental activist groups.

Al Gore visits Berkeley, charges up Prop. 87 rally.  Former Vice President Al Gore appeared in Berkeley on Monday [10/23/2006] to lend his celebrity and reputation as a crusader against global warming to a measure on California's Nov. 7 ballot that would tax oil companies to raise $4 billion for green energy projects.

Plastic bag levy failing.  Ireland's levy on plastic bags, once heralded as a market solution to an environmental problem, has failed to curb the country's plastic addiction, prompting calls from Australian environment groups for a total ban here.  The number of bags used in Ireland dropped to 85 million in a year after the levy was introduced in 2002, but was back up to 115 million in 2005 and has risen steadily since.

Kit Bond goes into battle on a lawn mower.  Environmental groups heralded California's move three years ago to adopt new pollution standards for small engines.  The standards could require use of catalytic converters, which have cleaned up cars and trucks, to be added to lawn mowers as well.

Al Gore's Green Money Machine:  As Al Gore's global warming alarm tour winds down for the summer, let's pull back the curtain and see the real wizard.  After you get past all the scare mongering, what is left is a giant scheme to tax the air we breathe.  No wonder the tax and spend liberals are so enthralled with big Al.

Has John Kerry Morphed into Al Gore?  The British author and critic, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) said that a phony kind of patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel.  These days it's environmentalism.  When a candidate for president really doesn't have any good ideas on how to keep the economy going strong, deal with America's enemies, or any of the other practical necessities to insure our future, they always rely on the "environment" as their pitch for votes.

What Scriptures Tell Us About Environmental Stewardship:  Now that secular liberalism has all but driven orthodox religion out of public life, it should come as no surprise that heterodox spirituality has become the latest battering ram of the left.  In a time when the Bible has been expunged from schoolrooms as an icon of Western bigotry, biblical arguments are now oddly on the comeback, recast as a fashionable means of pushing a leftist agenda.  What is not to be expected is the degree to which well-meaning Christians have become the spokesmen of these distortions.

Town Battles Army Corps Over Permafrost.  Challenging an Army Corps of Engineers assertion that permafrost 20 inches thick is a "navigable water" of the United States, an Alaskan borough attempting to build public playgrounds and athletic fields on a two-acre parcel of permafrost has sued the Corps over its enforcement of the Clean Water Act.  "This case is a classic example of the Corps operating without boundaries, limits, or common sense in its application of the Clean Water Act," said Russell Brooks, managing attorney of Pacific Legal Foundation's (PLF) Northwest Center.

NJ Clean Energy Program Under Investigation.  New Jersey's Clean Energy Program (CEP), responsible for promoting energy conservation and the use of renewable energy in the state, is coming under heavy criticism for accounting irregularities, apparent cronyism, and gross mismanagement.  The latest salvo was fired on October 16 when Bob Ingle, the Trenton bureau chief for Gannett New Jersey newspapers, called for a stepped-up investigation of financial irregularities associated with the program.

Property Rights Improve Environment, Book Says.  The American public has shown significant concern for environmental quality since the first Earth Day in 1970, yet the maze of environmental laws and regulations enacted since then has fostered huge government bureaucracies better known for waste and failure than for innovation and success.

New Book Examines Maze of Failed Environmental Policies.  The maze of government regulations and environment laws enacted since the 1970's has created more waste and failure than innovation and success, say the book's contributors.  They point out that many current environmental policies fly in the face of American liberal legal and political traditions.

Missouri Town Hikes Taxes for Green City Hall.  Citizens of Cottleville, Missouri will be forced to pay an extra one-half percent sales tax to finance a "green" city hall. … Costly environmental gestures include solar collectors, wind turbines, and rainwater collectors.

My pick for the court:  John Rapanos is a 70-year-old grandfather who lives in Michigan.  The Bush administration wants to put him in jail for five years.  His crime?  He moved sand around on a farm he owns.  Last week, the Supreme Court took up his case.  Rapanos is being prosecuted by the Bush Justice Department for an alleged violation of the federal freshwater wetlands law.

