Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Environment, Freedom, Health Care, Regulation, The United States | Tags: Disgraceful Decisions, Environmental Extremism, Humans Don't Count
King Cove, Alaska is a remote town in the Aleutians of around a thousand people. It’s a fishing village that has a tiny airport which is often locked in by gale-force winds and fog. The town has a clinic, but no doctor and no hospital. For trauma cases, childbirth and complications of all sorts, they must get to the all-weather World War II airport in Cold Bay, 22 miles away, for transportation for the 600 miles to Anchorage, doctors and hospitals.
King Cove requested of the Interior Department a 22 mile-long, one-lane gravel road to Cold Bay which would allow for all-weather access to lifesaving medical care. Etta Kuzakin, a 36-year-old King Cove resident who serves as Agdaagux tribal president, needed an emergency Caesarean section in March after going into early labor with her now 9-month-old daughter. Giving birth in King Cove could have killed her and her baby. Medevac flights into King Cove were grounded by ugly weather. Ms. Kuzakin waited in labor for ten hours until a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter flew her out in the afternoon.
“If there had been a road, it would be two hours out,” she said. “I sat there in labor not knowing if I was going to die or my kid was going to die. Pretty traumatic.” Fishing is also hard work, and injuries are common. According to local Aleutian elders, 19 people have died since 1980 because bad weather during emergency evacuations prevented them from getting out.
Sally Jewell, U.S. Interior Secretary, met with Aleutian citizens in the gymnasium in King Cove, to hear their request for a simple one-lane gravel lifeline to a dependable airport. Ms. Jewell, former head of REI, told her King Cove audience that “I’ve listened to your stories, now I have to listen to the animals.“ She rejected the road, saying that “it would jeopardize waterfowl in the refuge.”
The assorted kinds of waterfowl with which I am familiar are a moveable species. If a truck is coming down a road, they are capable of moving off or across a one-lane road. These are not flightless species. Bears can manage to cross roads as well as other species to be found in the Aleutians. What could this woman who calls herself an “environmentalist” have possibly been thinking?” A waterfowl’s potential annoyance at having to move from a road trumps human life every time? Well, that’s environmentalism for you every time. Self-righteous in their passion for wildlife; callous and cruel to humanity. Obama can really pick them. Disgusting.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Environment, Politics | Tags: David Horowitz, Environmental Extremism, Pat Cadell
In this panel discussion with Pat Cadell, a long time Democrat campaign adviser, and David Horowitz, a one-time leftist radical — now a long time Conservative activist, the subject of environmentalism came up. Cadell called the SEIU “thugs” and said that environmentalists were out to “deconstruct capitalism.”
Andrew Romanoff, a Democrat who is mounting a primary challenge against Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, has fired Pat Cadell for his intemperate — but accurate — remarks. Cadell will hardly have trouble finding a new job. The collapse of the global warming scheme will continue to have unexpected consequences, especially for those who remain uninformed.
(h/t: Planet Gore)
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Energy, Progressivism | Tags: Democrat Corruption, Environmental Extremism, Hating Humanity
California is in trouble. Broke. