Saturday, October 18, 2008

With "Friends" Like These

By Alan Caruba

In a recent letter to its members, Friends of the Earth, one of the larger environmental organizations, claimed that “warming means war.”

Like all the diehard Greens that have sought to foist a bogus “global warming” hoax on the nation and the world, FOE is growing more desperate to use this great lie to impose restrictions on the nation’s economic growth that are aimed at the development of our national energy reserves.

Claiming that “more oil drilling” and other energy sources, including coal, are an “addiction to dirty energy”, the FOE assert that their worldwide use, combined with “global warming” will “weaken failed states, cause famine and poverty, population shifts, water shortages, flooding and other unpredictable consequences.”

This is a direct contradiction of the fact that energy is the “master resource” that distinguishes advanced nations from those striving for greater development. It is no accident that China is building coal-fired plants to generate the electricity it needs or that India has embarked on an ambitious program to build nuclear facilities for the same reason. All around the world, the need for more energy, not less, is recognized as the key to improving people’s lives and nation’s economic growth.

In the name of “national security”, however, FOE demands that the United States “encourage conservation” as the “most rapid way to respond to climate change.” There is climate change, but it is not about warming. The Earth is getting cooler.

FOE goes on to call for the development of “a solar and wind energy-based economy and set a goal of carbon-free/nuclear free” energy. This borders on criminal stupidity and duplicity because solar and wind accounts for only 1% of the energy requirements of the United States. There is no way the nation could or should convert to these inefficient and impractical sources. Neither would even exist were it not for billions in taxpayer subsidies provided by the federal and state governments.

FOE goes on to call for national leadership on “climate change by committing to reduce emissions.” The greenhouse emissions to which they refer, primarily CO2, play no role whatever in climate change and most certainly the only warming that occurred since the last little ice age ended in 1850 was entirely natural.

Cloaking their global warming lies in the garb of national security and the threat of wars as the result of climate change is the worst kind of propaganda. It is intended to frighten people into accepting solutions to something that is not happening and to do so at a time when our ability to access our own national reserves is critical.

With “Friends” like these, there would be no coal to generate electricity to light our homes and businesses, no oil to fuel our cars, trucks, ships and planes, and no further development of nuclear energy either.

The proposals by Friends of the Earth amount to an attack on our nation every bit as devastating as a military one.

9 comments:

libertyforusa said...

Alan,
None of these environmental groups seem to use actual science to make a case. My observation is that they use terminology that is selective to reinforce a point. Similarly, Obama is deceptive in using a mix of terms like tax credits and tax reduction. Than they are grouped into "tax cuts". In this manner he than states his policy is "a 95% tax cut for working families". Never mind this statement also includes non-working people.

The famous climate models that tote the Global Warming fraud all conveniently omit the greenhouse gas water vapor, which, as you point out makes the Co2 level (man-made or not) irrelevant.
These same "friends" will one day (in the not too distant future) be bringing law suits against alternative energy methods like wind and solar. It is anybody's guess as to what they will find so damaging about them. May I suggest the argument that they are woefully inefficient at best, and environmentally worse than the old technologies of clean coal and natural gas! That would probably be a good start!
Many of these groups seem to spring up for no reason other than the liberals in government are willing to throw the taxpayers money their way.
What do you think?

Alan Caruba said...

What do I think? I think the world is full of liars who savor power over others at the expense of the truth. They must be exposed and neutralized before they do great damage.

Lee Hazel said...

Alan

I havn't written in a while. I've been kind ofbusy with the election.
That said. I call to your attention an article in todays American Thinker titled "An Open Letter from The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley Senator John McCain about Climate Science and Policy.

He absolutly rips to shreds the underlying Climate Change assumptions of a speech by John McCain about the need for "Cap-and-Trade carbon credits among other equally stupid things.

I think also you will appreciate the absolutly beautiful use of the English language so abundantly displayed here.

Don't miss it.

PC is Thought Control
LEE

Alan Caruba said...