The Earth Day before yesterday:  "Earth Day" [was founded] by former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson.  It's also V.I. Lenin's birthday — which is no coincidence.  Nelson modeled his anti-capitalist protests after anti-Vietnam War demonstrations of that era.  Today, the so-called "environmental movement" he helped spawn has devolved from a gaggle of unwashed adolescent peaceniks into a slick cadre of leftists, lobbyists and lawyers.

Environmentalism is dead — Long live environmentalism!  Even though recycling is often a monstrous waste of time, energy and money, the Greens have insisted that if you don't separate your plastic from your paper you are "against" the environment.  The truth is that nobody is anti-environment.

Green versus Black:  Denying other people the same rights that you claim for yourself is the essence of bigotry.  People who call themselves environmentalists could more accurately be called green bigots.  Selfishness is never a pretty thing but it is at its ugliest when it masquerades as some kind of lofty nobility.  That pose not only gets the green bigots good press, it also helps recruit the young and uninformed to their movement — especially the young who have been misinformed on college and university campuses.

It's a Wonderful Life, So Far.  The single-family home with the white picket fence, two cars in the garage, and a couple kids in the backyard has everything wrong with it, according to some environmentalists.  The home is made completely or in part of wood … but logging is a bad thing.  That little yard in a small suburban or rural community contributes to "urban sprawl."  When those two cars leave the garage for work or the grocery store or to take the kids to school, they burn unacceptable quantities of fossil fuels traveling paved roads which, in all too many cases, prevent animals from migrating (apparently only chickens are able to cross the road).  Oh, those two kids?  They are a problem, too.  Overpopulation, you know.  Enjoy America while you can.

Planet Parenthood.  People on the leftward side of the political spectrum say they want to "keep government out of your bedroom," by which they usually mean they oppose restrictions on abortion. … But it's an oddity of today's politics that abortion proponents tend to be allied with environmentalists, and environmentalists want government in every room in your house, from the bathroom (mandatory low-flow toilets) to the kitchen (energy saving appliances) to the garage (fuel-economy standards) to — well, any room with artificial lighting (the bulbs had better be the compact fluorescent variety).

Aquatic Weeds Overwhelming the Nation's Lakes.  Milfoil, sometimes known as Eurasian Watermilfoil, has grown significantly in Lake Minnetonka.  According to Minneapolis television station WCCO, the lake is so thick with milfoil that experienced divers find the lake frightening.  Some communities have sought to control aquatic weeds such as milfoil through the use of herbicides.  Environmental groups, however, are strenuously opposing those plans.

Cement Production Hits a Concrete Wall.  U.S. businesses and households are feeling the brunt of short-sighted environmental activism as America's supply of cement dries up.  If you couldn't get cement to pour the new patio you had planned in August [2004], or if the increase in the price of concrete added several thousand dollars to the final cost of your new home, you can blame China or the Sierra Club or the federal government or your state government.  Or all of the above.

The Dangerous Greening of American Foreign Policy.  Foreign aid funds are actually being used to undermine market economies abroad and put American businesses at a competitive disadvantage.  In Indonesia, for example, the Agency for International Development (AID) gave more than $1.3 million to the local chapter of Friends of the Earth (virtually its entire operating budget) for its campaign against New Orleans-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold.  The environmental organization accused the mining company of grossly polluting an Indonesian river, destroying crops, and inciting military attacks on civilians — but none of those accusations has been substantiated.

Documentary:
 Mine Your Own Business  exposes the dark side of environmentalism.  The documentary hacks away at the cosy image of environmentalists' as well meaning, harmless activists.  Mine Your Own Business is the first documentary which asks the hard questions of foreigners who lead campaigns to "save" remote areas from development.  Their answers are often disturbing, with racist overtones, but we, in the west, blindly support such campaigns that want to keep people in poverty.

Review:
 The Forgotten Mammal.  "Mine Your Own Business" tells story of the one animal environmentalists forget.

Environmentalists are AWOL on Saddam.  Saddam Hussein has committed some of the biggest environmental crimes of all time.  During the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam's troops set 600 Kuwaiti oil wells ablaze "creating a toxic smoke that choked the atmosphere and blocked the sun," according to news reports.  However, most environmental groups have gone absent-without-leave when it comes to removing Saddam — even without the use of force.  A few are protesting the war.

