No Pain, No Gain

Enviro-warriors are making some headway after what might otherwise be called a slow start. The Kyoto Protocol is now the global economic constitution. It reached it's threshold of 141 nations when the Russians signed on. These nations embrace a virtual freeze on economic development, ending their population's hope for economic justice. It's projected that world GDP will exceed $60 trillion by 2030. The laws of physics tell us that low cost energy consumption will be the measure of a nation's ability to grow it's industries and services. So how can Kyoto do anything other than sentence the poor of the world to a life of poverty and daily struggle?

There was a time when it was expected that Japan would grow with the United States in job creation and economic production. But then enviro-extremists slowed energy use in the name of environmental protections. Today Japan's economy is lower than it was in 1990. That's 15 years of stagnation while energy consumption has been reduced. In fact, as many as 100 million Japanese unplug every appliance after they use it so that it doesn't absorb residue electricity. That's hundreds of billions of plug ins and outs to save energy equal to a 200 megawatt powerplant annually. The fact that it saves less than a fraction of 1% of power consumption seems to escape the enviro-culture.

The US economy produced a little more than Japan in 1990. Today we produce 3 times more, near $12 trillion in GDP. In fact, by 2030, the US is expected to produce over $40 trillion in economic activity out of about $60 trillion. That's more than 2/3 of the worlds products and services. Further we will be responsible for another 5% or more of other nation's production through our investments. Better yet, almost all of the world's savings will be invested here because the money gets a good return, or profit. How can France's or Germany's economy pay investors when they are slipping backwards?

Why will the US economy keep growing while other nations will stagnate or reduce in size? It's because they have signed onto Kyoto and the US has not. China and India are signatories, but are exempt. So they will generate most of the non-US economic growth over the next quarter century. And by then, that's 2030, the US will have developed energy efficiencies that will allow China and India to continue robust growth even if they toe the Kyoto global enviro-constitution line.

The Religious Left Steps Up

The world's enviro-coalition has been joined by what might be the last left of center special interest group, the religious left. These are the churches and individuals who design and create their form of worship. They reach deep into the progressive situational ethics and relative morality concepts to justify their beliefs and sometimes even their convictions. As a group they are as morally and ethically challenged as they might be united by a single thread of creating a world to their liking.

Joining the enviro-warriors seems a no-brainer. Here a new coalition of now discredited special interest groups, despots, and abusive governing concept adherents that are able to exert world pressure on the United States in the name of the: ENVIRONMENT! No guns, no nukes, at least not yet. But a backdoor way to control the masses and those evil entrepreneurs and risk takers. They think hourly that almost 90% of the world's corporate profits are generated by America's corporations. Now isn't that a disgusting thought? Or is it?

The religious left supports atheist concepts of expunging religion and competition and profit from the public square. They are yesterday's Marxist and passe-communists and even secular socialists who still feel they need to believe in a "force." They also support now-discredited concepts of redistribution of assets and affirmative action biases and bigotries. I wonder if they celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall or morn its loss?

Most importantly the religious left sells out the poor who suffer under struggling economies. It is they who loose their jobs because their work is often classified as discretionary because they are poorly educated and trained. It is the poor and the lower middle class that shoulder the left's fight against the successful. The poor are the "collateral damage" from progressives carpet bombing business and corporations with taxes and regulations to punish their political enemies. That cost results in lower wages and job dislocations.

That's why the religious left is a fit for the enviro-abusers. They collectively have no moral or ethical compass to allow them to understand the damage they do the most helpless. But when they fight the rich, all holds are allowed, no matter whom it hurts.

Economic Destruction

America is entering the process phase of either distancing itself from socialist and communist principles or embracing them. Our poor and working poor are the recipients of this struggle. They have few opportunities to move up and their children are "jailed" in failing schools that assure their dependency on big government for hand-outs.

This is happening because the left thinking elite believe that all the people need them to manage their lives and their environment. The elites say that only they can understand the complexities of government, finance, and enviro-management. They say that conservatives are ignorant of the need to control the masses and to manage their addictive consumption. This is interesting.

We can review what the technocrats and bureaucrats did in the now imploded Soviet Union. You may not know, but they had some of the world's most intelligent scientists. Even today, they have millions of over-educated who can't find a job that allows them to employ their knowledge. But the political elites overpowered logical and political thinkers. That led to the demise of the Soviet Union.

Today we have similar elites in the left wing movement who say that they are smarter and know better than the stupid Soviets. Whom are they kidding? These guys can't balance their own check books much less manage my life and yours. And they say they have no moral or ethical grounding. They just make laws and enforce them without emotion or commitment. Say What?

