Sunday, August 16, 2009

The New Dark Ages of Britain & The U.S.

By Alan Caruba

I have long believed that the environmental movement, particularly in America, is quite literally an internal enemy, no less insidious than the efforts of the former Soviet Union to infiltrate spies and agents of influence into our government to affect policy.

I know that sounds harsh, but one needs only look at Great Britain where environmentalism has turned that once great nation into a virtual police state where every bizarre and insane environmental policy is culminating in a nation that will soon be experiencing blackouts and brownouts to its entire system of providing electricity.

“In the frigid opening days of 2009, Britain’s electricity demand peaked at 59 gigawatts. Just over 45% of that came from power plants fuelled by gas from the North Sea. A further 35% or so came from coal, less than 15% came from nuclear power and the rest from a hotchpotch of other sources.” The problem England faces, according to the August 8th edition of The Economist, is that it will soon be dependent on “Vladimir Putin’s deeply unreliable and corrupt Russia.”

This report comes when both the Russians and the Chinese have signed agreements with Cuba, just ninety miles from Florida, to begin to explore and extract its offshore oil. America, however, denies access to 85% of all of its offshore oil and natural gas reserves along its extensive east and west coasts. It further denies access to its huge deposits of coal in its Midwestern States. We import 60% of the oil we consume; much of it comes from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela.

There hasn’t been a new refinery built in the United States since the 1970s. The bulk of our electric grid for the distribution of electricity was built in the 1950s and 60s. In the last days of his administration President Bush rescinded the ban on offshore exploration and extraction, but that ban has been reinstated by the Obama administration.

As The Economist noted, regarding the United Kingdom’s energy policy, “this is almost criminal.” It is no less so for America, a nation’s whose success has been based on vast amounts of coal, oil and natural gas. It is coal that provides just over 50% of our electricity. It is nuclear power that proves another 20%. The rest comes from our own hotchpotch of gas and hydroelectric power.

In recent years, leading environmental organizations have been crowing about having thwarted the building of more than one hundred coal-fired new plants. Wilderness areas like Alaska’s ANWR have been put off-limits to extraction despite estimated reserves of oil in the billions of barrels.

Comparable areas in America known to have vast reserves of coal have been put off-limits as well. The process of securing the permits to build a nuclear plant has slowed it to a crawl and often meets with NIMBY (not in my backyard) resistance.

If a foreign enemy denied this “master resource” of energy to America, we would go to war with it, but the enemy is internal and, at present, it occupies the White House and is in control of the Congress.

Much of the policy of the current administration is aimed at imposing a massive tax on all energy use in America. That is the purpose of the Cap-and-Trade act currently moving through Congress.

Meanwhile, several of those people chosen to be the nation’s “czars” as well as several Cabinet Secretaries, are determined to impose on America the same fate awaiting Great Britain.

The energy and environment czar is Carol Browner, formerly the Clinton administration director of the EPA. She was (is?) a member of the Socialist International’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society and is famous for not wanting to put any of her machinations on paper despite the Obama administration claim of “transparency.”

Obama’s green jobs czar is Van Jones. He has twice been arrested at the Los Angeles riots in 1993 and at the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization. He is a self-described “revolutionary”, a devotee of Communism.

Obama’s science czar is Dr. John Holdren whose appointment has attracted the most attention because of his often bizarre views on global warming and population reduction. He is a strong advocate of “greenhouse gas reduction” even though carbon dioxide plays no role in climate change and the Earth has been cooling for a decade.

Obama’s Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu, is a global warming believer and advocate of “alternative energy” such as wind and solar power. These two sources are so inefficient and inadequate that they would literally not exist without billions in government subsidies. They constitute barely one percent of all the electricity generated in America.

Obama’s Secretary of the Interior, Kenneth L. Salazar, has already blocked leases to mine coal.

Obama’s Director of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, served under Carol Browner when she was in charge and is currently leading the effort to declare carbon dioxide a “pollutant” so it can be regulated under the Clean Air Act. It is a gas vital to all plant life on Earth and the current concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere is about 380 parts per million; that’s 380 molecules of CO2 versus a million others, mostly water vapor.

As Great Britain heads into its new Dark Ages, the United States will follow suit unless we undertake a radical program to build more plants to generate electricity. We have enough coal for hundreds of years’ worth. We have nuclear technology that can provide much of what we will need.

What we have is neither the political will, nor intention, to provide it.

8 comments:

Ayrdale said...

Alan, the so called "peace" movement of the last 3 decades has morphed into the green movement today. It took Reagan, Thatcher and Pope John Paul to expose its hypocrisy and lies. It will take concerted effort by ordinary people, you and me and hundreds of thousands of others, to similarly expose the lies behind the present day green left. We will do it, and science will ultimately come to the rescue. I believe we are not far away from the total demise of the green left.

Alan Caruba said...

I do sense that the Greens are losing ground, but I suspect it will be another decade or so before they lose their ability to influence public policy and such. They have had since the 1970s or so to infiltrate schools and government, so it will take a generation to rid ourselves of these fools.

