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orth Palisade Peak in the Sierra’s near Yosemite is just a pile of rocks with no voice other than the whistling winds, so all but the Gaeians believe it doesn’t have a voice in the current debate over its name.

Radical environmentalists are proposing that North Palisade Peak be renamed Brower Palisade after one of the 20th Century’s most successful deep green Greenies, David Brower … and of course California’s two Senators, Babs Boxer and DiFi, are on board with the idea. Here’s Babs, quoted in the Sacramento Bee:

“Naming the North Palisade Peak after David Brower is a fitting tribute to a man who loved the High Sierra and all of America’s wilderness.”

And DiFi:

“David Brower was a true champion for the environment, [so renaming the peak] “will be a lasting reminder of his leadership and lasting contributions to the environmental community.”

Yeah, sure. Maybe we should just name it Che Palisade, since Brower was every bit the radical Che was. For your consideration, here’s part of his bio on Activist Cash:

Brower became the first executive director of the Sierra Club in 1952 and held that post for nearly two decades. Along the way he dramatically increased the Club’s membership, but also lost its tax-exempt status for excessive political lobbying. His autocratic style and financial mismanagement led to his ouster in 1969 — the same year in which he founded the League of Conservation Voters and Friends of the Earth. He led Friends of the Earth for ten years, until the group’s board showed him the door. In 1982, Brower founded the Earth Island Institute.

Brower described the increasingly radical arch of his professional career to E magazine:

“The Sierra Club made the Nature Conservancy look reasonable. I founded Friends of the Earth to make the Sierra Club look reasonable. Then I founded Earth Island Institute to make Friends of the Earth look reasonable. Earth First! now makes us look reasonable. We’re still waiting for someone else to come along and make Earth First! look reasonable.”

When you believe that “all technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent,” as Brower does, it makes perfect sense to strive for an ever-shifting landscape of what positions are “reasonable.”

According to the left-leaning “CounterPunch” online journal: “The fiery stance of today’s green militants owes everything to Brower.” Brower certainly didn’t shy away from extremist imagery. He told the Christian Science Monitor: “I’d like to declare open season on developers. Not kill them, just tranquilize them.” That’s a line Brower regularly repeated in his lectures.

Given that the developers he wanted to kill tranquilize built just about every home we Californians live in – and did a pretty good job of it, based on how many people insist on living here – is this really the kind of guy our senators should be lobbying on behalf of? And given that technology – aerospace, computers, biotech – fires the state’s economy, should Babs and DiFi maybe rethink their knee-jerk bubbly enthusiasm for this idea?

Not convinced? Try these Brower quotes on for size:

“While the death of young men in war is unfortunate, it is no more serious than the touching of mountains and wilderness areas by humankind.”

And:

“Loggers losing their jobs because of Spotted Owl legislation is, in my eyes, no different than people being out of work after the furnaces of Dachau shut down.”

How can such views be tolerated, let alone honored, in our oh-so-tolerant world? Of course, it’s because Brower seethes the “right” kind of intolerance, the kind we are supposed to tolerate while calling for a Grand Inquisition against anyone who doesn’t tow the PC Greenie/Warmie line.

The idea is outrageous. Let Babs and DiFi know you think so. Here’s Babs’ email form, and DiFi’s.

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never fail to be amazed at how people fall for environmental clap-trap – it’s at least as bizarre as how they’ve fallen for Barack Obama.

Here’s the latest, regarding the Bureau of Land Management’s much anticipated decision finding that cattle grazing in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument harms the flora and fauna. That’s widely seen as step one in a two-step that will lead to the prohibition of grazing on this and possibly other federally managed land.

A BLM assessment issued Thursday finds the current level of grazing does not adequately protect the wildlife and plants it was designed to guard when President Clinton designated it a national monument in 2000. However, whether open grazing will be completely eliminated from the monument, considered one of the most biologically diverse places in the world, is open to public comment for the next 30 days. (emphasis added)

Guess what? Every place is one of the most biologically diverse places in the world. I’ve heard that phrase used regarding at least three places in Southern California alone, and here it is cropping up in Oregon. Whenever you here adjectives like “the most” coming from environmentalists, assume they’re talking out their hats. But here’s the kicker:

“The cattle have been on that monument, or on that piece of land, for 150 years, and the cattle have been so detrimental to it that Clinton made it a national monument because of all the special plants and the community that has grown up there … ,” says Rancher Bruce Buckmaster.

