Summing Up Big Green
The Washington Examiner is publishing a five-part special report in association with PJ Media on “Big Green”: the alliance of the Democratic Party, environmental groups, and activists in the progressive movement. It’s not just a band of flannel-shirted environmentalists any longer; it’s become a big-money, major player in Washington power politics and American elections.
In the last installment, we consider what Big Green wants — with California as an example.
It’s now almost 40 years since the Environmental Protection Agency was authorized, more than 40 years since the first Earth Day. Where do we stand?
It would certainly be wrong to say that no good has come from the environmental movement. The Cuyahoga River no longer burns, and in fact it’s once again the center of beautiful vistas and parks. Lake Erie is recovering; steel mill towns like Pittsburgh and my own home town of Pueblo, Colorado, have been cleaned up dramatically — no more red rain or coke-oven clouds. Comedians no longer tell smog jokes about Los Angeles. And with the collapse of the Soviet Union, we found out that the real environmental crimes were being committed behind the Iron Curtain — but now there’s even progress there.
So what are environmentalists to do when so many of their goals have been accomplished?
Why, redouble their efforts, of course.
Today, in the final installment of its series on Big Green, the Washington Examiner considers what effect the current environmental movement is having on California, on the theory that California today is the whole U.S. in ten years.
Oddly, there’s been very little recognition of the gains that have been made. Instead, there seems always to be another crisis, another endangered species or wetland at risk or area that should be established as a wilderness. With the Department of the Interior, and the EPA’s support along with the state government’s cooperation, California has been at forefront of environmental regulation.
It isn’t working out as well as the people of California might have hoped.
The most notorious example has been the restriction of water supplies to the San Joaquin Valley; thanks to the current drought, and a small population of endangered fish, water for agricultural purposes has been more and more limited. For the last several years, many farmers have been effectively unable to put in a crop. The San Joaquin Valley is, indeed, returning to its “natural” pre-irrigation state.
Elsewhere in California, other environmental crusades are bearing fruit. There is general agreement on a “goal” of delivering 33 percent of California’s power from “renewable” sources, like solar and wind energy, by 2020. That’s ten years, which sounds like plenty of time — until you reflect that it often takes 20 years to move a new power generation project through the regulatory process.
It’s not so clear where the renewable energy would come from, either — not since Senator Dianne Feinstein announced her intention to introduce legislation to restrict solar power projects from being placed in the Mojave Desert.
In fact, the legislation won’t even be needed. By simply putting the project planners on notice, Feinstein has driven many of them out. As was reported last December in the New York Times:
“When we attended the onsite desert meeting with Senator Feinstein, it was clear she was very serious about this,” said Gary Palo, vice president for development with Cogentrix Energy, a solar developer owned by Goldman Sachs. “It would make no sense for us politically or practically to go forward with those projects.”
The fact is that solar and wind projects are, at best, on the very edge of being economically feasible under perfect conditions. Add regulatory uncertainty and a multiyear legislative fight — think about the Yucca Mountain waste repository in Nevada, peremptorily closed by the Obama administration after years of studies and billions of dollars invested — and there simply is no economic reason for any company to get involved.
But this presents a dilemma. If California is to supply 33 percent of its power through wind and solar, but wind and solar plants can’t be built, where will the power come from?
This is the problem that the environmental movement now has to face: are there projects, plans, methods of providing energy and raw materials that are acceptable?
To some environmentalists, there are not. The final reduction to absurdity of this is the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, which proposes, apparently seriously, that humanity should allow itself to die out. Les U. Knight, a spokesman for the movement, said that “…as long as there is one breeding pair of humans, there’s too great a threat to the biosphere.”
Clearly, most environmentalists won’t go that far. There are plenty of children in attendance with their parents at environmental rallies. But it is the limiting case of a general assumption among the environmental movement: that any development — any noticeable sign of human habitation — is “unnatural” — especially when it’s visible from someone’s condominium.
As long as that assumption continues, there will be plenty of people in the environmental activism industry willing to grab money and power under the guise of environmentalism.
