The ultimate reason environmental conditions in the U.S. have improved so much is economic prosperity and technological innovation. Of course regulation has played a role, but the problem is that our style of environmental regulation relates to the improvements in real conditions in much the same way that police brutality pushes down the crime rate (in other words, the EPA is the environmental equivalent of rogue cops). If you drop back and look at the data for the whole world (as I do in the Introduction to the Almanac), you will see that the nations with the best environmental conditions are those with strong property rights, economic freedom, and prosperity — three things environmentalists hate or define so narrowly as to be meaningless. The nations with the worst environmental conditions are poor and without property rights and economic freedom.
They love the “earth” more than they do their fellow humans. And they indoctrinate our children in their religion under the guise of “science.”
[Update a few minutes later]
A penitent CNN reporter confesses to his eco-sins. But don’t call it a religion!
[Update Saturday afternoon]
Breaking up over religious differences:
Sam started writing on my Facebook wall and sent me flirty messages packed with our inside jokes. Soon, we were messaging every other day. It was like old times, except, you know, without the sex.
But one day, I logged on and saw that he had weighed in on a virtual debate and assumed a staunch position.
“Global warming isn’t scientifically proven,” he wrote.
WHAT??? Does he think the world is flat, too? I thought in horror. I’m from California. I’ve been recycling and saving dolphins since I was in the womb. Suddenly, memories came rushing back to me like a horrible movie montage: The arguments we had about hybrid cars—he contended that it didn’t make a damn difference, since car companies still pollute in other ways. I thought he was just defensive about his decidedly not-green race car. And the way he would constantly rib on Al Gore, even after “An Inconvenient Truth” won the Academy Award… He was always so skeptical about the merits of organic food, too. And, hey, did he even have a recycling bin?!
And poof! Just like that, my desire for him zoomed off into the sunset. We’re still in touch, but we’re not going to get touchy-feely again.
He’s better off without her.
[Bumped]
My coworkers and I just celebrated Earth Day in what we believe is an appropriate manner. To celebrate the Earth’s bounty, we drove to a restaurant and ate the flesh of dead animals.
Indeed…they love ‘mankind’ (er, they would say “humankind,” sorry) but hate their neighbor. Or the conservative down the street.
I know, I used to be that way.
Incredibly foolish world view.
From Daily Callert via Legal Insurrection:
“Often without realizing it, environmentalism is recasting traditional biblical messages. The Endangered Species Act replaces Noah’s Ark; wilderness areas are the environmental “cathedrals”; Earth Day is the new “Easter,” a time for deep religious reflection and revival.
Environmentalism thus is literally, not simply metaphorically, a new religion.”
Also: “This car’s CO2 offset by Terrapass” == Indulgences.
nations with the best environmental conditions are those with strong property rights, economic freedom, and prosperity
Economic freedom and prosperity are a result of strong property rights so that should be the focus. Another component of economic freedom is less government which becomes obvious if you fight for stronger property rights.
Why isn’t this obvious to those promoting the EPA? Because the left has a problem with proportion and perception. They don’t have quantitive thinking ability.
And predictably the Econuts want to extend their protection of the environment to space….
http://www.newswise.com/articles/a-call-for-sustainable-use-of-outer-space-by-secure-world-foundation-president
A Call for Sustainable Use of Outer Space by Secure World Foundation President
Released: 4/20/2011 7:00 AM EDT
Source: Secure World Foundation
[[[Newswise — An international forum is saluting the 50th anniversary of the first human to orbit the Earth – but also calling attention to concerns regarding the secure and sustainable uses of outer space.]]]
[[[“Each component requires new norms, rules and mechanisms for protecting the global commons of space,” Arsenault noted.]]]
Yep, gotta keep those nasty humans in check so they don’t destroy space…
Had private ranchers not collected buffalo before they were gone. TR wouldn’t have had any for his national parks.
Another theory, besides the obvious new religion one, is that the ruling class, e.g. Gore, has been educated with the world view that the basis of the economy and subsequently government in the last century in the US was war and the preparation for war. (See genesis of the income tax)
US wars continued even after the end of the USSR. To escape this, or more likely to usurp the mechanism for the left, they needed the equivalent of war. Namely a continuous crisis situation where large amounts of government funding could be employed to generate it’s own ready made constituency.
Yep, gotta keep those nasty humans in check so they don’t destroy space…
The the only time there has ever been life on the Moon (as far as we know) were those few weekends when humans where there. (excluding the short survival time of the bacteria they left behind.) So if living things are so precious and wonderful, why aren’t the Dirt Worshippers interested in seeing dead rockballs become Gaia’s Children?
Slightly off-topic: The Telegraph reported yesterday that a group of German scientists in a Berlin laboratory have found that switched-on CFLs release carcinogenic substances and toxins. These include phenol, napthalene and styrene, and are described as “electrical smog” by a member of the Federation of German Engineers. He advised that they not be used in unventilated areas “and definitely not in the proximity of the head.”
This report is in addition to earlier claims that they could result in higher breast cancer rates by disrupting the body’s production of melatonin, that they could trigger migraines, and that their intensity could make certain skin conditions worse.
A British environmental expert urges consumers not to panic and says further independent research would be needed to back up the Germans’ findings.
Yeah, “further research” = gimme money (lots and lots of money) so I can write something that you want to hear, disguised as “fact.”
I am of two minds on all this.
On the one hand you cannot eat a fish caught in Massachusetts streams lakes and ponds because they are all full of mercury. The mercury came from (among other places) coal fired power plants way to the west of New England (and some from New England).
I think this is a damned shame.
You cannot dredge Salem harbor to allow deeper hulls in because there is a layer of toxins on the bottom – now covered with mud – which came from the tanning plants dumping their runoff for 200 years.
Lakes, streams, rivers, were dumping grounds for industry for 200+ years.
Cars used to belch out huge gobs of bad stuff until we required inspection and compliance.
So partly out of ignorance and partly out of indifference a price has been paid. Regulations are the only means I know of to combat sheer indifference. Though I’m open to other suggestions.
I like clean air and clean water.
On the other hand the eco-maniacs are completely out of hand. Not allowing forests to burn naturally causes huge destruction once they do burn – and one way or another they always do. I immensely enjoy iowahawk’s Earth Week displays ;). Windmills and solar panels are not the solution. I don’t mind burning fossil fuel, and I don’t mind drilling and fracking for more. I also like technology, innovation, and most especially, I do not believe in regression of our standard of living but future expansion of it – via technology.
Gregg Says:
“I am of two minds on all this…I like clean air and clean water.”
It’s really to bad that the anti-pollution movement got turned into this post apocalyptic fear mongering.
There are many things that are bad for the environment that have nothing to do with global warming but everything is portrayed as causing global warming so skeptics are less likely to support something they otherwise would have.
If cow flatulence is one of those things causing global warmening, then we’re not eating cows fast enough.
I polished off a pair of BK Triple-Stackers for dinner Alan. Never let it be said I don’t do my part for the planet.
I missed Earth Day, and I’d planned on celebrating it like a True Believer: by going to a big public park and strewing trash everywhere.
I hit a twofer, I ate cow and threw the styrofoam it came in outside.
Rand, I have to confess I failed to shoot an endangered species today…