That’s right. Cattle have been on the land for 150 years, yet it’s still “one of the most biologically diverse places in the world.” So what possible rationale is there to remove cattle?

Cattle = people. Environmentalists are anti-people.  Simple as that.

But in fact, those cows are pretty good at dispersing the seeds of wild flowers and are contributing to biodiversity by fulfilling the role that used to be carried out by elk and other large herbivores before they became less prevalent in the area. The name of the method they use to do that also can be applied to the hysterical statements of the greenies as well: It’s bullshit.

Source; hat-tip: Jim

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Not content with their victory in convincing duping the Bush Admin into listing the polar bear as an endangered species – despite its swelling populations – the Center for Biological Depravity Diversity has already filed another polar bear lawsuit.

WASHINGTON — Conservation groups are threatening to file a lawsuit against the Bush administration for failing to take steps to better protect the polar bear from the effects of offshore oil and gas development in the Arctic.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Environment notified Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Monday of their intention to sue regarding the department’s decision to hold oil and gas lease sales in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas without considering the impact on polar bear habitat. (source)

As I wrote at the time, the listing included a Special Rule that set guidelines detailing the rules oil companies would have to follow if they wished to continue exploration and drilling in polar bear habitat:

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne tried to mute the impact of his listing today of the polar bear by assuring us in his comments that he’s covered our fears of economic meltdown by preparing an administrative guidance:

“I am also announcing that this listing decision will be accompanied by administrative guidance and a rule that defines the scope of impact my decision will have, in order to protect the polar bear while limiting the unintended harm to the society and economy of the United States.” …

[Fish & Wildlife Service] Director [Dale] Hall will issue guidance to Fish and Wildlife Service staff that the best scientific data available today cannot make a causal connection between harm to listed species or their habitats and greenhouse gas emissions from a specific facility, or resource development project, or government action.

Forget it; the guidance might as well have been written on toilet paper; it cannot alter the provisions of ESA ….

So now here we are, two months out, and the guidance is being challenged by the same folks who are doing all they can to drive gas prices into the stratosphere. As usual, they are attacking “cumulative impacts,” a lovely little provision of most every environmental regulation special interest groups (i.e., Greenie lobbyists) have placed there so any impact, no matter how small, can be multiplied through largely fictional “cumulative” multipliers.

In a gem of hysterical, unfounded overstatement, the Center’s spokeswacko, Brendon Cummings, said:

“The only thing keeping pace with the drastic melting of the Arctic sea ice is the breakneck speed with which the Department of the Interior is rushing to sell off polar bear habitat for fossil fuel development. For polar bears to survive in the face of global warming, we need to protect their habitat, not auction it off to oil companies.”

Cummings failed to mention that polar bears have survived prior bouts of global warming just fine, that the footprint of oil ops on their habitat is minuscule, and that polar bear populations have grown since the initiation of oil drilling operations in Alaska. And for that matter, that this year’s polar ice melt appears to be far less dramatic than last year’s.

Par for the course for these enviro-propagandists.

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reenies and urban planners hate suburbia, and now that global warming and gas prices are fighting for our attention, they’ve ratcheted up the rhetoric. Christopher Leinberger captures the mood in an Atlantic article called The Next Slum? -

A structural change is under way in the housing market—a major shift in the way many Americans want to live and work. It has shaped the current downturn, steering some of the worst problems away from the cities and toward the suburban fringes. And its effects will be felt more strongly, and more broadly, as the years pass. Its ultimate impact on the suburbs, and the cities, will be profound.

