Archive for the ‘Environmental Issues’ Category
By Alan Caruba
In March of 1857, in the famed Dred Scott decision, the United States Supreme Court declared that all blacks, slaves as well as free, were not and could never become citizens of the United States. It also declared that the 1820 Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, thus permitting slavery in all territories and future, new States. By 1861 the United States was fighting a Civil War.
Sometimes the Supreme Court makes spectacularly bad decisions and this was manifest on April 2 when five of its nine members yielded to the specious argument by twelve States and several environmental organizations that the science of “global warming” was so conclusive that it could declare that carbon dioxide (CO2) should be regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as “a pollutant.”
CO2 is not a pollutant. It exists in the earth’s atmosphere and every blade of grass and every great tree is utterly dependent upon it. In that regard, other than the oxygen on which all living creatures depend, CO2 is the second most essential gas for its ability to harness the energy of the sun and, through photosynthesis, maintain every form of vegetation on earth.
By Alan Caruba
In the 1970s, as a public relations consultant, I helped introduce a new pesticide to the American market. More specifically, to the pest control industry as it was not available for use by the public. It was called “Ficam” and, after having undergone the costly Environmental Protection Agency registration process, it was quickly and widely used by pest control professionals, not just for its capacity to eliminate cockroaches and a variety of other pest insects, but because it was applied with nothing more toxic than water.
For two decades this pesticide thrived. I wrote case histories of where it was used in hotels, casinos, restaurants, and theme parks, as well as in homes and apartments. The pest control profession embraced it and there never was a single case of it causing any hazard to those who applied it or benefited from it.
I never found out why, but for some reason the EPA demanded that the manufacturer re-register the product and the decision was made that would be withdrawn instead. It was just too costly to prove what everyone already knew. It worked wonders protecting people against the diseases and property damage a wide variety of insect pest species cause on a daily basis.
by Daniel Clark
The latest point of emphasis in the global warming movement is that cattle farming endangers the planet by producing too much methane. So now, steaks and hamburgers are classified as instruments of destruction, along with large vehicles, lawn mowers, and charcoal grills. It can't be much longer before cowboy movies, cigars and hockey are held to be enemies of the earth as well.
This has got to be the most blatant assault on guyhood since ABC moved Coach to the same night as Roseanne, and turned Hayden Fox into Phil Donahue. It's a wonder that liberals don't cut to the chase, by simply claiming that global warming is caused by testosterone. Then, they could make public school nurses siphon the offending fluid from the boys during health class.
Many environmentalists believe that the earth is a living organism, personified by the Greek goddess Gaia. Conveniently, it turns out that Gaia is a shrew, who demands that her men be reduced to henpecked, metrosexual noodles. Manliness makes Gaia angry, and we wouldn't like her when she's angry, because she'll turn into a green monster and start smashing everything to bits. Hell hath no fury like an earth goddess exposed to excessive cattle-produced methane emissions.
By Alan Caruba
Hating so-called “fossil fuels”, coal, oil, and natural gas, with a passion, the environmentalists have perpetrated every deception possible and, among them, is the notion that Americans can avoid destroying the Earth if they just fill up the tanks of their automobiles with ethanol.
As I have pointed out in the past, the world is not running out of oil and, here in the United States, we have enough reserves of coal to provide electricity and other needs for centuries to come. So who has the new Democrat majority in Congress declared persona non grata? The oil industry. Their proposed “answer” to our transportation energy needs is ethanol.
Instead of pandering to the environmentalist’s obsession over fossil fuels, Congress should be making areas in and around the United States more accessible to exploration and extraction of known oil and natural gas supplies. That is the true definition of “energy independence.”
This has not occurred because most of America’s onshore energy is in the West and Alaska where more than half the land is under federal control. We are talking about estimates, according to the U.S. Interior Department, of 187 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 21 billion barrels of oil, representing 76 percent of onshore federal oil and gas resources.
by Robert E. Meyer
An issue that has garnered much attention lately, in between the media bites about Iraq and the salacious lives of celebrities, is the controversy over global warming. Both the pro and the con side consider their opponents the heretical misfits and purveyors of junk science.
But the debate is not so much about whether the earth is actually warming, but whether the phenomenon is man-made, and must culminate in catastrophe.
While most of us lack any academic credentials to have an informed opinion on the matter, we do possess the logical faculties to philosophically cross-examine the cogency of any theory presented to us.