Environmental Activists Cannot Use Courts To Micromanage Federal Agencies.  On June 15 [2004], the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected efforts by environmental groups to give courts greater authority over the day-to-day management of federal administrative agencies.

State Legislatures Face Anti-Pesticide Bills.  Anti-chemical activists have pushed several state governments in recent years to pass laws to eliminate or drastically reduce the use of pesticides in schools and daycare centers.  To date, about 20 states have enacted such laws.  [However] pesticides are used to control roaches, molds, mice, rats, wasps, lice, fleas, mosquitoes, spiders, fire ants, poison ivy, and other pests.  The public health implications of allowing them to get out of control are substantial.  Children will suffer if schools and daycare centers are not able to control these pests.



Volcanos

Environmentalists are quick to minimize and dismiss the atmospheric influence of volcanos, because they know volcanos can't be taxed and regulated into submission, no matter how many megatons of "greenhouse gas" they emit.

Mount St. Helens is the state's No. 1 air polluter.  Right now, the biggest single source of air pollution in Washington isn't a power plant, pulp mill or anything else created by man.  It's a volcano.  Since Mount St. Helens started erupting in early October [2004], it has been pumping out between 50 and 250 tons a day of sulfur dioxide, the lung-stinging gas that causes acid rain and contributes to haze.  Those emissions are so high that if the volcano was a new factory, it probably couldn't get a permit to operate.

Smashing Environmentalist Myths:  I have never believed the earth is fragile.  Did you know that your typical volcanic eruption puts more pollutants in the air than all auto emissions in the history of civilization combined?  But the earth also has a mechanism for cleaning itself.  It doesn't just sit there, get dirty and die.  It has its own corrective measures.  For us to think that we have the ability, just by virtue of living our lives in a way that enhances our lives, to destroy this planet is the height of folly.

Hawaii's biggest polluter is completely out of control.
 Gas from Kilauea forces 2,000 from Hawaiian park.  Elevated sulfur dioxide levels from Kilauea volcano and a change in wind direction Tuesday [4/8/2008] forced 2,000 people to leave Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island.

Trivia:
 Hawaii is the only state that is getting bigger.  It is also the only state that has no straight-line borders.

Chile volcano blasts ash 20 miles high, forcing evacuations.  [Scroll down] So far, Chaiten has emitted only a few thousand tons of sulfur dioxide, "which is very small," said Simon Carn, a University of Maryland-Baltimore volcanologist who uses satellites to measure volcanic gases.  In general, a volcano must spew at least 1 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to have a global effect on climate, said Alan Robock, a Rutgers University professor who co-authored a book on the subject. … The Philippines' Mount Pinatubo produced a brief cooling of the climate after spewing 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide in 1991.

Warming or Cooling?  You Be the Judge.  In 1991, the volcanic eruption at Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines put more carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere than did the whole human race during the most recent century of the industrial era.  Notwithstanding all the heat and fury released in the neighborhood of the volcano, the event had a cooling effect on the world as a whole.

Volcanoes and climate:  [Scroll down]  Volcanoes also release large amounts of water and carbon dioxide, the two most important greenhouse gasses.  From an isolated point of view, a volcanic eruption might thus be expected to result in atmospheric warming.  However, there are large amounts of water and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere already, and even a large eruption will not be able to change the atmospheric composition of these compounds much.  In addition, the water generally condenses out of the atmosphere as rain within few days, and the carbon dioxide quickly dissolves in the ocean or is absorbed by plants.

The Editor asks...
 If the thousands of tons of CO2 from a volcano are absorbed so "quickly," why is there any concern over industrial production of carbon dioxide, where the CO2 trickles into the atmosphere from thousands of locations all over the world?  Why all the fuss over carbon credits?  Some "experts" say "carbon dioxide … stays around for more than a century."  Which "expert" is right?


Greens Against the Poor.  Pitched battles over ideology and public policy certainly are not confined to classrooms or legislative chambers.  They are also fought in poor communities of Africa, Asia and Latin America, often pitting multinational corporations against multinational activist groups.

