OPINION/COMMENTARY

Time Bomb Time calls green "the new red, white and blue" and likens global warming to the fight against Nazism and fascism. As it insults World War II vets, the magazine seeks to impose a tyranny all its own. We never cease to be amazed by the inability of the left to feel shame and its lack of reverence for America and those who defend its freedoms, including the right to be stupid. The cover of the April 21 issue of Time, taking the famous Joe Rosenthal photo of Marines planting our flag on the blood-soaked island of Iwo Jima and replacing our flag with a tree, qualifies for obscenity of the year. It echoes the greenie theme first advanced by Al Gore in his book "Earth In The Balance" that the internal combustion engine is the greatest threat in the history of mankind. Gore and Bill Clinton have both said that global warming is ultimately a greater threat than terrorism. That, admitted Time managing editor Richard Stengel, was the thinking behind the cover story. "One of the things we do in this story," he said last week on MSNBC, "is we say there needs to be an effort along the lines of preparing for World War II to combat global warming and climate change." This trivializing of the sacrifice of American blood and treasure to defend freedom ignores the fact that in World War II we faced a real enemy with a terrible agenda. The bombs that fell on Pearl Harbor were quite real, not the output of some badly fed computer model. "Global warming may or may not be a significant threat to the United States," Tim Holbert, a spokesman for the American Veterans Center, told the Business and Media Institute (BMI): "The Japanese Empire on February 1945, however, certainly was, and this photo trivializes the most recognizable moment of one of the bloodiest battles in U.S. history." It was not that long ago that the media, including Time, was singing a different tune and waging a different war. An article in its June 24, 1974, issue entitled "Another Ice Age?" told of how, "when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe, they find that the atmosphere has been gradually cooler for the past three decades." Time spoke then of a "global climatic upheaval" and "climatological Cassandras who are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age."....
Or Just Plain Nuts? The alarms that environmental extremists have sounded have given rise to a market for therapists who treat eco-anxiety. What a concept! Scare the wits out of people, then make money off their fear. It's possible that none of the 100 or so "eco-therapists" practicing in the U.S. have been part of the environmentalist shock campaign. Or it could be that, at more than $100 an hour, these practitioners are simply taking advantage of others' weaknesses. But given that the treatments they're prescribing — taking shorter showers, turning off lights, making do with less — are scrawled on the stone tablet of environmentalist commandments, it's no surprise. "Fear, grief, anger, confusion and depression," Sarah Edwards told Fox News in explaining the eco-anxiety that caused her neck and shoulder pain, fibromyalgia and fatigue. Last month, the British Independent reported that eco-anxiety can be responsible for overeating, despondency, bulimia, depression and alcoholism. Whatever happened to our sense of proportion and basic powers of observation? Is it possible that people suffering from eco-anxiety are, as the Independent asked, "just plain nuts"? What's clear is that Western society has achieved such a level of prosperity that some of us have the time and energy to let ourselves be consumed with worry and guilt over a problem that may very well be imaginary. Let no one say that this world of abundance has come at the expense of the environment. Despite the psychoses, our earth is a cleaner, more livable place than it was even 40 years ago. Don't think so? Then take a look at a government report (start with www.earthday.gov) that actually measures air and water quality, and wetlands gains....
Bush Raises Temp on Global Warming he last months of a presidential administration are often dangerous. Presidents -- looking to their legacies -- go to desperate lengths to try to enhance their reputations for posterity. A pungent example of such practices by the Bush administration was reported above the fold on the front page of The Washington Times Monday: "Bush prepares global warming initiative." Oh, dear. Just as an increasing number of scientists are finding their courage to speak out against the global warming alarmists and just as a building body of evidence and theories challenge the key elements of the human-centric carbon-based global warming theories, George W. Bush takes this moment to say, in effect: "We are all global alarmists now." It reminds me of the moment back in 1971 when Richard Nixon proclaimed, "We are all Keynesians now" -- eight years after Milton Friedman had published his book "A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960" and about an hour and a half before a consensus built that Friedman's work consigned Keynes to the dustbin of economic history. Now it is Bush's turn to be the last man to join a losing proposition. In how many ways is this proposal not useful? First of all, as Chris Horner, the author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism," shrewdly has pointed out, the Democrats desperately want Bush and the Republicans "to take ownership" of the global alarmists' issues before he goes....