I had the pleasure of meeting Lord Monkton in March at a Heartland Institute conference and I did happen to read his open letter to McCain. The global warming hoax is coming apart at the seems. The Greens, however, are desperate to impose cap and trade schemes and other restrictions on the economy, so the battle is far from over.

libertyforusa said...

Alan,
Fortunately for truth, I refer to the quote by Edward Bulwer-Lytton "THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD."
Also preceding Bulwer-Lytton was Thomas Jefferson, who in 1796 sent a letter to Thomas Paine in which he wrote: "Go on doing with your pen what in other times was done with the sword." [source=http://www.trivia-library.com/]
With masterful word warriors like yourself spreading truth with your penned insights, we may just hold on to our precious freedom and liberty.
Thank you Alan

LoneRider said...

Alan,

There are a few technologies that the Greenies should be embracing, ones that make so much more sense. One that I have been harping on is Thermal depolymerization, and other Energy from waste technologies.

Wikipedia: Thermal depolymerization

If the greenies truly cared about the earth and man kind, this is where they would start. Simply put, we should, at this point shut down every land fill in this country. And I truly believe our standard of living, GDP and what we pay for energy and materials would all be better! In fact we could probably replace thousands if not millions of imported barrels sweet crude to boot.

If we where to re-start inert-to-inert research for nuclear energy, gasification of coal for transportation, combined with the oil and gas reserves we already have we could be easily self sufficient for many decades, then add in energy from waste technologies to eliminate all hydrocarbons from land fills and think of the potential for this country!

I am far from an expert! but except for possibly the Chevy Volt I am not and all impressed with battery or hybrid vehicles, simply put, there is is no energy source that I know of, that is as energy dense as liquid fuels (at atmospheric pressure), ie. (bio-)gasoline, (bio-)diesel. And thus, if you are going from A to B, use one of those fuels is going to be the most cost efficient in general. To me dragging around a huge battery is just silly. But I am quickly typing away from what I started to say.

Anyway, I am left to believe that the Greenies would be quit happy to see the human population significantly thinned out.

If they truly cared about the earth, and not control, they would not be pushing the technologies they are pushing.

Electric/hybrid cases: Massive mining for lithium, disposal and recycling of batteries!

Wind/Solar: Exotic materials for blades, solar panels, massive batteries or stored water potential for 24*7 coverage, or worse gas turbines running hot-standby.

It has to be clear, Greenies are not about green, but rolling back civilization.

Thoughts????

cheers,
Tom

Alan Caruba said...

You have not explained where we would put the garbage if we shut down landfills. One can either bury it or burn it.

Since we have enough hydrocarbons (oil, gas, coal) to maintain modern society for a very long time to come and since there are no viable substitutes on the horizon, I think we should try to be as realistic as possible.

As to the Greens, their disdain for humanity informs everything they say and do.

LoneRider said...

Thermal depolymerization in a nut shell is the process of taking hydro-carbons, whether it is plastics, wood, or kitchen scraps, cooking it under high pressure and steam, more or less what our planet does to hydrocarbons, just faster, to produce oil and gas.

They have long since broken the break even mark, so for ever unit of energy they put into cooking the waste you get more than one unit out, potentially much more than one unit!

From there all of the non-hydrocarbons can be sorted out and processed with the waste heat and some of the energy produced from the processes hydrocarbons.

So literally, from a small group of plants, garbage (except toxic non-hydrocarbon) can go in, energy and recycled raw materials come out the other end.

Yup, the cool thing is, all of those toxic hydrocarbons, all get cooked the same as our left over lettuce, whether it is brake fluid, medical waste, chicken rendering, you name it.

And it is running in this country as we type, trucks are already running on the bio-diesel coming out of these plants, and yet we are still starving people world wide because we feel the need to produce Ethanol from out corn, simply unconscionable!

So yes, we can make money from our garbage instead of putting it in the ground! Future garbage archeologists be damned :-)

Tom

libertyforusa said...

Nov. 5,2008
"Proposition H, which would have set deadlines for San Francisco to meet clean and sustainable energy usage goals and reduce the city's dependence on fossil fuels, was rejected by 59 percent of voters."

Excerpt from http://cbs5.com/localwire/

Evidently there is a little sanity left in SF!