Why Socialism Causes Pollution:  If the profit motive is the primary cause of pollution, one would not expect to find much pollution in socialist countries, such as the former Soviet Union, China, and in the former Communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe.  That is, in theory.  In reality exactly the opposite is true:  The socialist world suffers from the worst pollution on earth.  Could it be that free enterprise is not so incompatible with environmental protection after all?

Left-Leaning Donors Skewing Climate Change Research.  While new environmental regulations might be an annoyance for private industry, the fact is that the bulk of any new environmental-related costs to those industries are simply passed on to the public through more expensive goods and services.  By contrast, spearheading environmental issues is the only reason for the existence of environmental organizations.  Since all organizations have self-preservation as their number one priority, it is the environmental groups that are the most vulnerable to a loss of public interest, and thus funding.

Environism:  The Environmental Movement As A Pagan Religion.  Environism is a combination of pseudo-science, new age mysticism, paganism, and socialism which serves as a combination of political philosophy and religion.  This is clearly an attempt to replace America's historic Christian culture with a new religion — a pagan religion.

Dominion and Stewardship:  Believers and the Environment.  As the United States prepares to celebrate Earth Day on April 22, people of faith should be wary of a "neo-pantheism" underlying much of the secular environmental agenda.

The American Flag Itself Angers "Environmentalists".  "I'm a patriot, but I'm not a gun-toting, flag-waving, Bush-loving patriot," huffs one "green" after Georgia dares to put U.S. symbols on a license plate.

NIMBYS, BANANAS and Greens:  Americans support programs to lock away land to keep wilderness pristine, free of human development, power lines and cell towers.  Yet they want to use their cell phones and computers wherever they go.  They want three car garages to house the family van, the daughter's little bug and the husband's sports car; but don't blight the landscape with filling stations, refineries or power plants.

Regulations: The Untold Story.  Regulatory costs, like consumption taxes, consume a larger portion of the poor's income, leaving fewer resources for adequate housing, medical care, proper diet and other crucial needs.  Environmental regulations are particularly regressive.

Controlling Pests or Controlling Competition?  The Pacific Legal Foundation challenges a California licensing law that would require a 30-year business veteran to become an apprentice.

Environmentalists Attempt to Kill America's Most Environmentally-Friendly Major Energy Source.  Anti-nuclear activists now are filing lawsuits in the hope of forcing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to deny the U.S. Department of Energy the construction permit it needs to complete the Yucca Mountain project.

Environmentalism:  A Globalist Tool for Tyranny.  There are plenty of good reasons for a freedom loving people to steer clear of the United Nations, one of the chief ones being the fanatical zeal with which the UN and Friends grasp hold of every worry and woe, make it their own, blow it out of proportion, and insist that they and only they can provide a solution, a solution which must be imposed by force upon the world.

Polls Show Little Interest in Green Agenda.  American voters are generally happy with the condition of their local environment and the performance of their elected representatives on environment issues, according to several recent public opinion polls.  As a result, the polls show, environment issues rank near the bottom of concerns for American voters this election season.

Unflushable:  Not content to turn the bathrooms of the western world into chambers of low-flushing horrors, some environmentalists have a new target:  toilets as such.  They want to make sure they "save water" by preventing developing countries from installing any flush toilets at all.

America's New Dark Ages:  Today's environmental movement has little to do with protecting the environment and everything to do with imposing a radical agenda to derail human progress, destroy free enterprise, and diminish individual liberty.

October 2004 Environment & Climate News.  Page 1 stories in this issue report on … a new study confirming the unreliability of global warming computer models; and charges against Greenpeace for violating environmental regulations it lobbied to impose on ships in Alaskan waters.

Greens Attack America:  The one abiding goal of both the Greens and "animal rights" lunatics is to attack America's economic base in every way possible.  This is why, for the past few decades, they have sought to undermine every kind of industry in the nation, from timber to energy, from agriculture to fast foods, from mining to ranching.

Red-Tape Conservationists:  Environmentalists are up in arms about a recent Bush administration proposal to reduce red tape on logging in federal lands.  But what this controversy is really about is not just the "conservation" of forests, but the conservation of the vast, arbitrary authority of federal regulatory agencies — an authority environmentalists are accustomed to exploiting for their agenda.

