OPINION/COMMENTARY

JUDGING THE FEDS: EVERY BENEFIT OF EVERY DOUBT

In May 1945, the United States asked Jesse Fox Cannon of Toole County, Utah, to sign a “Construction, Survey & Exploration Permit” to allow the Army upon 1,425 acres of mining claims Jesse Fox Cannon owned near the Army Dugway Proving Grounds in west-central Utah. Jesse Fox Cannon agreed; after all, a war was on; plus, the Army promised that, within 60 days of finishing, it would “leave the property in as good condition as it is on the date of the government’s entry.” In September 1945, Jesse Fox Cannon reentered his property and discovered that, instead of surveying and exploring the property, the Army had used it for “Project Sphinx,” under which it dropped tons of high explosives and bombs, and incendiary and chemical weapons on Cannon’s property. Notwithstanding the demands by Jesse Fox Cannon and later his son, Dr. J. Floyd Cannon, that the United States fulfill its legal obligation to clean up their property, the federal government refused. In 1980, Dr. Cannon died, leaving the property to his children, who took up the crusade to have their land reclaimed and restored. In 1993, nearly 50 years after the Army left the property, the United States began a paper shuffling exercise purportedly to determine something the Cannon family already knew: whether the Cannon land was a “formerly used defense site” that presented safety concerns for federal and state government agencies. In 1996, the federal government concluded that the Cannon property was one of the most contaminated sites in the country and would cost $12.7 million to reclaim. Then, the United States did nothing....


The World According to Gore

During a global warming hearing, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, presented Gore with a “Personal Energy Ethics Pledge.” That’s the type of pledge you would think that Gore would be eager to sign onto. However, the former Vice-President refused to take the pledge. In other words, he simply could not commit to consuming no more energy than the average American household. Senator Inhofe tried to appeal to Gore’s sense of environmental chivalry, telling him, “There are hundreds of thousands of people who adore you and would follow your example by reducing their energy usage if you did. Don’t give us the run-around on carbon offsets or the gimmicks the wealthy do.” The energy ethics pledge that Inhofe presented to Gore is quite straightforward. It states, “As a believer that human-caused global warming is a moral, ethical, and spiritual issue facing our survival; that home energy use is a key component of overall energy use; that reducing my fossil fuel-based home energy usage will lead to lower greenhouse gas emissions; and that leaders on moral issues should lead by example; I pledge to consume no more energy for use in my residence than the average American household by March 21, 2008.” Inhofe did not ask Gore to be some kind of super-saver, besting the energy savings rate of typical Americans. He simply requested that Gore be average in his energy usage. Just average. And Gore declined the opportunity....


Problem of Evil Solved: Just Offset It

Some wealthy environmentalists who urge the world to reduce global-warming pollution are themselves using huge amounts of pollution-producing energy. They own houses which consume much more energy for heating and lighting than the average dwelling, have several large vehicles that spew out emissions, and ride on jets that pour out noxious fumes. Yet these rich greenies urge everybody else to change their lifestyles to reduce energy use and cut down on harmful emissions. How do they justify their energy binging? They say the are not doing any evil, because they have offset their bads with goods. They have bought “carbon offsets” that cancel out their own pollution. For example, they pay to plant trees in Africa. These trees take in carbon dioxide, which makes up for the greenies’ carbon emissions. In fact, several carbon-offset Internet sites show you how to offset your pollution using “carbon calculators.” You tell the calculator what kind of house you live in, how many residents there are, what kind of car you have and how much your drive, how much air travel you do, and what you eat, and presto! They tell you how much to donate to their organization. You can also buy a decal for your car’s bumper proudly telling the world that your car’s carbon emission have been balanced by sponsoring a clean-energy project. Now you are absolved of your environmental sins. You are now an environmental virgin. Go, and sin again, because all you need to do is donate again. During the Middle Ages in Europe, a rich guy could buy indulgences from the Catholic Church, which offset their sins. Repenting and sinning no more was for peasants. Now we have environmental indulgences, so that we don’t need pollution levies to reduce emissions. We can just buy absolution with an environmental indulgence. It’s even better than the religious indulgence, because the Catholic indulgence presumed that the sin was already forgiven, while the environmental indulgence itself forgives the sin of polluting. If carbon offsets are such a good idea, why not apply it to other areas of life? Are you gambling too much? Donate money to an organization opposed to gambling. Now you can gamble as much as you like, because you have offset it by reducing somebody else’s gambling. Did you embezzle money from the company you work for? No problem: just offset this with donations to a worthy cause. This nets out your theft. Are you cheating on your spouse? You can cleanse your guilt and offset this sin by donating money to an organization that promotes family values. The greater fidelity of others will offset your cheating....