So where are we heading in this economically and socially volatile environment? America is the leader of all of the rest of the world. Get used to it. We generate more than a third of the world's GDP and consume about 40% of the world's products with 5% of the population. So What? We pay for it. And we use less than a quarter of the world's energy to fuel our economy.

It's the Economy, Stupid!

It goes without saying anything that the Bush administration's resistance to listing carbon dioxide as pollution is viewed by some as criminal and others as an opportunity. Juliet Eilperin, a Washington Post environmental reporter, today supports both assertions.

Scientists, in this case at Arizona State University, are working on concepts and strategies that absorb carbon dioxide created by fossil fuel power plants before it's released into the atmosphere. A number of strategies are showing promise. So what does the enviro-crowd say? Howard J. Herzog of MIT says that carbon sequestration methods "are not an answer to the problem." He further elaborates: "This is not we're going to be able to have our cake and eat it, too."

A reasonable person might ask why Herzog and many other enviro-activists care little about carbon management? Carbon can be managed by growth of plants wordwide and by recent strategies to convert carbon to non-gaseous form at the site where it's created. Both concepts can work side by side to manage carbon dioxide. This seems reasonable because after decades of study, scientists don't know what level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is optimum. Some believe that there is a fine line between too much which might warm the earth and too little which will stunt plant growth.

One fact we know is that as carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere, plant life flourishes which provides the food for animal life to explode in variety and in numbers. The health of our oceans depends on plankton. As plankton increases in numbers, the food chain that leads to fish and mammals is enriched. And so it goes for agriculture worldwide. More carbon equals better and healthier and stronger crops.

But more carbon dioxide also means more economic activity. That means more income and more consumption and continued world leadership for the United States. And that translates into more freedoms and religious choice and hope and opportunity for all the world's peoples. Now that's truly scary for the big government types.

The Earth is Dead Man Walking!

Cox News Service reports that: "Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said yesterday that they have discovered the first clear evidence of human-produced warming in the world's oceans, a finding they say leaves little doubt that man-made "greenhouse gases" are the main cause of global climate change."

If this is true, we should all be heading for the exits. Virgin Atlantic Airline is offering the first space travel reservations and I'm getting me one. If this planet is heading for the ash heap, then I want a nice beachside place on the Moon or Mars. Venus appears, from my memory, to have today the climate these guys are predicting for us in 20 years. Hot and humid with lots of gases and limited visibility. I suppose that cave BBQs might be the hobby du jour in our future. There might even be investment opportunities for deep underground city construction. Why not?

Well, reading further into the above quoted article reminds us that the devil is in the details. It reads: "The new study used computer models and field tests to show that heat and energy levels as deep as nearly a half-mile in some oceans have risen dramatically in the past 40 years, in direct conjunction with rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases." Computer Models? I sometimes get SPAM to view computer models and some of them are not very scientific. In fact, computer models are like opinion polls. You write them to support your personal and professional opinions.

So let me get this straight. Carbon Dioxide is slowly increasing in the atmosphere. Most support that fact. So the "scientific" connection between ANY and ALL atmospheric and climate activity during a miniscule increase of carbon dioxide is therefore caused by the increase of carbon dioxide.

It rains! Guess what caused it? It snows? Same! It's warm? Same! It's cold? Same! This intellectually challenged "science" reminds me of the coffee scare when it was "scientifically" proven that drinking more than two cups of coffee a day caused heart attacks. Of course we now know that most of the more than two cup drinkers were generally stressed at work and home and even without coffee died at the same rate.

The United States invests nearly a trillion dollars annually in research and this is the best we can get? The vast majority, over 90%, of the world's glacial ice is in Antarctica. And why don't we hear about it? Because it is increasing in depth! For every melting glacier in the northern hemisphere, there are ten increasing in size in the south. Why is this not included in the computer models? Because it doesn't fit! What about temperature? The upper atmosphere and thousands of earth stations report level or decreased temperature. Why is this not included in the computer models? It doesn't fit!

So what about Global Warming? Hire a NYPD detective and in a week of looking for Global Warming he will tell you it doesn't exist. End of story.

Kyoto is here!

And now it begins. It wasn't a coincidence that global warming was rolled out in 1989, the same year that the Soviet Union imploded and world socialism suffered its single greatest set back. Further evidence of a world-wide conspiracy is that the global warming coalition is heavily weighted with politically far left organizations and governments that seek use global warming to redistribute income and to slow our economic growth.

