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environmentalists Archive

Saturday

12

December 2009

0

COMMENTS

Wired: Global Warming Heretics Suffer Mental Illness

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

Those who react with skepticism to the proclamations from the high priests of global warming are not really skeptical.  Listen up, because maybe you can learn something about yourself.  Your reaction is not based on the shoddy and misleading “science” behind so-called climate change.  You actually believe it, but are just too scared to admit it to yourself:

Norgaard: Climate change is disturbing. It’s something we don’t want to think about. So what we do in our everyday lives is create a world where it’s not there, and keep it distant.

…

It’s a paradox. Awareness has increased. There’s been a lot more information available. This is much more in our face. And this is where the psychological defense mechanisms are relevant, especially when coupled with the fact that other people, as we’ve lately seen with the e-mail attacks, are systematically trying to create the sense that there’s doubt.If I don’t want to believe that climate change is true, that my lifestyle and high carbon emissions are causing devastation, then it’s convenient to say that it doesn’t.

This continues a long standing pattern from the left, where they choose not to argue on the basis of ideas, but seek to marginal opponents as either industry lackeys or mentally unfit.  NPR also tried to sell the same bilge from Norgaard.  It is simply inconceivable to them that anyway could honestly weigh the facts and reach a different conclusion.

It’s pathetic and debasing to intellectualism that these people pretend to be thoughtful participants in the realm of ideas.  They are nothing more than quacks.

Sunday

22

November 2009

0

COMMENTS

Saturday

21

November 2009

2

COMMENTS

Climategate: Global Warming Conspiracy Exposed

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

This is a major scientific scandal. A hacker breached the network of a government-funded, so-called “leading Climate Research Unit” in Britain, and the resulting email exposure has given the global warming community a collective black eye.  The emails demonstrate a clear pattern of data manipulation, organized resistance and obstruction to disclosure, and private admissions to publicly denied faults in the research.

The New York Times naturally couldn’t resist a little spin and damage control:

The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument. However, the documents will undoubtedly raise questions about the quality of research on some specific questions and the actions of some scientists.

Ridiculous.  The evidence has been so thoroughly discredited and dunked that it is unconscionable for a major media organ, even one as biased as the New York Times, to engage in this level of spin.  But while the media doesn’t get it, the public increasingly does.

Opinion polls show faith in AGW continues to be the minority position.  Meanwhile, Al Gore is facing an increasingly emboldened public backlash for both his views and his hypocrisy.

Monday

9

November 2009

0

COMMENTS

Recycling Is Out!

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

What’s an environmentalist to do when even the epitome of green living – recycling – can’t be depended upon?

California’s State Agency Buy Recycled Campaign grew out of legislation passed in 1989, when times were simpler. Garbage was the enemy. Almost no one talked about global warming.

Now that the state is a leader in the war against climate change and seeking to shrink its carbon footprint, some say it’s time to adapt and measure the effort’s climate impact.

“You can’t automatically assume recycled content is good,” said Robert Tetz, former manager of the state’s environmentally preferable purchasing program at a conference this spring.

“You have to be careful about the energy and environmental impacts we incur in the process of recycling,” he continued. “When we talk about what’s green, a lot of the 100 percent-recycled paper we’re buying in California is not green.”

You know what’s good at informing people about comparative energy use? Prices.  Any time recycling comes up I tell people the same thing: if it were really efficient to do it, someone (excluding government) would be paying you for it.  While that happens for some commonly recycled items (like aluminum cans), it doesn’t for most.

When local and state governments stepped in to subsidize, and in many cases require, the recycling of goods, it was promoting energy inefficiency.  This should have been obvious by the very fact that the state felt a need to force the behavior in the first place.

Wednesday

9

September 2009

1

COMMENTS

UK Elevates Eco-nuts To Religious Adherents

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

Hardly a day goes by where I don’t see something profoundly stupid done by the British government:

In the first case of its kind, an employment tribunal decided that Nicholson, 41, had views amounting to a “philosophical belief in climate change”, allowing him the same legal protection against discrimination as religious beliefs.

Nicholson, the former head of sustainability at Newcastle-based Grainger plc, says he was dismissed after disagreeing with practices including an instance where an IT worker was flown from London to Ireland to collect his BlackBerry, and another where Nicholson’s attempts to obtain data to develop a carbon management strategy were blocked.

