OPINION/COMMENTARY

Glass Houses and Thrown Stones

People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. In this case, it is the political hatchet that the Sierra Club is trying to throw at Associate Supreme Court Justice Scalia, announcing last week that it was considering formally asking the Justice to recuse himself from the pending Cheney energy task force case, claiming that his personal relationship with Vice President Cheney will unfairly influence his decision in the pending case. (Recall that Justice Scalia accompanied Vice President Cheney on a recent duck-hunting trip to Louisiana.)

In the meantime, the Sierra Club is reportedly under attack from within by three candidates for its governing board who are accusing the organization and some of its top officials of unfairly trying to influence the club’s upcoming election. The three candidates claim individuals who were nominated by board members are being unfairly favored over those who gathered signatures to qualify for the ballot....

Invoking a Real Precautionary Principle

We live in a world increasingly dominated by an article of faith that human beings have undue, even nefarious, influence over the dynamic systems of the Earth like climate. Climate science, however, is finally catching up with climate theology and asking some questions that might upset the faithful.

Increasing numbers of scientists, politicians, and journalists have become aware of the huge impact that natural climate drivers, like the amount of solar energy reaching the earth, have on our global climate over time. Moreover, we now understand that the numerical computer models used by many academics too often replicate the biases of their programmers. Current climate models that assume greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide, drive climate change, fail to reproduce observed climate change over even geologically short time spans....

California's Fruits and Nuts Oppose Agriculture

In a state known for dumb, gratuitous referendum issues, Measure H takes the cake. It would ban the cultivation of any plant genetically improved using the most precise and predictable techniques, regardless of their risk.

To begin with, Measure H's definition of DNA is bizarre and scientifically incorrect. Measure H is also logically inconsistent, in that its restrictions are inversely related to risk. It permits the use of microorganisms and plants that are crafted with less precise, less predictable techniques, but bans those made with highly precise and predictable ones. It turns science-based regulation on its head.

Significant advances in the fight against cancer, diabetes, AIDS, Parkinson's, and numerous other diseases have relied on biotechnology. If future research were to lead to development of a product that provides significant relief, or even a life-saving cure, Measure H would prohibit its use in Mendocino County. That alone is reason enough to defeat this poorly-worded and confusing measure....

Nature in the Suburbs

A decade ago, who would have thought that New Jersey would host a black bear hunt--the first in 33 years? Or that Virginia, whose population of bald eagles was once down to 32 breeding pairs, would have 329 known active bald eagle nests? Who would have expected Metropolitan Home magazine to be advising its readers about ornamental grasses to keep away white-tailed deer, now found in the millions around the country?

Such incidents illustrate a transformed America. This nation, often condemned for being crowded, paved over, and studded with nature-strangling shopping malls, is proving to be a haven for wild animals.

It is difficult to ignore this upsurge of wildlife, because stories about bears raiding trashcans and mountain lions sighted in subdivisions frequently turn up in the press or on television. Featured in these stories are animals as large as moose, as well as once-threatened birds such as eagles and falcons and smaller animals like wolverines and coyotes....

PETA Running From The Truth

The truth can hurt. Sometimes, it is so embarrassingly hideous that its enemies are moved to vigilante censorship and vandalism. Anything to shield the public from the awful truth. And so it is with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Center for Consumer Freedom's advertisements, appearing this month on the Washington Metrorail system. Activists who aren't fans of our message have been taking matters -- and the ads themselves -- into their own hands.

Our ad highlights PETA's appalling stance on medical research using lab animals, clearly articulated by PETA president Ingrid Newkirk herself: "Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it." PETA even discourages the public from supporting the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the Alzheimer's Association, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation (Race for the Cure), the Shriner's Hospitals for Crippled Children, and many, many more....

Sleeping with the Enemy

The late and legendary community activist must have been giddy in his grave the other day, when the world's largest lending institution, Citigroup, announced a broad reaching agreement with its arch nemesis, the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), to apply a "comprehensive environmental policy" in all of its operations.

The policy, which sets standards related to endangered ecosystems, illegal logging, ecologically sustainable development and climate change, was framed in an atmosphere of civility, constructiveness, and cooperation -- and, not coincidentally, after the bank had endured four punishing years of, among other niceties:....

Let Them Eat Precaution

On cue, at last fall's World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun, self anointed "Green" activists showed up to protest the use of gene modification (G.M.) technology in agriculture. A bevy of teenagers outfitted as monarch butterflies flitted through what resembled a Halloween riot. Dotted amongst the chanting demonstrators was an assortment of human side dishes including walking "killer" tomatoes, a man dressed as a cluster of drippy purple grapes, and a woman in a strawberry costume topped with a fish head peddling T-shirts that warned of the weird and horrid mutants that will be created if "Corporate America" and the "multinationals" get their way.

But of most immediate importance, it is spreading the Green Revolution to the poorest corners of the globe. G.M. technology has led to the development of soybeans, wheat, and cotton that generate natural insecticides, making them more drought resistant, reducing the need for costly and environmentally harmful chemicals, and increasing yields. Researchers are perfecting ways to increase the vitamin content of staples like rice and bananas, which could dramatically cut malnutrition and lengthen life spans. Yet, for all its vast demonstrated value, this still-nascent technology, which promises further breakthroughs in fields such as plant-based pharmaceuticals, remains drastically underused, mired in controversy....

And finally, two from Robert Binidotto over at ecoNot.com

Greens sue feds to protect habitat for insects

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has become the most potent legal weapon for environmentalists seeking de facto nationalization of private property. The assumption underlying the ESA is that every species of every life form has intrinsic or inherent value in itself, and therefore must be sustained and protected--whatever the cost to human beings (who are apparently the only life forms not protected under the law). By their specious premise of species protection--and by arbitrarily adding an ever-growing number of "sub-species" to the ESA's purvue (often defined on the basis of their geography, rather than their biology)--the 'viros have been able to discover "endangered" or "threatened" beasts, birds, bugs, trees, plants, and fungi on virtually every piece of real estate in the United States. And under the ESA, all such land can then become subject to draconian development and use restrictions--in effect, annihilating private property rights....

Man's clearest threat to birds: windows

Daniel Klem, Jr., is outraged about Man's "senseless slaughter of wildlife." But what bothers him most is not our cell phone towers, oil spills, power lines, Atkins diets, or pesticides. The Muhlenberg College ornithologist is mainly incensed that humans--exhibiting their typically callous insensitivity toward Mother Nature--have arrogantly covered the walls of their homes, offices, and other structures with a hazard deadly to birds: windows.

"Glass is ubiquitous and it's indiscriminate, killing the fit and the unfit," rages Klem. He claims that collisions with glass kill up to 1 billion birds a year in the United States alone. "Buildings that we have created to be aesthetically pleasing are slaughtering birds." Indeed! How dare we enter mere human aesthetic pleasure into such a moral calculus?....