Kyoto labels carbon dioxide the primary "green house" gas. The goal of the Kyoto Protocol is to convert carbon dioxide to the world's first internationally recognized, traded, and taxed currency. Even here Congress continues debating the administration's energy bill well into its third year. A major hurdle to passage is whether to designate carbon dioxide a pollutant. Democrats call carbon dioxide pollution and Republicans say that's an energy deal breaker. It appears that the Dems are trying to backdoor the United States into Kyoto, sort of, by insisting that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.

And that is where we come back to the envirowars. World egalitarians attempting to fund the United Nations through taxation of carbon dioxide. One additional benefit from this strategy is to redistribute America's wealth to dysfunctional socialist nations and to despots. Another is that limiting carbon dioxide emission slows our economy so that it weakens our GDP growth and subsequently diminishes our military power.

The envirowars shed bright light on where our two major political movements stand on America and the world. One movement views America in the eyes of foreign social liberals. They see a very imperfect and internationally hated America. It is left thinker's mission to be embraced and accepted by secular socialists who are the primary cause of their nation's decay. Secular socialists reached their height of world influence in the 20th century. We can measure the affect of Stalin and Hitler and Mussolini. And the world influence of Mao and Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro. Secular socialists have proven to be disruptive for the world's population.

The other movement views America as "a shining city on the hill." Ronald Reagan introduced that America to the world in the 1980s. His policies brought tectonic changes to a world of high taxation and despot hugging. He said that it was the individual who must keep the result of their labors and be given the freedom to spend it. But most of all, he demanded that democratic nations stop embracing despots and enslavers. I remember when he called the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire." It was Kennedy who said that America would "pay any price in the pursuit of freedom." It was Reagan who actually stopped containing the Soviets by defeating them.

Reagan lived the American dream. He supported the New Deal and served as a union leader. But somewhere along the way he began to believe his eyes and ears more than he followed his peer group's words. And ultimately that is what separates the two major movements in the United States. One says do as I say, not as I do. While another says do as you please with your own. But should others in foreign lands tell us how we should do with our own? Not likely. And that might be the political end to those who seek that kind of "global test."

Kyoto is leaving the station.

The world is launching its best effort at slowing the American and possibly China's and India's economies. Next week the Kyoto Protocol will become international law for those who participate by signing on to it. The United States stands alone in opposing this backdoor effort to slow its economy. China and India care little because for now they are exempt from job killing economic activity restrictions.

The world's growing economies are generally expanding because they export more than they import. And it is the American market place that is the growth engine for the world's workers. If we slow down, Third World countries crash back into poverty. In fact the UN supports the notion that economic globalization has lifted more of the worlds poor above poverty than all government programs for all of history combined.

Our consumption is considered obscene by European elites who feel that only they can be allowed to ride in limos and fly in private jets. Mercedes Benz in Germany restricts sales of their largest models to "select" business and government types. France has always practiced a double standard for the elites as opposed to their rabble. New money, earned by innovative business activities is taxed at levels often over 80% while old money is worshiped as a right and legacy.

So this is the landscape for Kyoto. Tax carbon dioxide. Why? Because economic activity releases carbon into the atmosphere. So America can be hit for hundreds of billions annually for redistribution to socialist and despot governments that long ago lost their way for their citizens. But what is the proof that higher carbon dioxide levels will negatively change our planet's climate? There is none. Zero, zilch, nil. There isn't any consensus on whether more carbon dioxide will even affect our climate.

So the 100 plus dwarfs happily march off to slay the carbon dragon using pea shooters and eloquent words. There is no doubt that they stand for a better planet and support what they truly believe is a policy that all can embrace. But in reality, this pig is so ugly that there isn't enough lip stick or make up to cover all the warts and pimples.

What Geo-Green Alternative?

Thomas Friedman's column in today's NY Times talks about the Geo-Green Alternative to mainstream economic activity. Mr. Friedman tells us that he is a Geo-Green which means that he favors reducing our dependence on fossil fuels which will return power and control over the world to the United States.

Friedman tells us that lower costs for oil will stop nuclear development by Iran, Iraq, and other like aspirants. That's because they will have fewer dollars to pay for mischief. Then he says that America can support the old Europe by supporting their carrot diplomacy while we push our stick diplomacy. Sounds reasonable.

However the truth lies somewhere in between. Wouldn't it be a revelation for America to support a single line of diplomacy? One that punishes those governments that abuse their citizens and their corporations? Is it not more reasonable and doesn't it support our values to stop supporting despots like Fidel Castro or Aristede of Haiti? Why do left thinkers embrace the worlds most desperate secular murderers? Because social policies and programs are miserable failures.

