Is Bush Green?
"This entire effort is not about saving the environment
or establishing free-market solutions to clean air and water. This is
about controlling people, the market, private property and the way we
choose to live." - Diane Alden.
(Note: This is an excellent article and one well worth your thoughtful
consideration. No matter that I am posting/sharing it nearly four
years from its original writing, it is just as vital now.)
March 8, 2001
By Diane Alden [email protected]
NewsMax.com
To submit a Letter to the Editor: [email protected]
I am just wondering why the Bush
administration is about to take the plunge into junk science, the
Kyoto Protocols, Al Gore lite, and a total misunderstanding of the CO2
factor in the ever so trendy notion called "global warming."
This is a theory that Frederick Seitz, past president of the National Academy of Sciences, and original prophet of global warming James Hansen say cannot be conjured out of the best computer models or the information available for even a hundred years. No one knows why climate changes as it has over the last 4.5 billion years. Ice ages as well as deserts and tropical conditions come and go. Some blame sunspots, some blame volcanic activity or say changes on the ocean floor set up new currents of cold or warm ocean waters that in turn affect the environment. El Nino and La Nina, factors in the same cold and warm ocean currents, have NOTHING to do with global warming. Just as the prophets of doom were so sure of a "new ice age" 25 years ago, the notion of global warming and its causes is far from being science-based. But regardless, the Bush administration wants to make a stab at tweaking the environment and putting in its two cents' worth on the issues made "important" by the Club of Rome, U.N. Agenda 21, the various green groups and bad science from the Paul Ehrlichs and Barry Commoners of the world. No one calls these two bozos on the numbers of predictions they made that not come true but sure created a climate for the sky-is-falling crowd. As Y2K became a cottage industry for some, global warming, endangered species and whatever statist scam the Sierra Club is promoting seem institutionalized even among Republicans of the moderate and green persuasion. It would seem that the Bush administration wants to establish the re-energized vampire known as the Kyoto Protocol -- which Congress decided was Al Gore Druidism on an international scale. The only difference is that Bush and Christie Todd Whitman will effectively establish the Kyoto Protocol one carbon atom at a time. The biggest mistakes Bush has made so far have to do with his attitude on environmental policy. His mistakes extend from his failure to rescind Clinton's land grabs to appointing Christie Todd Whitman as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. The woman knows more about taxes than she does about environmental problems. The environmental movement loves her. Since environmental concerns are, in the words of one sage at Fox News, a "Republican throwaway issue," no one on the Hill or in the Bush administration cares much about that topic except to hope it goes away. Thus we get Christie Todd Whitman, who, like her predecessor Carol Browner, never knew an unscientific environmental policy she didn't swallow whole. Just like Browner, Whitman may create environmental mandates for the states that will be budget-busters and more reason to raise state taxes in order to keep up. Fox News reports, "Whitman also said the Bush administration is considering imposing limits on carbon dioxide emissions from the nation's power plants. ..." Amazing, considering her lack of expertise on the environment. When asked for her thoughts on global warming several months ago, Whitman responded, still somewhat uncertain. "Clearly there's a hole in the ozone, that has been identified. But I saw a study the other day that showed that it was closing. It's not as clear, the cause and effect, as we would like it to be." Whoops! A slip of the tongue perhaps, but neither global warming nor the ozone hole can definitely be pinned on anything mankind has done. Frederick Seitz, past president of the National Academy of Sciences, and 18,000 of his fellow scientists have stated: "Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful." These scientists were not funded by a left-leaning foundation or a government study, but have done the research on their own. There is a danger in government-funded science – it can come up with "proof" to go along with the "plan" or preconceived notions that government has in place. From global warming to wolf reintroduction, government science is no better now than it was when it placed forest health way down the list of important issues. All it knew is that the environmental community demanded a pristine, museum approach to nature, and that is what they got. Nothing much has changed, and apparently there will still be top-down foolish government central planning to accomplish a green-based agenda. Government science is rarely if ever held accountable when it turns out to be phony and very unscientific; therefore, pronouncements based on government science should be looked on in that light. With what was hoped to be a commonsense approach from the Bush administration, we have instead its demonizing of CO2 emissions. Well, sorry, Chicken Littles, but CO2 does not foul the air, contribute to asthma or poison fish. CO2 is plant food, it helps trees grow and benefits crops. It is not a "bad" gas or polluter like SO2 and NOx and mercury. In his most recent column, former presidential candidate Alan Keyes tells us that "regulating CO2 conflicts with Mr. Bush's goal of increasing America's energy supplies. Basic economics tell us that if you tax a thing, you will get less of it. CO2 controls would function as a carbon tax on electricity produced from fossil fuels. The result, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, would be less electric supply capacity, higher natural gas prices and higher electricity prices. ... The Kyoto Protocol is above all else a CO2 regulation treaty, and the U.S. could not implement it without capping CO2 emissions from power plants. Thus, if enacted, Mr. Bush's proposal would establish a massive Kyoto-friendly legal precedent. From that time forward, Congress would be utterly unable to identify, much less block, any federal regulation as an illicit attempt to implement a non-ratified treaty." In other words, the Bush administration is going to give us the Kyoto Protocol, already rejected by the Senate, one step at a time. If that is the case, he will be making an end run around Congress -- just as his predecessor did. In addition, he will disappoint those who voted for him in the "red zone" in flyover country who had hoped for commonsense environmentalism. Most of them had a perhaps naive belief that they would not be getting another environmental Druid occupying the highest office in the land. The question is being asked, among libertarians and