Five Biggest Myths about Global Warming

With Al Gore getting so much mileage from his fame as both a former vice president and now Oscar winner to advance his ideological (if not personal) agenda of getting people to use less energy, it’s worth reviewing the global warming debate to clarify a few misconceptions. First, we are not in imminent danger of massive sea-level rises. In his movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” Gore warns of seas rising by 20 feet, and shows a dramatic image of lower Manhattan flooded by the swollen Hudson River. But this will only happen if the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets disappear overnight—a highly unlikely event. The collected scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose word climate alarmists preach as gospel when convenient, estimates only 17 inches of sea-level rise this century. Melting sufficient to flood New York would take millennia, never mind centuries. We should have plenty of time to build flood defenses. Second, if global warming is as big a threat as claimed, it will not be averted by minor steps like changing a few light bulbs, buying carbon offsets or driving hybrid cars. Gore himself has talked of a “wrenching transformation” in our lifestyles (I won’t mention his heated pool). That’s because everyone acknowledges that the Kyoto Protocol, even when fully and successfully implemented by all its parties, will avert a barely measurable 0.07°C of warming by 2050....


Global Warming Heresy

Most climatologists agree that the earth's temperature has increased about a degree over the last century. The debate is how much of it is due to mankind's activity. Britain's Channel 4 television has just produced "The Great Global Warming Swindle," a documentary that devastates most of the claims made by the environmentalist movement. The scientists interviewed include top climatologists from MIT and other prestigious universities around the world. The documentary hasn't aired in the U.S., but it's available on the Internet. Among the many findings that dispute environmentalists' claims are: Manmade carbon dioxide emissions are roughly 5 percent of the total; the rest are from natural sources such as volcanoes, dying vegetation and animals. Annually, volcanoes alone produce more carbon dioxide than all of mankind's activities. Oceans are responsible for most greenhouse gases. Contrary to environmentalists' claims, the higher the Earth's temperature, the higher the carbon dioxide levels. In other words, carbon dioxide levels are a product of climate change. Some of the documentary's scientists argue that the greatest influence on the Earth's temperature is our sun's sunspot activity. The bottom line is, the bulk of scientific evidence shows that what we've been told by environmentalists is pure bunk....


CAFE clash: Kiss your money and your safety goodbye

For a program that's more than 30 years old, the federal government's fuel economy standards for cars have become one hot topic. Global warming is now a 24/7 issue, and whenever politicians warn of global warming you can bet that tougher fuel standards are near the top of their to-do list. This is too bad, because when all is said and done, this program, known as CAFE (for corporate average fuel economy) has accomplished very little of benefit. CAFE, it is claimed, was responsible for doubling the miles per gallon of new vehicles during the 1980s, but it has allegedly stagnated in recent years. Fuel-hungry SUVs have boomed in popularity, and consumers have reverted to their supposedly bad habit of ignoring fuel economy in favor of larger size and more horsepower. The reins on automakers, we're told, need to be tightened. This might sound inspiring, until you realize that these reins really go around our own necks. Consumers have demonstrated, time and again, that when necessary they themselves do a far better job of saving fuel than government does. The increase in gas prices in the 1970s drove consumers to demand vehicles with greater fuel economy, and the auto industry responded far more quickly than anything required under CAFE....


Now for the Good News

Environmentalists and globalization foes are united in their fear that greater population and consumption of energy, materials, and chemicals accompanying economic growth, technological change and free trade—the mainstays of globalization—degrade human and environmental well-being. Indeed, the 20th century saw the United States’ population multiply by four, income by seven, carbon dioxide emissions by nine, use of materials by 27, and use of chemicals by more than 100. Yet life expectancy increased from 47 years to 77 years. Onset of major disease such as cancer, heart, and respiratory disease has been postponed between eight and eleven years in the past century. Heart disease and cancer rates have been in rapid decline over the last two decades, and total cancer deaths have actually declined the last two years, despite increases in population. Among the very young, infant mortality has declined from 100 deaths per 1,000 births in 1913 to just seven per 1,000 today. These improvements haven’t been restricted to the United States. Equally important, the world is more literate and better educated than ever. People are freer politically, economically, and socially to pursue their well-being as they see fit. More people choose their own rulers, and have freedom of expression. They are more likely to live under rule of law, and less likely to be arbitrarily deprived of life, limb, and property....


'Smoke-easys' ignore the tobacco ban

I'M SIPPING A Blue Moon ale in a Philadelphia bar, Janis Joplin is wailing about Bobby McGee and I'm thinking a smoke would go great about now. I take out one of Baby Cakes' Parliament Lights and fire it up. I'm smoking in a bar in Philadelphia and nobody says, "Boo!" There are 20 other people, smokers and nonsmokers, hanging out, enjoying themselves, not doing any harm to anyone (except maybe themselves). The bar is spacious, the NCAA is on the TV screens, beer pennants hang from the ceiling, and through the large windows I see rain falling. The owner is sitting at the bar chewing nicotine gum. He's a former smoker. Also a former cop. "I'm an irresponsible bar-owner," he says with a smile. Despite the smoking ban - because of it, actually - Philadelphia now has "smoke-easies," a play on "speakeasies" that came to us with the Prohibition of alcohol. Prohibition was enacted in 1920, repealed in 1933 and largely ignored in between. I'm surprised at how many Americans meekly obey smoking bans. This is about Philadelphians who don't....