So the left must either reform these discredited programs and their philosophy, or they must defend them to the political death. Political death appears to be the more comfortable road for progressives.

Carbon is coming! Carbon is coming!

Carbon dioxide is coming and it is heating the planet. Why do we know this? Because anti-growth extremists tell us so. What is their science? It's political science. They tell us that carbon dioxide is a "green house gas" that will raise the temperature of the world. They say that it is their scientific observations that tells them so.

So I ask what are the scientific observations? Well, there aren't any. More than a decade ago these same "scientists" told our legislators that we needed sophisticated satellites to measure the heating of the upper atmosphere so that we might get a look at the future heating of the planet. America spent several billion dollars, that's with a B, to launch these satellites. And what did they find? That the upper atmosphere is COOLING!

So the good political scientists removed upper atmosphere temperature from their global warming model. Then they told us that glaciers are melting. Some are! But more are gaining in size. How do these same political scientists deal with this fact? They ignore the growth of glaciers while they publicize the small percentage that are shrinking.

So if glaciers aren't shrinking, why is the sea level rising? It isn't! That 's another urban myth told by the political scientists and their adherents. Sea level charting in Oceana and on major coasts tells us that development near the shore has caused more erosion but the sea level is actually the same or even lower in many places.

So why do progressives embrace global warming and many other unsubstantiated concepts and theories? I can't say because I don't understand why they embrace Fidel Castro or Arafat or the North Koreans. Many still worship Saddam Hussein even after we have uncovered the mass graves of over 200,000 children besides another 400,000 adults. And the past generation of left thinkers still mourn the loss of their best friend, the Soviet Union.

So where is the case for carbon dioxide as a pollutant? I'm still waiting for that myth to be explained.

What is it about Carbon?

Carbon Dioxide is fast becoming the American version of ebola. Children and their parents shriek with fear when they hear that carbon dioxide is coming. Films are made and books are written and warning flags are raised from sea to shining sea. Carbon dioxide will warm our planet until we all suffer from heat stroke and look like Australian aboriginals. Carbon dioxide will melt the world's glaciers so that the sea level will rise by 10 feet or more. The carbon dioxide melted glaciers will change the salinity of the oceans which will end ocean currents thus stopping the planet's rotation and ending life as we know it.

I hear whispers that carbon dioxide causes cancer as well as infertility. Men are claiming impotence from carbon dioxide and women are said to have headaches more than ever in the evening. Some say that species are dropping like rocks out of the sky from carbon dioxide. And worst of all the accusations is that carbon dioxide is "Republican."

So why wouldn't any reasonable person want to outlaw carbon dioxide? Why does the Bush administration ignore the "science" that tells us how dangerous carbon dioxide is? Is there an industry based group that is trying to destroy the earth? The answers are more complicated than the questions.

All life on our planet are carbon based entities. Carbon is the basis of plant and animal life. As all organisms grow they store carbon and when they die and degrade they reliease carbon. Dah! Animals breath air and exhale carbon dioxide. Plants absorb carbon dioxide as their primary food/fertilizer and discharge oxygen. Pretty slick. In fact more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will increase plant growth exponentially. When I was younger I wondered if I could zip up an airtight garment bag with a couple plants and me inside to live off each other indefinitely. I breath in air and exhale carbon that the plants absorb then to discharge more air. I could go to the moon on that principle.

But then in 1989 we experienced one of our generation's greatest flip flops. Resourceful "scientists" scouring for the next enviro-scare identified or was it invented what they called global warming. No matter that the same "scientists" for decades had been warning of global cooling and the fear of an impending ice age due to what? Carbon dioxide! In fact the first Earth Day which I supported and participated in was mostly about global cooling due to that damn carbon dioxide. No wonder carbon dioxide is so frightening. It causes all of our ills.

Minimalists

What's wrong with a reduction in electricity generating and usage and a reduction in car trips? These are the Carter "malaise" questions. Why do American's want to drive and why do we squander so much electricity? Because we can! But we are willing to work hard to create these freedoms of choice and the ability to pay for them. That's apparently what some can't grasp?

Every human being in endowed by our creator with inalienable rights. Not those rights and freedoms that a group of elitists here or abroad feel the rest of us need, but freedoms of choice that our creator has endowed upon us all. That's us here and there and EVERYWHERE! That's you and me and every person on earth! What is it about this basic concept that some can't grasp?

The industrialized world was attacked by 150 years of social experiments that included Karl Marx writing that communism addresses the needs of the rabble better than religion, democracy, and private enterprise. In fact, tens of millions were killed and starved so that supporting views to religion and opposing views of socialism and communism might be silenced. That was the first world wide political cleansing. And it occurred in Europe and North America too. Then in the 20th century in China and often in south America.

