NO MATTER HOW MUCH THEY GET, THE GREENIES ALWAYS WANT MORE

Remarkably, the Natural Resources Defense Council recently published a report that began with these words: "While emission of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide are decreasing..." Reading on, it's all downhill from there, naturally. NRDC, like environmental groups everywhere, assures us that we're doomed to choke on all of the filth in the air, if climate change doesn't incinerate us first.

Still, those ten words stand out because they are so rare. The golden rule among environmental groups is "never, ever admit that progress has been achieved--especially when Republicans are in power." It's awfully tough for those organizations to raise money if donors aren't kept in a constant state of panic.

Putting the global warming debate aside for a moment, the fact is that emissions of all air pollutants, not just the two that NRDC happened to mention, have been steadily declining for a long time. Emissions have been reduced by about half over the last 30 years, and have continued to drop under the administration of that sworn enemy of environmental groups everywhere: George W. Bush.

In spite of these facts, environmental organizations continue to live in a fantasy land where every ecological move the President makes is bad, even when they admit it's good. Consider NRDC's recent reaction to the administration's Clean Air Interstate Rule, which will reduce emissions from power plants by another 7 million tons per year. In a December 12 AP story, John Walke, NRDC's director of clean air programs sniffed, "The Bush administration is now staking its money on a bill in Congress that weakens and delays public health protections already provided under the current Clean Air Act, while forcing the EPA to delay public health protections under current law."

What does any of that mean? Cutting power plant emissions by more than half weakens public health protections?....

Yet one could still read an editorial in The New York Times on October 6, 2004 entitled "Cover Up on Clean Air" in which the paper continued to perpetuate the myth that New Source Review Reform is an unprecedented disaster. Apparently they don't understand the Clean Air Act. There are no two ways about it: Discounting the dubious value of CO2 reductions, emissions of air pollutants have been continuously reduced in this country and the Bush Administration has ensured that the trend will continue downward into the next decade.

More here?




EU TOLD NOT TO USE THE COURTS TO ENFORCE GREENIE AGENDA

The chairman of the US Senate's environment committee, Senator James Inhofe, warned the EU against pursuing its climate change agenda-stalled to date in the international negotiating process-through backdoor means such as the World Trade Organization.

Specifically, Inhofe (Republican, Oklahoma) took to the floor of the Senate on the opening day of the 109th Congress to address recent scientific evidence debunking alarmist claims of catastrophic man-made global warming, and warn of various attempts that may be in the works-given that even Italy has now sworn off a second round of cuts in the floundering Kyoto Protocol treaty.

Inhofe said: "As [`COP-10'] talks in Buenos Aires revealed, if alarmists can't get what they want at the negotiating table, they will try other means. I was told by reliable sources that some delegation members of the European Union subtly hinted that America's rejection of Kyoto could be grounds for a challenge under the WTO [World Trade Organization]. I surely hope this was just a hypothetical suggestion and not something our European friends are actively and seriously considering. Such a move, I predict, would be devastating to US-EU relations, not to mention the WTO itself."

The possible WTO challenge, long hinted at by EU policymakers past and present, would amount to one of two claims. First, by refusing to adopt Europe's steep (and soon be increase further) energy taxes, the US is impermissibly subsidizing its energy-intensive industries by failing to fully incorporate the full `societal cost' of minimizing governmental interference in the availability and affordability of energy.

Alternately, the challenge would be on the grounds that the US is `eco-dumping', again by its refusal to adopt the EU's energy tax schemes.

More here

***************************************

Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

*****************************************