Carbon Showdown The First Commandment of climate-change politics is that you can never be green enough – as President Bush learns anew every time he even attempts to address the issue. Critics were quick to claim a victory of sorts after his Rose Garden speech yesterday, while at the same time carrying on about half-measures and delay on "the planetary emergency." Mr. Bush, however, made few departures from current policy. His larger purpose was to join a debate that so far has been conducted in a reality vacuum, and to force the global warmists to take responsibility for the carbon and greenhouse-gas regulation they say they favor. The major policy revelation was Mr. Bush's announcement that the U.S. would seek to level off the growth of emissions by 2025. The Administration is setting this target in advance of the "major economies" summit this weekend in Paris. Participating are the 17 largest world-wide emitters, and the diplomatic mission is to persuade each, including China and India, to set its own reduction goals, or "aspirations." One virtue of this process is that it bypasses current negotiations for a post-2012 Kyoto follow-up and dumps the mandates, global bureaucracies and sanctions that the United Nations would impose. Mr. Bush emphasized that the U.S. goal could be reasonably achieved (at least in theory) with the portfolio of binding and voluntary measures already in place domestically, perhaps with some adjustments at the margins and assuming advancements in clean technology....
The Polar Bear Tractor Beam: How the Endangered Species Act Could Accomplish What Al Gore Couldn't This past Monday, California Senator Barbara Boxer chaired a hearing on why the United States Department of the Interior had failed to make the decision on whether to list the bear. The hearing was a classic of the genre: "Experts" testified on the peril confronting the polar bear, and Boxer and others declaimed on the need for the feds to get off the dime and list the animal. As I noted a fortnight ago, the listing of the bear is just the first step in an elaborate dance that will result in the imposition of extraordinarily expensive and delay-inducing permitting requirements on any industrial or commercial activity that (1) requires a federal permit of any sort and (2) emits greenhouse gases. But don't believe me. Believe the proponents of the listing. In a candid and detailed statement of the objectives behind the listing push, the Executive Director of Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming at the National Wildlife Federation, John Kostyack, and Professor Dan Rohlf of the Lewis & Clark Law School have laid out the potential far-reaching impacts of a listing. Their article, "Conserving Species in an Era of Global Warming," appeared in the most recent issue of the Environmental Law Reporter. It should be read by anyone who relies on a federal permit to go about their business, whether that business is oil exploration, gasoline refining, road construction, farming, grazing, mining or home building. Kostyack and Rohlf first review what they see to be the climate change perils confronting many species, including the polar bear, and then chart how the Federal Endangered Species Act ("FESA") could be brought to bear upon the issue of global warming via the section of the FESA that compels "consultations" between any part of the federal government proposing to issue a permit that could impact a threatened or endangered species and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service....
Congress Picks a Loser Congress doesn’t trust consumers to make the right decision when it comes to selecting the right source of energy. Congress knows better. That’s why legislation out of Capitol Hill is all about weaning us off oil and putting us directly on a “renewable energy” diet. Witness the energy tax bill the House passed in February that slaps $18 billion in taxes on oil production to fund wind, solar, biofuels, and other “alternative” sources. Witness the new energy law passed in December mandating that Americans increase the use of ethanol and other biofuels at the pump to 36 billion gallons by 2022, up from 7 billion gallons required now. And witness the new farm bill that gives corn growers $10.5 billion in subsidies over the next five years, no matter how fast the price of corn rises—which, incidentally, has gone from $3.50 a bushel to a record $5.50 over the past three months. The problem is that Congress, unlike consumers who make decisions based on price and availability rather than political pressures from entrenched farm interest groups, gets it egregiously – and damagingly – wrong. Even with oil topping $109 a barrel, it is still relatively abundant. As the U.S. Geological Survey reports, there are 3 trillion billion barrels of oil reserves still available globally. For perspective, since the first automobile rolled off the assembly line, we’ve consumed only one trillion barrels. Conversely, ethanol and other biofuels are extremely limited resources requiring enormous amounts of water, energy, and land otherwise used for growing food. The new energy law’s requirement that Americans use 15 billion gallons of corn for fuel by 2015 – that doesn’t include the other 21 billion gallons to come from non-food sources like switchgrass and corn husks – will consume an astounding 30 million acres of cropland. That means unless the mandates are repealed, more than a third of our corn crops will be diverted from food to fuel in just seven years....
Political Crusaders The latest political crusade is the crusade to replace ordinary light bulbs with the new CFL light bulb that is supposed to save electricity, reducing the need for fossil fuels and helping the fight against global warming. Since crusaders seldom stop to weigh the cost of what they are advocating, it is especially important that the rest of us do so before we get swept along by rhetoric and emotions. With the CFL light bulb, the initial cost -- several times that of a regular light bulb -- is only the financial cost. A bigger problem is what to do if a CFL light bulb breaks. You are supposed to shut off all air conditioners or heaters, to keep them from circulating mercury vapor from the broken CFL. You are supposed to open windows and doors to air out the place. Pregnant women and small children are supposed to leave the area while the mess is being cleaned up by someone else, wearing a dust mask and gloves. What if there is only a pregnant woman present, with or without small children? And what if there is no dust mask around? CFL light bulbs are only the latest in a long line of "solutions" that can turn out to be worse than the problem it is supposed to solve. But the crusaders will keep selling their solutions as long as we keep buying them....