conservatives, [is] whether the Bush administration is every bit as green as the previous administration. Considering the fact that Bush will not rescind Bill Clinton's land grabs, on top of the phony CO2 issue, the critics may have a point. Before Bush was elected, he implied that things would be different regarding the environment when he came to office. Thus, the heart felt hope in flyover that he would bring sound environmental policy back to the forefront in government. There was hope that his environmental policy would not be based on more sky-is-falling junk science. Too bad that may not be the case. A lot of people who voted for GWB are in for dashed hopes. Government science or Sierra Club science is questionable science, yet that is what is being used to create government policy. Why is it that government always has a study at hand to prove whatever it is that it has in mind to bring more government down on our heads and into our lives? In the wacky world of the folks who belong to the Club of Rome and [who] back the Kyoto Protocol and the even more statist and dippy Agenda 21, we have eco-socialism in the environmental policies that have been institutionalized. This entire effort is not about saving the environment or establishing free-market solutions to clean air and water. This is about controlling people, the market, private property and the way we choose to live. If President Bush plans on taking us down that road, then we will get eco-socialism and it will be a bitter disappointment to many of his supporters. The next step will be to institute an international tax and court system to fund all this nonsense and make enemies of the state pay for whatever trumped-up environmental "crimes" its elites decide have been committed. Why is it that professional politicians, country club Republicans and left-wing Democrats have such a hard time recognizing that environmentalism, as presently constituted, is nothing more than totalitarianism for Americans and the world? We will end up with private-property "ownership" that is in reality controlled by the government. That particular happenstance is also called fascism. Just Wondering – The Company Bush-Cheney Keep
Conservatives and libertarians and just plain folk out in flyover are expressing some concern over the company Bush-Cheney keep. It is very true you can have friends and relatives who don't agree with you politically 100 percent of the time. However, when those folks have the ability to make or influence policies that are destructive of the livelihoods and freedoms of others, then certain questions have to be asked of the nature of those friendships. The Bush administration appears to be influenced by three total horrors for private-property and environment rights: John Turner, president of the Conservation Fund; Mike Brennan, legal guru to the Republicans on environmental law; and Mike Hayden, former chairman of the board for the League of Conservation Voters. There is concern that they, in fact, are directing environmental policy in the Bush administration. Turner is from an old Wyoming family and head of the Conservation Fund, which has long been involved in buying up property from private land owners, often using eminent domain, in order to 'save' it. In fact the record of the Conservation Fund has meant a loss of private property and an increase in elite holdings by groups such as Nature Conservancy and Conservation Fund. These groups are considered to be nothing but stalking horses for federal land grabs. Such groups are also behind efforts like CARA (Conservation and Reinvestment Act), a taxpayer-funded money pot in which billions may be accessed in order to accomplish federal and state land grabs. They say they just want to create more parks and prevent 'urban sprawl'. But in effect CARA, the Conservation Fund and other such euphemisms are nothing but green hegemony, which will in the end put land off-limits to all but elitist pursuits. From the Cayuga to the Darby, from the Pacific Northwest to the Alleghenies, rich elite green groups are pricing and buying out the average person's ability to own private property. If that is what this administration wants, it is no better than the previous one. Cheney's friend John Turner is also one of the prime movers behind the listing of the NOT-so-endangered spotted owl, which in turn closed down the forests of the Pacific Northwest to logging. That in turn led to the end of many rural communities, as the country club Republican types and the foundation-funded greens "saved" the environment -- for fly fishing, elk hunting, bird watching, hiking and habitat in which the grizzly, but NOT ordinary human beings, could roam. Sportsmen who used to think they were going to be exempt from the mean green machine may have to rethink their lack of support for the cause of the ordinary "user" of federal lands, as the green effect is really to close down entire sections of the country to all use. The rural types in flyover are now asking if it was only extreme pressure by grassroots activists that forced Bush to appoint Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton and Secretary of the Department of Agriculture Ann Veneman, who may in fact only be figureheads and cover for green Republicans like John Turner. But the Bush administration would do well to remember General Patton's admonition, "Remember, all glory is fleeting." It won't be long before the people in the "red zone" figure out that they've been scammed again. Tax cuts are nice, but they are not the only reason George W. Bush is president today and why he beat Al Gore in flyover country. The environmental issue may be a "throwaway" issue for Republicans, but it is not for the millions who have to live with elitist policies that affect their jobs and pastimes and the communities in which they live. As my mom used to say, "The company you keep and how you keep your promises says something about what you believe and who you are." Thus, I never hung around with people who would steer me wrong, regardless of their class, rank, money, privilege or lack thereof, and I tried never to make promises, implied or otherwise, that I would not make every effort to keep. Bush and Cheney need to consider what land grabs meant [and still mean] to the red zone. They need to remember -- when they slip their green friends into positions of power -- that someone is paying attention and [that] four years go by mighty fast in flyover country.
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Diane Alden is a research analyst with a background in political science and economics. Her work has appeared in the Washington Times as well as NewsMax.com, Etherzone, Enterstageright, American Partisan and many other online publications. She also does occasional radio commentaries for Georgia Radio Inc. Her e-mail address is [email protected] http://newsmax.com/commentmax/get.pl?a=2001/3/8/145044 Diane Alden article archive: http://newsmax.com/pundits/archives/Diane_Alden-archive.shtml |