American Elephants

Sustainability is identified as the code word for eco-friendly policies, lower industrial production, lower personal consumption, economic equality and other measures of global “social justice.” City mayors and City Councils all over the country have been recruited by ICLEI– Local Governments for Sustainability.  Originally called the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives — hence the acronym — the group is the product of a United Nations conference:  The UN World Congress of Local Governments for a Sustainable Future.  That conference, held in New York City in 1990 brought together delegates from 200 local governments and 43 countries.  They were united by a belief that cities do not need to wait  for national governments before taking action on global climate issues. (And the chance for a free trip to a conference and a chance for some good shopping as well).

Ambitious local politicians around the world are using ICLEI as an international platform that allows them to build their careers and quickly network with one another on environmental issues.  The international organization is headquartered in Toronto, Canada, and has 150 staff located in 11 offices worldwide.  (www.iclei-usa.org)

The Capital Research Center has done marvelous work in explaining the “wonders” of ICLEI and their vision of sustainability.  Seattle’s mayor Greg Nickels is the poster child of mayors who have bought into the ICLEI vision.

A 20 cent green tax on paper and plastic shopping bags as well as a ban on foam containers goes into effect on January 1, 2009. He recently shut down a couple of streets to keep people from driving.  The Parks Commission is planning to ban beach fires to prevent their contribution to global warming.  Utility ratepayers are encouraged to pay a little more on their electric bill every month — a “green” premium — to allow the city to “invest in” solar power pilot projects (Solar?  We can go months here without ever seeing the sun!).

Forbes Magazine ranked Seattle the “Most Overpriced City” in 2004 and 2005.  In 2008 Forbes called Seattle “America’s Most Increasingly Unaffordable City.”  The inflation rate at that time was 5.8%, the highest in the U.S.

At the prompting of ICLEI, and environmental activists,  bottled water is being banned by cities all over the country.  Ann Arbor, Albuquerque, Suffolk County NY, Takoma Park MD, San Francisco and  Salt Lake City.  The City of Chicago has used the trend as an excuse to levy a new tax of five cents per bottle of water regardless of size.  Washington State is looking into a statewide anti-bottled water law.  The proposed law would ban the sale of petroleum-based water bottles as well as prohibit state agencies from buying such products.  To top off the insanity, the bill imposes fines for the sale of petroleum-based bottles at $250 per day!

The website www.enjoybottledwater.org explores the depths and complete nuttiness of environmental water nannies.   Bottled water has been essential to saving lives in disasters large and small across the world. It is essential for firemen, necessary at athletic events, and useful for people on the road.

In June, 2008, the nation’ s mayors passed a resolution on bottled water resolving that:

The Conference of Mayors encourages cities to phase out, where feasible, government use of bottled water and promote the importance of municipal water.

Last year Seattle and Seattle suburbs were arguing over new sources for municipal water because of the danger of insufficient supplies. Then there is the constant chlorine contretemps which is why many people turn to bottled water, and of course the ferocious fluoride fuss.

If you are really interested in food police, a visit to Activist Cash to investigate the Center for Science in  the Public Interest which sounds like a wholesome group, is highly worthwhile.  It’s founder, Michael Jacobson argues that people can’t be trusted to make wise and healthful decisions on their own. “People tend to eat most healthily during hard times,” Jacobson has argued.  “Heart disease plummeted in Holland and Denmark during the most severe food shortages of World War II.  Records of English manors in the 1600s reveal that the peasantry feasted on perhaps a pound of bread, a spud, and a couple of carrots per day.”  And that, to Jacobson, is “basically a wonderfully healthy diet.”

So there you go.  Environmental activists want to control the water you drink and what you drink it out of, the food you eat, what kind of Christmas tree you buy and what you do with it when you are done with it, and then they want to control the big stuff too.

They want you to drive an electric car.  They want you to use only wind and solar power which will not produce enough electricity to maintain your lifestyle or keep your house warm. They want to ban all fossil fuel use, and keep all natural resources where they ‘naturally’ belong — still in the ground.  They would prefer that you do not reproduce, for they believe the world has too many people, and they are reasonably unconcerned about other people dying.  They want to do all this in the name of saving the planet from vastly over-hyped global warming that scientific observation suggests is a natural process of warming and cooling that has been going on for centuries.

Environmental activists are not particularly interested in the environment.  They care about control.  They care about eliminating capitalism and freedom, in some vague hope of a socialist utopia to come.