And he chooses a suburb, Windy Ridge, to showcase his hypothesis:

At Windy Ridge, a recently built starter-home development seven miles northwest of Charlotte, North Carolina, 81 of the community’s 132 small, vinyl-sided houses were in foreclosure as of late last year. Vandals have kicked in doors and stripped the copper wire from vacant houses; drug users and homeless people have furtively moved in. In December, after a stray bullet blasted through her son’s bedroom and into her own, Laurie Talbot, who’d moved to Windy Ridge from New York in 2005, told The Charlotte Observer, “I thought I’d bought a home in Pleasantville. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that stuff like this would happen.”

His conclusion, that the suburbs will become a thing of the past and people will remove themselves to the inner city, the holy land of urban planners,  is incorrect because he ignores the simple fact that foreclosures are higher in the suburbs only because more people choose to live there.

Writes Joel Kotkin in an LA Times op/ed: Continue Reading »

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s if we couldn’t see this one coming: As soon as the economy starts to tank and the cost of our love/hate relationship with oil goes up, society drops environmentalism like a potato that’s converting to carbon (for the trust fund kids, that would be a hot potato).

A survey conducted by a bunch of PR firms that represent green businesses found that environmental concerns are still profound in society, with two-thirds of respondents believing the environment is in worse shape today than it was five years ago. (For Americans, this is false. Due to intense regulations, our environment continues to improve.)

But even with this heightened concern for the environment, commitment to the environment dropped: 75% of Americans now rank the economy as a more important issue than the environment. Throw the Greenies overboard, Mildred! This is all about Greenbacks now!

You’ll love this quote from one of the PR wonderkinds:

“We have been tracking perceptions of green for over three years, and this year’s results are somewhat alarming in that they indicate consumers only prioritize the environment when all other concerns are equal,” said Russ Meyer, chief strategy officer of Landor Associates.

Russ ol’ boy, how did you get to be chief strategy officer if you think that news is alarming? Excuse me while I take my business elsewhere. Here’s the new dawn breaking further on Meyers’ new reality:

“With agricultural commodities running low and the rising cost of gas in the United States, Americans indicate they have more immediate concerns than the environment. With the United Kingdom also beginning to feel the economic crunch, we see some signs of the mentality there beginning to shift.”

Such is the fate of the environmental movement. We love it when it doesn’t cost much to love it, and we dump it as soon as it starts interfering with our quality of life.

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ou know the drill: Don’t drill. More supply won’t do anything to reduce energy costs, we’re told. It’s as if the Greenies have the power to dictate how markets will react, not at all unlike the Politboro deeming that the newest Soviet 5-year plan would actually work, despite the junk heap of failed 5-year plans.

The Greenies, like the Soviets before them, couch their “no drill” energy policy in economic mumbo-jumbo – unlike the former chair of Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, Martin Feldstein, who lays out clear direction for how to lower oil prices in today’s WSJ. And – surprise, surprise! – what he recommends is exactly what C-SM has been recommending for some time now: Do everything.

Feldstein starts by answering the age-old question: How do oil producers decide whether to pump or not?

Unlike perishable agricultural products, oil can be stored in the ground. So when will an owner of oil reduce production or increase inventories instead of selling his oil and converting the proceeds into investible cash? A simplified answer is that he will keep the oil in the ground if its price is expected to rise faster than the interest rate that could be earned on the money obtained from selling the oil. The actual price of oil may rise faster or slower than is expected, but the decision to sell (or hold) the oil depends on the expected price rise.

Surging demand from China and India, along with continuing environmental constraints in the US, make it a pretty clear bet that oil will continue to appreciate faster than the interest rate, so there’s no big incentive to increase production now, despite the high prices.

Oil guys control the strings for drill/no drill, but they don’t control all the factors that go into oil pricing, as Feldstein points out:

Now here is the good news. Any policy that causes the expected future oil price to fall can cause the current price to fall, or to rise less than it would otherwise do. In other words, it is possible to bring down today’s price of oil with policies that will have their physical impact on oil demand or supply only in the future.

For example, increases in government subsidies to develop technology that will make future cars more efficient, or tighter standards that gradually improve the gas mileage of the stock of cars, would lower the future demand for oil and therefore the price of oil today.