America's liberals and self labeled progressives buy into the same tactics. Today it's called political correctness. Silence the opinions of those who don't agree. Use the law to put them in jail or use whatever other tools you have to diminish other's voices. My best example was when I attended a public meeting for Hillary Care in 1993 or 1994. There was an articulate guy who told the crowd that he had taken the position of insurance companies and big corporate doctors and pharmaceuticals. He then said that HE had compromised more than 50% of his position and gained about 50% from the progressives in return. The Result? He said that they carried on an intelligent debate and this is the compromise.

My feeling then and today was how ignorant this guy really is. He can't argue for me or others who disagree with Hillary Care. WE must argue our opinions. What is it about democracy that elitists and self appointed progressives don't get? A Faux debate delivers a Faux result.

And so it is for the enviro-wars. A few government paid and supported extremists debate among themselves about your and my need to drive a car or to use electricity. They then tell multi-millionaire limo-liberals to use the law to stop us being energy hogs. They tell us that we need only a few light bulbs on at one time. And we can drive only when truly necessary. Sounds logical. EXCEPT! They need to drive more and fly private jets and own ten vacation homes each. They need SUVs and they need to eat endangered species and they need to kill animal life or plant life when it interferes with their NEEDS!

Now this is the foundation of the enviro-wars that has little to do with the environment and all to do with socialism and communism. The end of the Soviets was not enough. Clinton went to the Chinese Army for campaign contributions with promises that few know and none of us will ever find out. What is it about communism and socialism that so enamores the left and makes them drool all over their silk shirts?

Crichton's State of Fear

There's been little doubt that the politicization of the enviro-movement has generated billions upon billions of dollars for its adherents. As there is little doubt that political cleansing of universities and research entities today assures that this community speaks with a single voice. Many out here, me among them, believe that the environmental coalition is comprised of politically extreme factions that seek to achieve by extortion and fear what they could never by legislative fiat.

It's into this landscape that Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" adds another perspective about the enviro-movement. It is a novel and it takes poetic and plot license to make its case. But he tells his readers in the introduction that is has footnoted his claims and assertions and has researched extensively to support his protagonists' conclusions. This unusually detailed research for a novel separates it from often selectively documented "science" distributed by enviro-extremists and politically cleansed researchers.

Crichton tells his readers that the enviro-movement gained its footing at the end of the Soviet Union and the cold war. He asserts it filled the void of fear that seemed to fade once multiple nuclear warheads were said to no longer be pointed at most major cities of the world. Fear is what he believes allows elites and government types to control the masses. And he may be right.

My view is more complex. I too feel that fear is required to keep the masses from feeling independent enough to take responsibility for themselves. A good example is the fear of poverty at retirement. So the government takes almost 20% of our income for social security and Medicare/Medicaid. Yet more than 6 million government employees opt out of social security to benefit from the stock market for their retirement investments. And millions of the opt-outers will retire with as much as 7 times greater distribution than the rest of us while they then enter the workforce for a decade to be able to double dip from our social security. But they keep us believing in social security due to Fear!

And there's more. The strengthening of the enviro-movement at the end of the cold war was no coincidence. We all love conspiracies so this one gives me the chills. When you dissect the enviro-coalition, you find a preponderance of politically motivated groups. There are the socialists; the communists; the greens; the anti-corporation crowd; the anti-private property crowd; and more. These groups never paid as much as an iota of attention to the environment. In fact, socialist and communist movements have for a century forsaken the environment to gain military strength. Can you spell Chernobyl? Yet, most established enviro-organizations are today controlled and managed by mostly recreational socialists, communists, and especially atheists.

What took place was a shift of paradigm from world socialism at the point of the gun to world socialism by envirowars. What better way to disrupt an exploding global economy where as many as 4 billion persons are participating in improving their lives. In fact, the end of the cold war unshackled a slumbering US economy so that it has since almost tripled in GDP. The US expanded it's economy by over $500 billion in 2004 while France struggled to reach a $1.8 trillion GDP. Just imagine that America's economic growth was almost equal to one third of the total French productivity. No wonder they hate and fear us.

The liberal elite of America and of the old Europe joined to craft a strategy of slowing economic growth in the United States by creating an environmental crisis affectionately calling it Global Warming. And what do they attack first? Carbon Dioxide! It is the building block of life itself. And as every pot grower can tell you, it spurs plants to grow like weeds. That's why I hear growers buy CO2 cylinders to feed their plants that then explode in size. Yet while CO2 is critical to our planets very existence, the enviro-warriors decided to select it as the cause du jour for climate change. Why? Because it is created by power plants and cars. Both are tools of the economy that must be diminished.