By Alan Caruba
There is an effort in Congress—mostly thanks to the Democrat leadership—to strangle the energy baby in the cradle.
Why they and some addled Republicans would want to do this defies an answer beyond the hatred environmentalists have for all forms of energy other than windmills, solar panels, and crops which should be eaten instead of poured into one’s gas tank.
Let’s start by understanding there are now three hundred million Americans. More people increase the need for more electricity. America currently must generate 15.43 trillion kilowatts of electricity and is in immediate need of more.
By Alan Caruba
It’s official. America is now totally insane over the weather.
Even the Weather Channel that used to simply provide reasonably accurate, short-term information about the weather is now telling everyone we’re doomed because global warming is going to destroy the Earth. Why not just rename it the AlGore Channel?
The weather used to be the concern primarily of farmers and ranchers. It determines how well or not crops would grow and herds will thrive. As America became more urbanized, the rest of the population wanted to know whether to bring an umbrella or what to wear. Now it is a source of daily anxiety over the fate of the Earth.
By Alan Caruba
On December 4, then Speaker-Elect Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) issued a statement protesting the lifting of a presidential moratorium protecting Alaska’s Bristol Bay from oil and gas exploration. Rep. Pelosi had to reach back to the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 to find a reason why this energy-rich area should not be opened to exploration.
“Allowing oil drilling to go forward in Bristol Bay,” said Rep. Pelosi, “puts our precious environmental at risk.” We are all in for heavy doses of global warming propaganda and hearing a lot more about “our precious environment.” In recent months, the volume of global warming hysteria has markedly risen and with it came demands from two U.S. Senators that any dissent from this Big Lie be silenced.
Coincidently with Rep. Pelosi’s announcement, The Wall Street Journal published an opinion titled “Global Warming Gag Order” in which it noted that “Washington has no shortage of bullies, but even we can’t quite believe an October 27 letter that Senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe sent to Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Its message: Start toeing the Senator’s line on climate change, or else.”
By Alan Caruba
When America hit the 300 million mark in October the U.S. Census Bureau held a press conference and their electronic display was on the evening news shows ticking off the numbers of new citizens until it showed…what?
It showed there are just way too many people in America if you worry about things like the provision of sufficient energy, dependency on unfriendly nations for our oil imports, overcrowding of cities, uncontrolled immigration, unfunded entitlements, and a whole list of other problems.
Hard core ecologists—environmentalists is another name for them—if you get a few drinks in them will tell you we will just have to get rid of a couple of million people every month or so if the Earth is to sustain the six billion taking up space, expecting to be fed every day, driving around in cars or on motorcycles, and making more people.
Mark Steyn has written one of the most important books published this year. It’s America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It (27.95, Regnery Publishing). Steyn deals with demographics, a topic most people in that particular field of scholarly endeavor manage to make so dull you just want to run screaming from the room. It is the study of human population trends. Steyn, however, is a talented writer and therefore knows how to turn statistics into a lively discourse.
By Alan Caruba
The midterm elections were held on November 7th and by November 10th the Associated Press reported that California Senator Barbara Boxer was promising “major policy shifts on global warming, air quality and toxic-waste cleanup as she prepares to lead the U.S. Senate’s environmental committee.”
“Time is running out,” said Sen. Boxer about global warming “and we need to move forward on this,” during a conference call with reporters. Noticeably missing from her Chicken Little pronouncement was any scientific evidence that (1) there actually is a global warming threat and (2) why any of the draconian proposals to deal with it would have the slightest effect.
“Boxer said she intends to introduce legislation to curb greenhouse gases, strengthen environmental laws regarding public health and hold oversight hearings on federal plans to clean up Superfund hazardous waste sites across the country.”
I call this the “Californication” of the economy because Sen. Boxer would model federal legislation on a new California law that imposed the first statewide limit on greenhouse gases, seeking to cut that State’s emissions by 25 percent in an effort to return them to 1990 levels by 2020.
The National Center for Public Policy Research recently noted that, “Despite ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union is on track to miss its Kyoto emissions reduction target of 8% below 1990 levels by 2012. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the CO2 emissions for the l5 original member nations of the EU increased an average of 9% between 2000 and 2004.” Industrialized societies that require economic growth should never place a meaningless obstacle like “greenhouse gas emissions” in the way, but that’s exactly what the United Nations Kyoto Protocol does.