Similarly, increasing the expected future supply of oil would also reduce today’s price. That fall in the current price would induce an immediate rise in oil consumption that would be matched by an increase in supply from the OPEC producers and others with some current excess capacity or available inventories.

So here’s the model energy bill: Fund the development of alternative energy sources, including solar, coal oil, tar sands, wind; break down barriers to new production, whether it’s a refinery or a wind farm off the Kennedy compound; announce new drilling lease auctions for the outer continental shelf and Alaska’s North Slope, including ANWR; launch a nuclear plant building program, with all reasonable government incentives; create or extend tax credits for the purchase of high efficiency cars and equipment; create a single, nationwide gasoline standard so refineries can compete across state lines.

An environmentalist’s nightmare, to be sure, but a surefire tactic for knocking the bottom out of gas prices.

All it takes is the gumption to stand up for real people instead of mythical global warming doomsday scenarios.

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What are the chances of New Mexico getting impacted by global warming spawned rising oceans? Zero — no, less than zero. But that doesn’t stop the propagandists at the Defenders of Wildlife from using it to try to knock off Republicans, just as the knocked off Richard Pombo in 2006.

They’re running this ad against New Mexico Republican Steve Pearce:

Here’s a partial transcript:

Little girl: This is my congressman, Steve Pearce. (points to man with head stuck into the ground) He cares so much about my future he’s going to get his head out of the sand and help stop global warming.

Pearce: (pulls his head out with a “thwok” sound) No, I’m not. Little girl, we don’t need to do anything about global warming.

Little girl: Then why are you melting?

Pearce: I’m not melting. I feel fantastic. It’s not hot.

Little girl: (as the sea begins to engulf them) That’s because the sea level is rising around us.

Pearce: No, it’s not. Prove it. Stop being hysterical. The rising sea stuff, that’s a theory. Like the theory of gravity.

Little girl: You don’t believe in gravity?

Pearce: Is all the evidence in? I don’t think so.

It’s all ludicrous, of course. New Mexico is already hot enough to melt steel, it has no oceans and Pearce, by all accounts, is a firm believer in gravity. Besides, he’s a chrome-dome, no neatly coiffed silver lobbyist-cut on him.

So what crime did Pearce commit that is so onerous the Greenies are after him in the primaries? (He’s running against Heather Wilson, also a Greenie target, for a chance to run against the more green-tinted Tom Udall for Pete Domenichi’s Senate seat.) Oh, really radical offenses, like saying stuff like this:

It is a crucial period for New Mexico and energy production. We must reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy from countries headed by oppressive dictators. Our country is in need of greater domestic supply. On the House Natural Resources Committee I have been a leader in making renewable and alternative forms of energy a high priority.

We must also look to make our traditional sources of energy, such as oil and coal, environmentally friendly. Through our domestic supplies of oil shale and coal alone, we could significantly reduce our need for foreign sources energy. But we must do so in a way that considers the environmental impact of retrieving those resources.

Yup. Nasty. As High Country News puts it,

This 60-second animation was the first salvo fired by the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund in its battle against New Mexico Congressman Steve Pearce and five other Republican lawmakers, over their support for carbon-intensive fossil fuel industries.

Pearce is being targeted strategically by the Greenies:

“We’ve found over the past seven years that science, law and policy analysis are not enough — we have to change the decision-makers. So we’re focusing on members of committees that matter,” says Fund director Rodger Schlickeisen, who hopes to tip the balance in Congress toward “a significant piece of legislation that redirects our energy policy away from fossil fuels.”

Pearce is on the Natural Resources Committee, and the Greenies don’t want any views on that Committee opposing their view that natural resources aren’t really resources, they’re just natural stuff to keep your hands off. The Defenders of Wildlife spent about $2.5 million in the 2006 election cycle, $1.5 million on its successful effort to knock off Richard Pombo. This year, it’s expected they’ll have $3 million to target key GOP committee members.

Unfortunately, this kind of challenge is very difficult to fight. With few exceptions, there are no national groups that can take up the cause of a Pearce or a Wilson, and they’re so underfunded they can’t compete against a big Greenie group like Defenders of Wildlife. Besides, even if a counter-attack were mounted, the Greenies would just point to energy company funding of the effort and demand that voters dismiss the ad as not credible — as if their ad were credible, as if they’re not just as biased by the truckfuls of money they collect from anti-energy interests.