Anonymous said...

The people pulling Obama's strings have orchestrated the greatest con trick of a century. To back him they have also slipped into positions of exteme influence and power some of the most devious,corrupt and dangerous people alive.
The words and thinking of Holdren and Strong (of the UN)whistle through the rest of the anti-human brigade having sway in Washington. I fear that the black spectre of a UN dictatorship will descend long before that of Islam unless the excesses of Washington are shut-off.
In the UK there is a similar, parallel government modus operandi with very misguided people at the top government positions pushing the same agenda.
They all constitute a Fifth Column in plain sight; however, as people wake up, as the real agenda filters down, so action will be taken.
One way or another this insidious and rotten attempt to reduce our natural right to the earth's resources, to cause de-industrialisation and poverty on a massive scale, will be defeated.
I find it incredible, almost unbelievable and certainly frightening, within an ostensibly free USA, that a vicious organised gang can disrupt Town Hall protests by 'we, the people' doing what democracy allows them to do to complain bad governance. The SEIU brutality has parallels too close for comfort to Beer Halls and Brown Shirts. Democracy is on the edge.
Such admirable rousing of the public spirit has not come to the fore in the police state of the UK and one wonders just what it will take to push the backs of we Brits to the final wall.
Our government pretends to govern while all the time the EU dictatorship pulls our strings. Gone is the England of my youth, sold by Brown and Blair - and others before them.
The fallacy and ruinous costs of wind and sun power are well known but nevertheless embraced while new three and a half generation nuclear power generator production is shunned.
The building window for new nuclear, and to utilize our vast coal reserves, is closing very rapidly and the lights will start to flicker - especially when global cooling gets a grip
Maybe when the lights go out that wall will have been reached for 'we, the people.' or a dark age will descend on peoples' lives.

Rich Kozlovich said...

I have often said that to be green is to be irrational and misanthropic, and most only chuckle when I say that. Eventually that will change.

The greens are losing ground because the internet is finally exposing them for who they are and what they really represent. Unfortunately, their claims have become so imbedded into the American psyche that they have become a societal paradigm, and I am sorry to say that I think it is going to take some sort of disaster to awaken everyone to the danger these people represent to humanity.

jdpeiper said...

Well ppl, if those SOBs are losing ground in the USA then we're lucky. I say we as a mis-planted Yank here in the UK. But as for losing ground here, don't think so. But even back home I don't see solid evidence of that. Hope you're right tho. Of course you realize those of us who do not see their bright (dim?) light are all branded as some kind of nazi/fascist/weirdo planet killers. Hey, how's this for OTT. Just recently some minister of something has said that we should reduce by much our intake of meat as another way of saving the world. You just would not believe the lengths folks here are going to, to reduce their "carbon footprints." Right. Like this island is gonna save us all. A couple of towns have already made the proud announcement that they are, "plastic bag free." (that has an ominous ring) Cashiers at our market hand out a couple of bags at a time and you have to request more if needed. So we only put one or two items in a bag and enjoy the angry looks when we keep taking more. Screw em. They make handy trash bags when emptied.

Travis sez said...

Once again, Alan has told the clear truth about these environmental nuts who trying to kill Private Industry. I used to think it was only because they, as children were drilled with kindergarten logic to follow anything the Greens say. But now it is plain that it is more dangerous and critical than that. Thank you, Alan for sounding the alarm, again.

Buzzg said...

Well, the peace movement, greens, enviro-freaks whatever you want to call them, are not going away. Too many of them live on asphalt and have no real appreciation for the land and forests, rivers and lakes. As you said Alan, it will take a generation. Unfortunately, succeeding generations will have been indoctrinated by those before them. Hopefully that indoctrinatin process will soon reach a point of diminishing returns. The next 10 years will be interesting to say the least. I think it was Ernie Pyle who said; "The world will not end with a bang, but with a whimper." I imagine what that last whimperer might say; "What the hell happened?" As for myself I hope for the best, but plan for the worst. If Christ comes back in my lifetime I imagine He's going to be VERY upset.

BuzzG

kerrjac said...

It's rather ironic when Greenies state the danger of over-dependence on foreign oil without addressing why we can't be dependent on our oil instead.

If there's one good thing however about keeping our coal/oil untapped it's the avoidance of Dutch Disease (http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/politics/faculty/wantchekon/research/lr-04-10.pdf), whereby a plethora of natural resources thwarts any other form of internal economic growth. Huge windfall profits from sudden oil/coal dereg may particularly hurt in the middle of a crisis like this where the gov't is further laying foundation as economic pointman. However, if tight restraints on our resources brings us close to an American energy crisis, then it will merely be silly. Come to think of it, you have to wonder how much of the tech boom (& all that went w/it like high job turnover) was fueled by blocking off coal (not to say that one's better than the other).

But democracy has a funny way of working itself out. If an energy crisis is what it takes to convince the masses about silly policy, then so be it.