The Top 5 "Human Costs" of Environmental Extremism:  Inflexible environmental laws and overregulation are dramatically impacting people's lives and livelihoods every day, often for species protections that are illegal or unnecessary.  The top five human costs of environmental extremism are:
    • Separating people from nature.
    • Cutting people off from water to give to fish.
    • Extinguishing hundreds of thousands of jobs.
    • Diminishing the American dream of home ownership, and
    • Blocking forest fire prevention that saves lives and homes.

Solar Power Statists:  Blinded by the Light.  The idea that improving the livability of human homes requires political coercion is repellent and serves as yet another indictment of the environmentalism movement.

The Environmentalist Crusade Against Progress and Technology:  We are fortunate enough to live in the US at the beginning of the 21st century and enjoy all the benefits of modern science and technology.  Human life is now longer, healthier and richer than ever before.  But not everybody is happy about it.  Some people would rather have us go back in time and sacrifice it all.  They are the advocates of Environmentalism.

Environmentalism is Bad Medicine for Humans.  On Earth Day, environmentalists should celebrate the latest consequence of their ideas: skyrocketing gasoline prices.

Environmentalism vs. Human Life:  Although most environmentalists are emphatic in their professions of how deeply they care about every little earthworm and gnat on the planet, environmentalism is, at its core, the hatred of human life.

Environmentalists Excluding People from Parks:  Human enjoyment of the parks — sightseeing, golfing, hiking, skiing, biking, canoeing, camping — is being systematically sacrificed to environmentalist ideology.  As long people believe that environmentalism is compatible with human enjoyment of nature (or anything), environmentalists will continue to prevent people from enjoying the parks.  What makes these environmentalists tick?

Africans Starve Rather than Accept Bounty of GM Corn:  I grow poison on my farm, feed it to my family, and sell it to unsuspecting consumers in the U.S. and around the world.  That's what the president of Zambia seems to think.  As 3 million people in his country face starvation, Levy Mwanawasa has let some 15 million metric tons of donated corn sit untouched in storage because some of it is genetically modified.

EPA Seeks Faith-Based Grants For Green Causes:  The director of an Environmental Protection Agency energy program told a meeting of environmentalists Thursday [12/19/2002] that the White House's faith-based initiative should include federal grants for religious groups that advocate green causes.

Eco-Sanity: A Common-Sense Guide to Environmentalism.  Eco-Sanity means applying reason, sound science, and a respect for the rights of others to environmental issues.  A commitment to eco-sanity necessarily means abandoning scare tactics and relying instead on the good judgment of individual environmentalists and the general public.


Environmental quality is improving steadily and in some cases dramatically in key areas:
•  Average vehicle emissions are dropping about 10 percent per year as the fleet turns over to inherently cleaner vehicles, including modern SUVs.

•  Ninety-four percent of the population is served by water systems that have reported no violations of any health-based standards.

•  There has been a 55-percent decline in toxic releases since 1988, even while total output of the industries covered by this measurement has increased 40 percent.

•  Despite most popular assumptions, U.S. air quality trends are found to be at least equal, if not slightly better, than in Europe.

Our posterity will laugh at us.  How profoundly arrogant is it to think that public policy can, or should, "preserve" the environment as it was at some point in the past?  Suppose the policy-makers at the turn of the 20th century had decided to "preserve" the environment as it was before America was discovered.  Had government been enlightened then, as it seems to be now, and prohibited mining, oil drilling, grazing and logging, would the world be a better place?

Environmentalists are new foes of some of the world's poorest.  This threat is not from cigar-sucking, champagne-swilling robber barons.  Mining is now one of the most regulated businesses in the world.  Banks will not lend to, insurance companies will not cover and governments will not give licenses to companies that want to open unsafe or polluting mines.  Instead I have discovered that the biggest threat to miners and their families comes from upper-class Western environmentalists.

It's time to reclaim our rights:  Once again, the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has proven itself to be subservient to radical environmental groups, stopping the salvage of dead and dying trees in northern Idaho and eastern Washington.  Bark beetle and tussock moth infestations, in epidemic proportions, have invaded prime timber.  It would be logical to salvage those valuable trees, but radicals have sued the U.S. Forest Service preventing that from happening — preferring, apparently, to allow a valuable resource to rot in the forest.