We didn’t and don’t need enviro wackos to tell us to clean our water and air. Consider Seattle’s Lake Washington, a huge once seriously polluted lake bordering the city. In the 1950′s, well before the birth of the modern enviros, the people of Seattle cleaned the lake. Also, the 1950′s saw widespread efforts to install sewerage treatment plants, for example. Do not let the enviros take credit they have not earned.
Big Green = Soylent Green:
http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=37393
Like most well rounded individuals would say, there’s some good but for the most part it’s become like a sickness, like Cancer if you will that once it has invested the mid & Body there’s no way to rid there bodies from the evil that Environmentalist all carry and they all carry the same DNA but there’s no cure until we shut down the EPA and or defund them to the point there barely breathing. As for all there fringe elements that receive Millions upon Billions of Gov’t subsides annually on top of all the monies they extort form Corporation, Gov’t, and sm. Joe Blow Companies who instead of moving forward in court to fight these regulation they have over time done nothing but appease the Environmental Wacko’s with a few Million here & there so they can continue on and not waste alot of time in court.
But as I mentioned the other day I’m still waiting for Superman the one Corporation who’s gonna finally stand up to the EPA and say enough is enough, there’s only so much we as a Human population can or should to keep our air clean, & Water ways drinkable useful and there’s no more that we as a society can absorb or pay without eventually working for nothing and give everything we earn to the EPA/Gov’t. IMO the EPA has created a long history of case law where in most case’s they extorted money from 1,000′s of Corporation not for the betterment of our w but for the betterment of themselves and like I said the case laws of prior years between the EPA & Big Bad Corporation who paid, were never forced to make major amendments, revisions, or forced to scrap there project plans entirely to move forward with said projects. That’s the Superman I’m waiting for one that has basically an endless supply of money to fight the EPA and use there own tactics against them and prove to the courts it’s all about money & not the Environment anymore and there’s plenty of proof to sway any jury in todays Environment (Pun Intended)
The best evidence that the radical environmental movement has little to do with the environment is shown by what you point out: despite all the laws, rules and regulations, no matter how much less pollution is in the air, no matter how many jobs have been eliminated, it is never enough.
The tragedy in the San Joaquin Valley where once-fertile land lies fallow due to governmental fiat is a national disgrace. There is no sane reason for a fish to be elevated in importance above the needs of the people. If Governor Schwarzenneger had any cojones, he’d turn the water pumps back on and dare the Feds to turn them off again. Why he refuses to take concrete action to prevent this abuse of the citizens of California is a mystery. The law was never intended to cause a situation like this, and the good governor would do the nation a service to point this out to the beauracrats in Washington.
Who will stand up and say “Enough”?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100056586/eco-fascism-jumps-the-shark-massive-epic-fail/#dsq-content
This is the kind of thing the Eco movement is doing in the UK !
So disgusting it’s been pulled from You Tube
I just viewed this on climaterealists.com. The eco-extremists are truly, clinically deranged! They no longer feel the need to wear their mask. This video invites us to take a journey into completely abnormal thought processes. Just imagine, someone thought it was a worthy effort. It was professionally produced, and uploaded onto YouTube. Did they imagine people would gladly take the hint to conform to their cruel oppressors? What kind of response did they expect to get?
‘ Les U. Knight, a spokesman for the movement, said that “…as long as there is one breeding pair of humans, there’s too great a threat to the biosphere.” ‘
The movement should set the example by being the first to commit suicide
Why?
Why do you have to hate environmentalists?
I understand why you have to hate liberals, but why us?
It’s not weird to love animals or the planet we come from.
Where did you get this, this urdummheit that tells you you must oppose those who want the forests, the wolves, the great wildernesses to survive?
Why do you assume that those who disagree with you must hate you?
It is not your love of animals, or the planet that gets up my nose, but that people with several times my carbon footprint* have the audacity to tell me that my way of life is fundamentally wrong. People that want to me to play peasant to their philosopher king have to be opposed.