The fact is when CO2 increases in the atmosphere, plants worldwide grow faster; they grow stronger; they resist infection and insects better; need much less fertilizer because CO2 is plant food; and most of all require as much as 50% less irrigation. Greater CO2 increases plankton growth in the oceans which starts an explosion of sea life up the food chain. This then leads to healthier forests, greater crop production, fewer insecticides and much less fertilizer use. And the animal world explodes with greatly expanded food supplies that strengthen species and assist them resisting disease.

Crichton explains the CO2 myth very well. He analogizes that the atmosphere is a football field 100 yards deep. After nitrogen, oxygen, and other gases are accounted for, carbon dioxide amounts to less than an inch of field. And the recorded increase in CO2 accounts for less than a quarter of an inch OUT OF 100 YARDS. I calculate that increase to be about 1/14,400th of the atmosphere.

So why would the enviro-crowd want to hurt our planet? I say to slow the economy. This strategy doesn't veriate much from keeping the poor, especially minorities, from participating in the economy. They did that through controlling education and welfare. We saw what happened on the west coast when state governments choked the growth of electricity supply. And how California, Oregon, and Washington, spiraled into that period's worst state recessions. This mid-nineteen-nineties small scale test worked better than anyone believed. And there will be more.

The Kyoto Protocols are the foundation for slowing world economic growth and returning order to controlling the masses. And they lay the groundwork for world wealth redistribution through pollution fees and carbon trading. This is needed to appease nations that will then not show economic growth as they try to redistribute taxes and wealth to the poor today in America.

One sidebar is that State of Fear is not anywhere to be seen or heard about on the "has been" media or in newsprint. Why? I say it's because this book just might signal the first shot of a counter attack on the enviro-warriors and their campaign to slow economic activity.

Politics and Science

When did the environmental movement gain its first traction in the United States and abroad? It's not so much when chronologically but when politically. The first Earth Day was celebrated to focus attention on continued degradation of our environment due to population growth.

Few among us knew then that a political transformation was under way in research communities world wide. A concerted effort was mobilizing to politically and religiously cleanse our educational and research institutions. And it has been breathtakingly successful. Today fewer than 5% of all university level professors, researchers, and scientists say they believe in God and even fewer say they are moderate or conservative politically.

Why is this wrong? We live in a country struggling to provide opportunity for all. And we seek to offer freedoms like education and economic opportunity to the rest of the world. We achieve these noble goals by embracing diversity. Diversity strengthens organizations and governments because spirited debate results in sound policy. Yet our elite institutions are not diverse. In fact they are today more segregated than at any time in our history.

And so it is for climate and environment. Diverse voices were silenced by political extremists using methods of extortion and terrorism that only Saddam and Osama might feel are reasonable. It might not be out of the realm of possibility that this cleansing broke racketeering laws. A politically balanced scientific community seems reasonable but it became one way politically. In fact, climate and environment are now so incestuous that some in Arkansas might feel right at home.

There is little doubt that a free and open climate and environmental community can identify real and honest challenges and can then propose reasonable solutions. So it's only reasonable to encourage diverse political and scientific perspectives that can bring some sense of trust back to their often discredited community. And it's time to drop the "God is dead" crap that seems to overshadow any reasonable research. Leave religion out of science. And that means the atheist religion too.

Unexpected Support

Global Warming is now promoted as a most critical environmental challenge for the world's peoples to improve their lot in life. The mantra is that the earth is heating up causing weather changes that are disrupting hard working peoples from receiving their earned due. It is now believed that a warmer planet is a degradation of life style and is the end of animal and plant life.

But what science supports these conclusions? None! There is no scientific support for a reasonable person to review the data and arrive at Global Warming. In fact, most of the data says the opposite. And most of the HONEST scientists tell us that they do not have enough information to decide if the earth is moving toward more warmth or toward an ice age.

So it is unusual that one of Hollywood's most celebrated authors and one of its most celebrated scientific writers has published a book called: State of Fear. I speak of Michael Crichton, the author of Jurassic Park among a dozen other ground breaking novels. He has scoured the science of Global Warming to tell us that environmentalists are using it to achieve political results they and the old Soviet Union and the old Europe were not able to achieve militarily. He tells us that this is another example of "progressives" trying to be progressive while they are thinking regressively.

