Environmentalism: How to Cause the Next Problem

When I was young, I had a puppy that chased his tail. He never actually caught it so I often wondered why he bothered. Maybe it entertained him. Maybe it made him feel better. Or maybe he never bothered to think about how pointless it was. Now I realize he might just have been an environmentalist. Like the puppy, environmentalists chase their tails in the sense that their solutions either accomplish nothing or create the next problem, requiring another trip around the circle. Their current actions are never analyzed for effectivity or impact. Paramount is how the action makes them currently feel and motion is preferable to doing nothing even if nothing would give a better result.

When I speak of environmentalists, I speak of the extremists, not people who want clean air and water or might enjoy an occasional visit to a national park. Rather I refer to puppy-tail touting liberals that impose solutions creating the next set of problems. Obama's Cap and Trade is the latest in this line of idiocy but I thought instructive to look at environmentalism historically.
Modern environmentalism begins with Theadore Roosevelt who gave birth to the national park system. It seemed like a benign stretch of federal power. Later his cousin, FDR, founded the Tennessee Valley Authority. Its mission was to build dams to create hydroelectric power. It provided jobs for many during the height of the depression, raised the standard of living for many Appalachian poor, and drove demand for new consumer goods. Pollution from burning wood and coal diminished as people turned to cheap, reliable electricity to heat and cook. But now the environmentalists have discovered that fish populations have declined because the fish cannot get to their spawning grounds. The call now is to remove the power plants. This, of course, would increase poverty and push people back to wood and coal. Then what? Can you say, "Here puppy, puppy!"?

The Nixon administration founded the Environmental Protection Agency. This brings the force of the government and the hidden government agendas to environmental policy. Sulfur being emitted by burning eastern coal brings acid rain. Burning western coal would solve the problem. But this would affect local employment conditions. The EPA mandates the use of scrubbers on smoke stacks to remove the sulfur. Plants that cannot afford the scrubbers go out of business, affecting local employment conditions. Plants that burn western coal must also have the scrubbers even though they do absolutely no good. The cost is past on to you.

To deal with auto emissions CAFE standards were enacted, calling for lighter cars. Death rates climbed as survivability in these flimsy cars plummeted. For some environmentalists this is a good thing because human life is an empediment to a good environment. Air bags have helped curb the death toll but I wonder when they will start whining about the chemicals involved in making the bags. To further reduce auto emissions catalytic converters were mandated so "harmless" carbon dioxide would be emitted. Now they are all nuts about greenhouse gases.

Today environmentalists sow the seeds of their future complaints. Low-watt light bulbs contain elements to toxic to place in land fills. Cash for Clunkers took useful cars and placed in them landfills so "environmentally friendly" cars could take their place. Let's review how much damage hybrids do the environment. Cadmium is a key component in the batteries for hybrid cars. It is toxic to all living things and nothing will grow within miles of such a mine. Mines can be found in environmental sensitive places such as Brazil and the Great-Lakes area of Canada. The stuff is sent to China to be made into batteries. The batteries are then shipped to Europe to be made into engine assemblies. The engines are then shipped to the USA to make into cars. The amount of extra fossil fuel burned to produce and transport components for these cars versus a normal car far exceeds what the hybrid will save in its lifetime.

Now Obama joins the idiocy with Cap and Trade. C&T is supposed to mean that you cap the amount of greenhouse gases emitted globally. When a company want to exceed its cap, it must trade with another so the overall levels do not increase. But like all Marxists theories, it sounds great on paper but has no practical implementation. In Europe there is a market to buy credits when you want to exceed your cap. The money is sent to China where they are paid to dismantle on old, coal burning plant. But what do the Chinese do with the site afterward? Of course, they build a new, modern coal-burning plant. While CO2 emissions have increased steadily in spite of C&T, it has recently declined during Obama's War on Prosperity. Indeed, shrinking economies are the best way to reduce CO2 levels but who would want that? No one except Carol Browner, Obama's Global Warming Czar who belongs to the Commission for a Sustainable World Society which calls for rich countries to shrink their economies. I guess it makes sense for Obama to increase the number of poor in this country so he can increase the number of people he can hook on government unemployment and welfare. That way he can threaten them with starvation, like he threatens the elderly, if they don't vote correctly next time.

This week Obama went to the UN and did his usual apologies for the existence of America but he also promised to work with them on environmental issues. Now it's true the UN just wants to abscond our national wealth under the guise of environmentalism or whatever Obama will go along with but they are generally more inept than Obama at getting anything done so if anyone can gum up the puppy tail-chasing machine, they can; they gum up everything else. And they might even do it cheaper than the administration alone (It's pretty sad when the UN becomes a better bargain than the Federal Government). At least this will buy us some time until the 2010 election when Republicans can come back and, in Biden's words, "end our agenda". How's that for hope and change. And nothing against you dog lovers out there, but from now on, I am sticking to cats.