People like modern living. Environmentalists understand that the choices are burning coal, nuclear power, and a drastically reduced standard of living. By eliminating nuclear power and knowing how people will vote between the other two, environmentailists have to enforce a drastically reduced standard of living to move us away from coal. I oppose tyranny!
* I have made eleven trips by air in my forty-three years of life, so far, and the most prominent environmentalists make several trips a year.
Why do you think we hate environmentalists? In every one of these articles I’m mentioned at least once the good the environmental movement has done. I love animals so much I refused to read the Velveteen Rabbit or most any book about dogs or cats because they die at the end.
I just wonder why environmentalists — some of them at least — hate humans, or hate the things humans do.
As a perfect example, consider the 10-10.org campaign video, which apparently fantasizes about messily murdering people who aren’t appropriately environmentally sound.
Not that your naivete deserves a serious answer, Shef, but environmentalists as a rule merely want control and power over all others…”in the name of saving the planet” is nothing – I repeat – NOTHING more than an excuse.
“As long as that assumption continues, there will be plenty of people in the environmental activism industry willing to grab money and power under the guise of environmentalism.”
Exactly so, which is why the government has to act to effectively strip the regulatory powers from the Environmental oligarchy which has essentially operated as the governing body for anything remotely connected to the environment under their sanctimonious view that anything man made is a violation of natures laws; especially if it is motivated by that evil tool of Satan, profit. The desire for self enrichment is inherently evil and unnatural and all the benefits that ensue are purposefully or out of general ignorance or disdain, ignored. The fact that those “evil profits” are the root source of the Environmentalists economic existence and power is conveniently overlooked. The fact that the Environmental movement has itself become big business very adept at generating profit, for the “benefit of mankind” of course, is very cleverly hidden under that universal if reluctantly accepted mantle.
The world was almost convinced that global warming was an existential threat and has not exited stage left from that totally invented doomsday scenario yet. “Science” networks and publications remain wedded to the idea and continue to portray the world as a fragile ball gradually being destroyed by environmentally irresponsible economic development motivated only by profit. Wind and Solar power remain a favorite Green strategy except not in some backyards. CO2, the “gas” all mammals exhale on a continuous basis and which flora depends for its very existence, exhaling as it does so that other gas, O2, has been declared a pollutant thus rendering all mankind subject to “necessary regulation” by the environmental “saviors” of the kingdom.
Of course we the people are not without blame mesmerized as we are about predictions of doom and gloom that are forever proven false or without foundation. By now we should have all frozen to death, starved to death, choked to death, drowned or be suffering from a vast array of mysterious, incurable diseases. Well………maybe not yet but just you wait and continue to ignore those brilliant, intellectual elitist who can those imminent disasters so clearly in our future. How can we afford to ignore the knowledge and wisdom so carefully inculcated and nurtured behind those ivy covered walls of academia? Better question! Given their track record how can we afford not to?
Go to this video link Eco-Jihad the movie. You won’t believe your eyes. After watching this, ask yourself what logic is on display here?
Ah, I see that Jazznick #5 has already linked the Eco-Jihad movie. Sorry Jazznick.
The new political division is Constitutional, Capitalist, Ecologists vs.
Authoritarian, Socialist Environmentalists. This series did a tremendous job of showing the responsibility the Environmentalists have for the mess we are in. The goal of these people is to convert America to a 3rd world hovel where the “masses”,”peasants”,”beloved people” will live in mud huts and sustain themselves on 1200 calories and $1.50 a day.
The true believers carry well-disguised capitalists on their backs.
In the name of green, some investors purchased a large tract of land in my area, and propose putting a giant solar power plant on prime farmland, in a flood zone, immediately adjacent to 2 housing tracts and the largest remaining riparian forest in the SW states. This is on the biggest bird migratory pathway in North America, and in a poor area with growing ecotourism of birdwatchers from around the world, who do NOT want to come look at solar panels.
The bottom line is return on investment. The jobs they brag about are a joke, low-paid temporary jobs, and there is NO benefit to our area, just big money to the green heroes. They come, take the $ and run, but we residents are left with no benefits and a gigantic eye sore. We are fighting back, but it’s an uphill battle.