It is this crowd that wants to turn the clock back. They demand that we view all by their intellectually limited view of the world and of how they can control it. They say that we must stop using the environment while they fly jets and get driven around in Limo-SUVs while they eat endangered Chilean Sea Bass.

Just imagine if Gore had been elected and this crowd were now running this country? Or worse. What if Hillary Clinton is elected president and brings back the "most corrupt" administration in America's history? We now know that political and government power infects all that aspire to it.

Eco-tsunami

The jury is in. No more talk; no more research; no more hand wringing is needed: man caused the death and destruction of the Indian Ocean tsunamis. At least so it is told by Greenpeace, The Sierra Club, and The World Wildlife Fund. These protectors of all creatures large or small are convinced that there is a single thread in all of the world's disasters. They say that there is always a single fingerprint on the bodies of dead and suffering. And it's development!

The chorus of this choir sings the tune of minimalists that encourages the world's people to eat only what they need; own only a few items of clothing; one pair of shoes; a hat; maybe a bike or moped. Only the do-gooders need cars and jets and fifty pairs of shoes and ten suits and seven SUVs and five vacation homes.

So when developers and business interests come to Indonesia or Malaysia, the people must resist developing and manufacturing because it will bring the wrath of mother earth on them. If no-one had been near beach hotels or driving on roads or riding in trains, there would have been few deaths from the eco-wave. The eco-wave seeks out those who are vulnerable due to their greed. Those who seek self determination. Especially those who try to build their nations into functioning populations that serve the needs and aspirations of all.

Tsunami Politics

In a moment's time everything changed. A strong earthquake strikes Indonesia and a wave of tsunamis wreak havoc for much of southern Asia. We all have seen the destruction and are hearing stories of life and death. And we all seem to understand how fragile life really is and how fast our environment can change without as much as a simple warning.

There is much more to be learned from this event. There were three distinct international responses to the tragedy. The "old Europe" and UN adherents responded by talking. The United States responded by taking action. And Asian nations responded by accumulating funding to begin rescue missions. What is clear is that the slow-growth and small-economic-activity enviro crowd looked to each other for comfort. They are the slow the economy to save the environment warriors. They see all in terms of egalitarian existence. Let the rabble get by while the bureaucrats live the life.

On the third or fourth day after the event, the Asians joined the United States and Australia to take control of the rescue and reconstruction. Indonesia and Malaysia and other Asian nations have been kept from experiencing American energy and economic impact. But now self determination is sparking hope and opportunity for these devastated communities. Few if any of the survivors will ever be the same. They now see American entrepreneurial spirit and personally experience the power and might of our reach around the globe.

As the world's first and only conservative nation, America is now stepping forward to allow the world's people to compare and contrast slow growth political movements from fast growth and self determination. Where the UN and old Europe see this disaster as a chore, America sees it as an opporunity for real political and economic change in one of the world's more backward regions.

Enviro Politics

As we approach the end of 2004 it seems reasonable to look ahead. Environmental politics will certainly heat up in 2005. Now that Russia has joined the old Europe by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol calling for slowing economic activity to levels some say will return the world's people to poverty. Slowing economic activity allows corrupt and dysfunctional governments to manage income and wealth. And many believe that's actually what is driving Kyoto.

Powerful governments are struggling worldwide from "freedom" breaking out all over. People everywhere are clamoring for education and for self determination and for opportunities to take risks to create wealth. The Fax machine broke down the "Iron Curtain" and now the Internet is undermining governments with instant information and with competitive and often diverse voices. This movement is seen as toothpaste out of the tube. A mess all over government's ability to control their nations. And much like toothpaste, once it's out of the tube, there is no putting it back. Not that old Europe and Russia and the UN aren't trying.

America's liberal elites fear freedom more than they fear terrorists. The concept that individuals can work as hard as they want to create wealth and to increase their standard of living without government's helping hand strikes fear in the hearts of those who appoint themselves smarter and wiser than everyman. These are affectionately called limo-liberals because they are "do as I say" talkers rather than "do as I do" walkers. This is a large group that hoards economic power while it struggles to keep government power. Hoarding economic power assures that not too many, especially people of color and recent immigrants, gain ground on the elites. And it also assures that government power can be spoon fed to people of color to make sure they stay on the "plantation."

And that brings me back to why old Europe, Russia, the UN and of course North American liberals are using the environment to stop freedom from breaking out all over. Slower economic activity assures that more of the world's people rely on governments for their daily needs. Now that's a symbiotic relationship. The best way to slow economic activity is to stop generating electricity. Here in the Northwest, the enviro-Nazis are talking about breaching dams while they demand that power plants stop emitting carbon dioxide. Both strategies are bound to produce recessions and then a major world depression. And guess what will happen? Governments all over will establish reasonable standards of living and will provide products and services the people need, not those they want. Except of course for the limo-liberals that need their luxuries.