This calls for what I call train wreck communications. We keep trying to apply the brakes of course, but public opinion is driving us at full speed into a major crash. Since that’s the case, we fight defensive battles to protect those we love (those nice coal miners and oil drillers, for example), and prepare ourselves for when the crash happens. Then, we’ll be ready to redirect a suddenly disillusioned public onto a safer track.

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Step One: End the debate on global warming.

Step Two: Tax to the max.

We’ve known all along that liberal, tax-lovin’ politicians have been so quick to embrace global warming theory because they see it as the ideal tax vehicle. Case in point, from today’s LA Times:

SACRAMENTO — – Motorists in Los Angeles County could end up paying an extra 9 cents per gallon at the gas pump, or an additional $90 on their vehicle registration, under proposals aimed at getting them to help fight global warming.

Voters would be able to decide whether to approve a “climate change mitigation and adaptation fee” under legislation being considered by state lawmakers and endorsed by the board of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The money would fund improvements to mass transit and programs to relieve traffic congestion at a time when transportation dollars from Washington and Sacramento are hard to come by. …

[The] bill would allow the MTA board to ask voters either for a fee of up to 3% of the retail price of gas, or for a vehicle registration fee of up to $90 per year. The money would pay for programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“Programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” allowed under the bill are limited: The funds can go into pet projects of the LA Metropolitan Transit Authority only: More buses for people not to ride, and more subways for people not to ride.

The only thing in the whole wide world that is potentially more evident than the fact that people do not want to pay more for gasoline is that people are content to stay away from mass transit in droves. Years of history of dumping money into mass transit without justifiable increases in ridership, plus millions of decibels of grumbling at the gas pump, plus the fact that CA’s last Dem Gov got thrown out of office for imposing higher auto registration fees haven’t changed anything for the drafter of this legislation, Mike Fuhrer Feuer of Los Angeles.

Guess what party ol’ Mike belongs to.

Right.

Feuer should be soundly drubbed by the Parents United Against Discrimination (What?! There is no such group?!) for penalizing families because his bill would impose higher registration fees on SUVs than dinky sedans. Try to fit three kids, a dog and soccer equipment into a Prius. Plus, if you’ve got a gaggle of kids, chances are you’ve got far less disposable income than the DINK in the Prius.

Feuer also evidenced the Dems’ cavalier disregard for the small-d democratic vote of the people. We Californians voted to require a 2/3 vote before new taxes can be imposed — so Feuer decided to call this a “fee,” not a tax. If it dings like a tax and steals like a tax, funds useless programs like a tax, and is supported by Dems like a tax, it must be a tax.

As expected, the Greenies are ecstatic at the prospect of getting LA burdened down with a carbon tax … but they won’t say it in as many words, as evidenced by this quote from Tim Frank of the Sierra Club:

“People will support it if they know it’s something that will not only fight global but improve their quality of life.”

Maybe I’m a dufus, but I’m not getting this. How does having less disposable income or having to ride a bus improve my quality of life?

And don’t tell me improved air quality. Air quality has been improving ever since the Clean Air Act was passed in the 1970s, despite more cars on the road, more vehicle miles traveled, and more hysterical wailing from the Greenies and the Warmies.

Never let mere facts get in the way of your push to create the Fourth Reich perfect high-tax Democratic dream state.

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Nature can be such a cruel master:

Salmon-eating sea lions authorized to be slain

PORTLAND, Ore. — State and fedeal officials say they have done all they can to stop protected California sea lions from munching on threatened salmon at teh base of the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, using pyrotechnics, beanbag rounds fired from shotguns and traps.

But the sea lions, who arrive each spring at the base of the dam for the spring chinook working their way upriver to spawn, have pretty much given them [the humans, not the salmon] the flipper.

So on Tuesday, the government authorized Oregon and Washington to kill the
worst offenders, listing about 60, identifiable by branding, scars or other markings, for “immediate removal.”