Despite having written policies on the environment, Grainger executives attended meetings in “some of the most highly polluting cars on the road”, Nicholson claimed.

Perhaps the Goracle should relocate his shrine.

Hat-tip: Moonbattery

Wednesday

26

August 2009

0

COMMENTS

Politicized EPA

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

The Environmental Protection Agency has significant autonomy and regulatory authority.  It is practically a lawmaking body unto itself.  This is problematic, as it is obviously not an elected body.  It’s made worse by the fact that EPA is also heavily politicized.

Dr. Alan Carlin has become a thorn in the side of global warming fanatics by insisting that the EPA look at the actual science behind global warming. It was not good enough, he argued, to accept at face value the reports of political organizations like the United Nations.

Now, the EPA is trying to shut down the office in which Dr. Carlin works.

Tuesday

24

March 2009

0

COMMENTS

We're All Gonna Die! Pt. 18

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

The British are all gonna die…if they don’t kill a bunch of their population first:

JONATHON PORRITT, one of Gordon Brown’s leading green advisers, is to warn that Britain must drastically reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society.

Porritt’s call will come at this week’s annual conference of the Optimum Population Trust (OPT), of which he is patron.

The trust will release research suggesting UK population must be cut to 30m if the country wants to feed itself sustainably.

Porritt said: “Population growth, plus economic growth, is putting the world under terrible pressure.

The environmentalists hate human progress and prosperity.  They hate that people can better their quality of life, which is why they are all up in arms over the fact that India now has an affordable car.

Saturday

7

March 2009

0

COMMENTS

Monday

16

June 2008

0

COMMENTS

Plant Morality

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

Don’t let anyone tell you different: blogging is hard.  Even an opinionated and outspoken individual such as myself has difficulty finding material every day.  That task, however, is made a lot easier when one endeavors to cover the absurdities of the political left.

Be careful next time you’re pulling weeds in your garden, you may just be committing a war crime.  The Swiss government has issued a report on the moral rights claimed by plant life.  Here are some of their findings:

1. Arbitrariness:
The Committee members unanimously consider an arbitrary harm caused to plants to be morally impermissible. This kind of treatment would include, e.g. decapitation of wild flowers at the roadside without rational reason.

2. Instrumentalisation:
For the majority the complete instrumentalisation of plants – as a collective, as a species, or as individuals – requires moral justification.

3. Ownership of plants:
For the majority here too, plants – as a collective, as a species, or as individuals – are excluded for moral reasons from absolute ownership. By this interpretation no one may handle plants entirely according to his/her  own desires. A minority concludes that no limits apply to handling plants insofar as they are property.

Plants are people too!

Thursday

29

May 2008

0

COMMENTS

Strained Credibility

Written by , Posted in Culture & Society

I recently watched the remake of the classic sci-fi movie (and Michael Crichton book) The Andromeda Strain. It was rather remarkable how thoroughly the producers managed to litter the 4-hour (with commercials) mini-series with leftist propaganda. Almost no liberal talking point went unmentioned, regardless of how irrelevant to the plot the subject may have been. Iraq, wiretapping, don’t-ask-don’t-tell, port security and terrorist detentions all got prominent mentions, along with swipes at “greedy” corporations who dared to provide natural resources for consumption. Furthermore, the military is of course controlled by a cabal of secret organizations working in the shadows and conducting various nefarious activities that endanger all of humanity. Even low level foot soldiers don’t think twice when ordered to kill Americans without any explanation.

All of that pales in comparison to the overall plot, which found future human society unable to deal with a super-virus (which we are led to believe was probably created by future society as a biological weapon) thanks to the loss of certain bacteria found near deep-sea vents due to a new plan to “strip mine” the ocean floor.

For sci-fi fans, this should sound familiar. Star Trek IV, all but written by the Sierra Club, followed a similar plot where mankind faced extinction unless humpback whales could answer the call of a malevolent space probe. In 2008, instead of feeling guilty for our whale hunting ways, we’re supposed to go even further and mourn the loss of deep-sea bacteria. Even as liberal propaganda, this effort of The Andromeda Strain strained credibility.

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About Me

profileI serve as Vice President of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a non-profit think tank dedicated to preserving tax competition and free markets. This site features my personal views, which are not reflective of CF&P.

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