OPINION/COMMENTARY

RENEWABLE BOONDOGGLE

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and Rep. Tim Matheson (D-Colo.) have proposed legislation requiring federal taxpayers to subsidize $300 million in renewable energy equipment purchases in six western states. The bill aims to induce schools in the affected states to purchase expensive renewable energy equipment by making federal taxpayers pick up the tab, says the Heritage Foundation.

Under the terms of the bill:

* Some $300 million in interest-free bonds would be offered to schools in the six states to purchase renewable energy equipment.
* The schools would not have to make any payments on the bonds for 20 years but would have to pay them off in full at that time.

Reid and Matheson are framing the bill as a way to lower costs and help put more money toward education. But because schools already purchase energy from conventional power sources -- which is significantly less expensive -- their motives are being questioned.

Analysts suggest that if the Congressmen are truly concerned first and foremost about education, they would be more effective by simply giving schools $300 million in grants rather than making them spend it on renewable energy equipment that cannot financially compete against conventional power sources.

Source: James M. Taylor, "Taxpayers Asked to Subsidize Renewable Boondoggle," Environment and Climate News, October 2006.

For text:
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=19725



Arizona: Animal-Rights Ground Zero

The animal rights movement has descended on Arizona this year, and the Center for Consumer Freedom is suiting up to play. Our opening salvo was fired in this morning's Arizona Republic -- a full-page ad reminding Arizonans that the animal rights movement would rather protect lab rats than cure dreaded diseases. Why are we focusing our energies on the Grand Canyon State? Four wealthy animal rights groups are engaged in highly charged political fights there. One pits the Humane Society of the United States and Farm Sanctuary against pork and veal farmers. The other involves People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and its quasi-medical affiliate, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), using every trick in the book to stop a medical research company from building a laboratory. When Arizonans aren't being told farmers are evil, they're being misled about vital medical research aimed at curing AIDS, cancer, and other diseases. Some local activists have even tried to hide their connections with national groups like PETA for fear of revealing the animal-rights ideology motivating their agenda. We've seen this all before. In 2003, Farm Sanctuary leaders spearheaded a Florida campaign to add pigs to the state's constitution....


The Turtle War

If people were not allowed to own chickens and if chicken eggs and meat could not be legally sold, how many chickens would there be? The reason chickens, cattle, catfish, and goldfish are not endangered is because they are owned by private parties, bred and raised in captivity, and sold for commercial profit – hence there are billions of these animals. The poor sea turtle is endangered precisely because the global environmental lobby refuses to let sea turtles be commercially farmed and marketed. Four decades ago, you might well have bet that Cayman would eventually be known best for its turtle farms, rather than as a tourist destination and one of the world’s largest financial centers, but economically ignorant environmentalists, who tell us they love sea turtles, have ensured there will be fewer of them. Sea turtles have been around since the age of dinosaurs, a hundred million years or more. The typical weight of a nesting green female sea turtle is around 300 pounds. She will drag herself up on a beach at night, dig a hole above the high-tide mark, and most often lay between 100 and 135 eggs at a time. She may do this up to seven or so times a season, becoming almost an egg-laying machine. The eggs typically take six to eight weeks to hatch. The hatchlings first must dig themselves out of the sand, and then scurry down to the water without serving as tasty meals for raccoons and sea birds. Mortally rates are extremely high for the hatchlings through their first couple of years of life. It is estimated fewer than 1in 1,000 sea turtles makes it to sexual maturity. Yet, as many as 30 percent of 2-year-old turtles make it to maturity. Sea turtles have great economic value. The meat is low in fat and high in protein, and is very tasty (much like veal). Turtle soup was a favorite of Winston Churchill’s and millions of others. Turtle leather is attractive and durable. The shell has many uses, including jewelry, and turtle oil has been used in cosmetics. Sea turtles, like many animals and fish not raised in farms, are over-exploited because no one owns them; and as a result, their numbers in the wild have been declining for hundreds of years. The turtles also have been suffering from a loss of habitat. Their nesting areas, tropical beaches, are also preferred by humans for living and leisure. Human activities, such as boating, fishing and beach sports, take their toll of turtle eggs and hatchlings. As the human population grows, particularly in tropical beach areas, the turtle is increasingly pushed out. The solution put forward by many environmentalists was to ban any global trade in turtle products, which was eventually accomplished in the 1970s. The problem is the turtle does not recognize national borders, and hence protection does not work because low-income countries have little incentive or means to stop turtle poaching or more profitable uses for beach areas....