“Immediate removal” is a euphanism for “kill the #$@%!&,” as in “al-Qaeda ordered the immediate removal of occupants of the World Trade Center.”

The article is delightful since it highlights the sort of conunbrum the Greenies pile onto themselves because of their meddling ways. But it is also troubling on so many levels, being indicative of a thick green stripe running through journalism today, and of the belief that humans are no better than animals. From the top:

• In paragraph one, the use of pyrotechnics, bean bags etc., is symbolic of the environmentalists’ hypocrisy: They tell us to keep our hands off the earth, but they think they have a right to put their righteous hands all over it in order to manage it. In truth, if they would just let the sea lions eat, eventually there wouldn’t be enough salmon left and the sea lions would move on. Enough salmon would get through and the population would come back.
• In paragraph two, I was extremely miffed by this: “But the sea lions, who arrive each spring ….” Why would that bug me? Simple. “Who” is reserved for humans (and perhaps pets); the correct usage here is “which.” It’s a typical mistake in today’s Greenie world,
  in which animals are placed on a par with humans as just a fellow sentient being. Any good editor would have caught this; apparently there are no good editors left.
• And finally, in paragraph three, did you share my consternation at “worst offenders?” Says who? What laws of nature are the sea lions offending? None. They are not offenders of natural law, worse or otherwise. Have we agreed to make animals subject to human laws, so these sea lions are offenders under the Endangered Species Act? Are we to believe that the sea lions are capable of making moral judgment about eating salmon? How many threatened salmon are OK? How many would make them “offenders?”

That little two-and-a-half inch story in today’s Fresno Bee packed quite a wallop. Sorry; I couldn’t find a link in the paper’s on-line edition. You’ll just have to take it on faith — and don’t worry, unlike sea lions, I can make moral judgments, so I wouldn’t lie to you.

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Unfortunately, Lord Taverne is not talking about government’s full-blown buying of global warming hysteria, the the story of what set Taverne off is illustrative of the power the Greenie/MSM alliance wields. Here’s the story (London Times via Greenie Watch):

Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims.

The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They pose only a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds.

Here comes the paragraph on how stupid Lefty politicians are when it comes to Green Hype:

Gordon Brown announced last month that he would force supermarkets to charge for the bags, saying that they were “one of the most visible symbols of environmental waste”. Retailers and some pressure groups, including the Campaign to Protect Rural England, threw their support behind him.

Buy why?

But scientists, politicians and marine experts attacked the Government for joining a “bandwagon” based on poor science. …

Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast numbers of seabirds, seals, turtles and whales. However, The Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine mammals.

They “don’t figure” in the majority of cases where animals die from marine debris, said David Laist, the author of a seminal 1997 study on the subject. Most deaths were caused when creatures became caught up in waste produce. “Plastic bags don’t figure in entanglement,” he said. “The main culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands. Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag.”

He added: “The impact of bags on whales, dolphins, porpoises and seals ranges from nil for most species to very minor for perhaps a few species. For birds, plastic bags are not a problem either.”

You’ve heard the stat about the gazillions of species that go extinct each year (here’s the myth … here’s the reality), or how many square miles of Brazilian rainforest disappears in the blink of an eye (here’s a story that says it’s disappearing at a rate of 9,000 square miles a year, and here’s one that says the rate is 55,000 square miles a year).

Here’s the key behind all of these fatalistic overstatements:

The central claim of campaigners is that the bags kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds every year. However, this figure is based on a misinterpretation of a 1987 Canadian study in Newfoundland, which found that, between 1981 and 1984, more than 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, were killed by discarded nets. The Canadian study did not mention plastic bags.

Some environmental group on a fund-raising binge seized on the study, misstated it (honest mistake or deliberate manipulation?)and spread the word … and the MSM, which loses all journalistic integrity and fawns over every word from the Greenies and “environmental scientists,” can be counted on to spread it … so teachers can pass it along to our next generation … and politicians can “solve” the problem by imposing regulations and raising our cost of living.

And it just keeps happening and happening, again and again.

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