Not In the Driver's Seat:  Isn't carbon dioxide a key component of the air we breathe and a compound absolutely vital to plant growth?  Well, yes, you're right, but…  Gray Davis, as it turns out, is embroiled in a surprisingly tight governor's race with upstart Republican candidate Bill Simon and he desperately needs to patch fences with California's large and affluent environmental community.

Cold warriors never die, they just turn green:  In a February [2000] interview with Environment & Climate News, Dr. Walter E. Williams, chairman of the economics department at George Mason University, noted, "Now that communism and socialism have lost all respectability, I think in general those people who have those inclinations have changed their agenda and call themselves environmentalists."

Hard Choices:  Environmentalists and the Forests:  Greenpeace once prided itself on subscribing to a philosophy that was "transpolitical, trans-ideological, and trans-national" in character.  Truth mattered and science was respected for the knowledge it brought to the debate.  That tradition was abandoned by many environmental groups during the 1990s.  A new brand of environmental extremism has emerged that rejects science, diversity of opinion, and even democracy.

Playing with fire:  Environmental rules fuel a massive inferno by undermining the efforts of the men on the line.

Texans Won't Be Driven to California's CO2 Craziness:  SUV-driving California legislators passed a bill on July 1 to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from new vehicles.  How is California going to meet these requirements?  Well, the politicians there don't really care; the automobile industry will have to figure it out and consumers will have to pay for it.

California Makes Cars Less Affordable:  California today became the first state in the nation to restrict automobile emissions of carbon dioxide, the same gas humans exhale.  The auto industry pointed out, to no avail, that the measure would make cars even more expensive and pressure people to buy death traps they don't feel safe driving.

Environmentalist Mythology Killing Us Softly:  One would have to conclude, given the facts, that environmentalists are either insane or intent upon eradicating every human being from the face of the planet.

Asbestos Absurdity in New Jersey:  Could the asbestos quagmire possibly get even deeper, stickier and more dangerous than it's been up until now?  Well, that is exactly what is about to happen in a New Jersey courtroom, where Sealed Air Corporation is scheduled to begin defending itself against an asbestos lawsuit.

Green Group Includes U.S. In "Axis of Environmental Evil":  The environmental group Friends of the Earth International (FoE) called the U.S., Canada and Australia the "axis of environmental evil" for not supporting international environmental agreements.

The American Taliban is All Green:  Until Americans understand how Greens really think, they will never understand that they are united against everything that has made America great.

American Citizens Are Left to Swim in Government Cesspool:  This is not supposed to be happening.  Not in America, at least.  Not after Congress passed the expansive Clean Water Act that predicted water pollution would be entirely "eliminated by 1985."  Yet it does happen, and quite often.  And federal officials don't just know about it; they are actively rewarding the worst offenders with more tax dollars.

Bush Fights Fire-Fueling "Greens":  To the dismay of environment-destroying "environmentalists," President Bush today [8/22/2002] shifted federal policy toward thinning national forests to reduce the risk of wildfires.  "The forest policy of our government is misguided policy.  It doesn't work," Bush told cheering residents outside Medford, Ore., near the state's largest fire on record.

Environmental Group's "Dirty Dozen" Labeled Tool to "Elect Democrats":  An environmental advocacy group is releasing more names of politicians it describes as Congress' "Dirty Dozen," based on their votes on issues dealing with water quality, energy, family planning and international trade.  But one critic says the listing of the dirty dozen is intended "to elect as many Democrats as possible."

Burned Out:  If only those who could make changes in foolish, ill-conceived and often ludicrous environmental polices thought things through and listened to people who know what they are talking about rather than a movement that is way past its best days.

"Environmentalists" Abet Wildfires:  Nuisance lawsuits filed by self-styled "environmentalists" have sabotaged half of the U.S. Forest Service's attempts to cut the underbrush that fuels the West's catastrophic wildfires.

Clean Water – The Tip of a Radical Green Iceberg.