The Cost of Envirowar

Respect for our planet is expressed in many forms. In the Northwest, recycling municipal and industrial waste reduces landfill tipping. Recycling useable materials saves not just by reducing landfill size but also reduces the energy required to process "virgin" materials. That saved energy also reduces emissions that inevitably accompany material processing. Recovering inert materials is a step in the right direction, while tipping organics is where the real pollution is. Organics decompose and that releases gases that can contribute to climate fluxuations.

Tokyo has some of the world's most stringent emissions regulations. On a visit there, I wondered why almost all of the cars were late models. In fact In over 200 visits over 15 year's time, I don't remember seeing an older or dented car. Fact is that Tokyo's emissions standards are so stringent that owning an aging and polluting car is so expensive that it's much more cost effective to buy new. Japan's banks support that strategy by providing low interest loans for new car purchases as opposed to much higher cost for used cars.

Environmental common sense promotes give and take relationships between mankind, animals and plants, and our planet's ecosystems. It makes me wonder how far this country has moved while for decades human haters were writing regulations and laws that seemed intended to erase man's footprint from earth. Wouldn't a more moderate effort at shaping energy policies that include energy experts as well as energy haters achieve real improvements in our environment? So let's support those who seek to improve our relationship with nature rather than those who seek to destroy it.

The New Deal

The heart and soul of America's environmental movement is the New Deal. Originated in the early to mid 1930s, the New Deal was Franklin Delano Roosevelt's effort to bring egalitarianism and socialism to the United States. And he succeeded beyond his fondest dreams. He succeeded by using his power to reverse a reluctant Supreme Court to embrace his vision for a new America.

Segway to today and FDR's New Deal is embraced by enviro-warriors who seek to take our property rights to shape society to their expectations. But the Bush administration feels otherwise. Scholars have for decades pointed to the Wickard v Filburn case as the foundation for federal government overreach using the "interstate commerce" clause of the constitution to impose regulatory oversight that otherwise might be unconstitutional. An OPED column today in the New York Times discusses the peril that progressives now believe Wickard v. Filburn is in.

There are other legal underpinnings for the soldiers of the envirowars to employ in their effort to stop America's economy and to reverse property ownership. So the battle for America's values and for the world's people to be exposed to freedoms beyond their wildest dreams will be fought one precedent and one skirmish at a time.

Property Ownership

The envirowars are coming! They will be fought in far away places by appointed bureaucrats and elected officials who feel that a minimalist world is better for all. And they are being fought today in communities out west. It seems logical that if mankind lived more frugally, fewer resources need to be used. And if mankind would just settle for a "reasonable" existence, the environment would prosper to the benefit of plants, animals, and mankind as well.

One of the envirowar's fronts is in the state trenches of the United States. Here enviro-extremists have used zoning and sweeping land use regulations to minimize property owner's rights to use their land. Zoning was first proposed as a way to control growth and to manage development. It was sold as a way for communities to design the fabric of their neighborhood by keeping unwanted businesses and "ugly" housing out. Zoning has failed to deliver. One of zoning's most prestigious legacies is the infamous "commute." This is the unintended result of creating bedroom communities miles from "workplace" cities.

Zoning also created slums as it was used to keep the poor and minorities in one place. In fact desegregation assured a legacy of zoned slums by encouraging middle class blacks to run from their dysfunctional communities. Today that continues with political demonizing of the return of minority and white tax payers by labeling it "gentrification."

Zoning recently took a shot across the bow from property owners in Oregon, of all places. There a populous initiative granting property owner rights gained over 60% voter approval. Measure 37 attempts to roll back government overreach of restricting private property owner's rights to use their land. The result is simple. When someone acquires land it has restrictions attached and the purchaser knows these restrictions and must adhere to them. But when government changes land use policy and changes zoning, it must pay for loss of land use to each owner. Breathtaking.

Neil Pierce, by many considered one of America's pulse takers, writes that this vote might bring back the "Sage Brush Rebellion" that fizzled during the Reagan administration. Since then a few states, notably Oregon and Washington, have spearheaded the assault on property ownership rights. In Washington, recent King County Council resolutions, and city and state environmental actions demanding that up to 65% of all rural property be restored to it's natural state, goes further than any in the United States. Enviro-extremists cut their teeth on these types of property taking policies. And it is their mission to bring these policies to the rest of America.