Green Hypocrisy at 30,000 Feet

They sit in economy class occasionally wiping their clammy hands. Their eyes dart furtively about. They wonder whether the stewardess or passenger next to them might have become suspicious. Some even grow moustaches or beards - to cover the 'giveaway' sweating top lip. But they are not terrorists. At least not in the modern sense of wanting to blow up the airplanes they travel in. Far from it, for they love nothing more the sense of self-importance international jetsetting offers. Travelling that delivers them in far-flung destinations where they can evangelize their ascetic ordinances to thousands of fellow worshippers. But while travelling their chief fear is that they will be found out. Who they are, what they preach - and expose their moralistic hypocritical behaviour. They are the Green Bigots, leading environmentalists, those at the vanguard of the fight to change our lifestyles, restrict our foreign flights, who insist we do our 'bit' to cut greenhouse gas emissions while they rack up thousands of airmiles on business and pleasure trips." As the UK's The Sunday Times has recently revealed, "In the past year the directors and chief executives of groups such as WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Soil Association have crisscrossed the globe, visiting the Falklands, Japan, Africa and Brazil." The ST's environment editor points out, "All are running high-profile campaigns to persuade people to change their lifestyles and cut emissions of carbon dioxide." The article identifies a number of well known examples. They included Bob Napier, chief executive of WWF, who through jetting to various destinations in Asia, the Americas and Europe helped generate more than 11 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) last year. As the ST points out, aviation generates around 5% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions "but their warming effect is up to four times greater at high altitudes." To get this in perspective, a typical British household generates about six tons of CO2 over a whole year. Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, is another who has had to admit to having flown business trips across three continents - in addition to flying his family on holiday to Slovakia. "This weekend he is on a business trip to Nigeria, " reports the ST, which goes on to claim Juniper's trips contributed to around 8 tons of CO2 emissions....


What's Good For The (Tofu) Goose...

Hypocrisy in the animal rights movement seemingly knows no bounds. Avid watchers of Penn & Teller's program on the Showtime cable network will recall the comic duo's skewering of a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) vice-president whose daily insulin injections make her dependent on the very animal-based medical research she opposes. And we've told you about the do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do position of Hepatitis-C survivor and PETA spokes-blonde Pamela Anderson. Now add to the mix a communications staffer with the PETA-affiliated Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) who is an animal rights activist and a breast cancer survivor. Here's how this long-time PCRM fixture introduced herself last week in a Salt Lake Tribune op-ed: Like many breast cancer survivors who have suffered through chemotherapy, radiation and multiple surgeries, I wake up most mornings happy to be alive ... I'm currently recovering from a stem-cell transplant to cure a blood disorder caused by my cancer treatment ... Here's a news flash for PCRM, which opposes the use of animals in medical research: The Biomedical Research Education Trust notes that "chickens, rats, mice and rabbits have been used" to develop chemotherapy and cancer radiation treatments. And Great Britain's Research Defence Society helpfully explains that "[f]ollowing successful animal research, stem cell transplants are now routine in the treatment of several types of cancer" [emphasis added]....


Coastal Protection Turned into Reefer Madness

Off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, two million old tires are pounding into reefs, destroying the ecosystem and littering the shoreline. It’s an environmentalist catastrophe. That’s right – environmentalist. This disaster might as well be sponsored by your favorite left-wing environmental group. Do-gooders launched this project back in 1972 to save the oceans, spawn fish and rid the earth of mountains of tires that posed health and fire hazards. Only it didn’t quite work that way. Environmentalists and their usual fans in the media are whispering a collective “oops.” As the October 2 Washington Post reported it, “Now the idea seems daft. But in the spring of 1972, the dumping of a million or so tires offshore here looked like ecological enlightenment.” Someone should have told Gang Green about the law of unintended consequences, because it took decades for researchers to realize the extent of the mistake. The Post piece estimated it would take three years and cost $3 million to $5 million just to clean up this one error. That’s nothing new for the American environmental movement. They warned us about the devastation that never happened from the Alaskan pipeline; stymied nuclear power with the help of Hollywood and convinced the world that DDT was dangerous – costing millions of lives....


STATES CONSIDER LIFTING SUNDAY HUNTING BANS

States that restrict hunting on Sunday are debating whether to loosen the bans to placate eager hunters and manage deer overpopulation. Eleven states ban hunting on Sunday or restrict it in various ways, such as allowing it only for certain game or in certain locations.

Some bans go as far back as the 1700s and are among the "blue laws" enacted to restrict working, shopping, drinking, dancing and other activities on the Sabbath. Courts have upheld Sunday bans on hunting, according to David Hudson of the First Amendment Center in Nashville.

Several states are considering whether to lift or loosen the bans. Such proposals have come up before, but officials say there is increased momentum. In November, Virginia will survey 5,000 hunters to see whether its ban should change. Other recent moves:

* Maryland legislators have opened a few Sundays to deer hunting in some counties as a way to control the state's deer population, says Paul Peditto, director of the state's Wildlife and Heritage Service.
* Connecticut's Department of Environmental Protection advocates Sunday hunting in parts of the state that are overpopulated by deer, says Dale May, director of the department's Wildlife Division; a bill passed the Senate this year before stalling.
* North Carolina is conducting a study on the pros and cons of lifting the Sunday ban; more than 10,000 people have submitted comments, says Richard Hamilton, executive director of the state's Wildlife Resources Commission.

Chris Cox, the National Rifle Association's chief lobbyist, says the bans limit hunting as the sport is losing ground. For every 100 hunters who quit, he says, 69 people take up the activity.

Opponents include farm organizations speaking for farmers who want a day of quiet, and bird-watchers who want time outdoors free from gunshots.

Source: Emily Bazar, "States consider lifting Sunday hunting bans; Loosening 'blue law' limits could control deer overpopulation," USA Today, October 3, 2006.

For text (subscription required):
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20061003/a_sundayhunting03.art.htm