Feds decline private assistance – again!  Rick Stanley, the Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate, was characteristically blunt.  "Two years ago, when the fire started at Mesa Verde National Park, local volunteers showed up with bulldozers and water trucks.  They could have put the fire out in a matter of hours.  But the National Park Service was unwilling to accept private assistance.  Twenty-four-thousand acres of beautiful forest land was incinerated before that fire burned itself out."

Utah Senate strikes back at frivolous environmental suits:  The Utah state senate on March 6 passed Senate Bill 183, allowing ranchers, miners, and oil developers to file countersuits and recover damages against persons or organizations who delay projects on state or federal lands through "improper" litigation.

Environmentalist slams "lunatic fringe":  Jan Michael Jacobson, an environmentalist and Everglades expert who is part of a battle against the government's habitat policies in South Florida, claims the leadership of the environmental movement has betrayed both its core constituency and the U.S. Constitution.

"Unfortunately, the environmental leaders are what could be described as hard-core socialist psychotics.  They are the lunatic fringes of socialism, and they are killing the American dream."

– Jan Michael Jacobson, environmentalist.   


Animal Rescues Bring in Big Bucks to Special Interests:  Each year, several thousand dogs and cats are put to death because there's not enough money to build adequate animal shelter space.  In the meantime, saving a whale in the Puget Sound is costing $500,000, with taxpayers picking up half the tab.

Greenpeace Serves "No Public Benefit":  Revenue Canada has refused to recognize the Greenpeace Environmental Foundation as a charity, saying its activities had "no public benefit" and that lobbying to close polluting industries could send people "into poverty."

Do I Hear Jackboots?  "When I helped to create Greenpeace from a church basement in Vancouver in 1971 I had no idea that I would spend the next 15 years as an international director and leader of many Greenpeace campaigns.  I also had no idea that after I left in 1986 they would evolve into a band of scientific illiterates who use Gestapo tactics to silence people who wish to express their views in a civilized forum."

Green Thumb Al:  Al Gore and the environmental mafia surface to celebrate Earth Day while attacking George W. Bush.

Unnecessary Threats to Freedom:  An old adage says that to a hammer, everything seems like a nail.  Likewise, to an environmentalist, everything is related to excessive American consumption.

Christine Whitman's Folly:  Dredging the Hudson will be half a billion dollars down the drain for not even a trivial public health gain.

The Green Taliban Of America:  The hubris of the Greens has allowed them to dictate to everyone just how we should conduct our lives for decades.  That is why you can't build a home, an office building, a factory, a hospital or a school, without an "environmental" study.  That is why Americans have been steadily deprived of pesticides, many used safely for decades, to protect us against the diseases spread by insect and rodent pests.  That's why millions of acres of our national forests burned this year because Greens won't let them be managed through selective logging or to allow roads to be built into those forests.  The list goes on and on because the Greens have been responsible for one third of every law and regulation in the Federal Register today.


Note:  The material about "Environmentalists vs. Military Preparedness" has moved here.

Intended Consequences:  Over the years, the phrase "unintended consequences" has come up with increasing frequency, as more and more wonderful-sounding ideas have led to disastrous results.

Carbon offsets that couldn't be less green:  Food-price inflation so severe that central banks are forced to raise interest rates to growth-stifling levels; corn prices so high that poor Mexicans can't afford their tortillas; massive deforestation to make way for more corn and palm oil; poor farmers pushed off their land to make room for carbon-offsetting plantings paid for by rich jet-setters; and Al Gore for president.  These are some of the unintended consequences of hastily conceived environmental policies.

A Really Bad Case of Gas:  After campaigning to restore sound science, reason and responsiveness to the regulatory process, the "Reformer with Results" is now standing by one of the dumbest, top-down environmental edicts on the books.

GOP Lawmakers Join Democrats in Aiding Enviro Left:  About half the Republicans in Congress are joining a united Democrat party in promoting the interests of a left-wing movement that is also (not incidentally) out to defeat the GOP majority in Congress.  "A multilayered fraud" is the way Mike Hardiman, lobbyist for the American Land Rights Association (ALRA), describes the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA).  The bill is better known among its critics as the "Condemnation and Relocation Act."

Tax status of environment group questioned.  In a move that could hobble environme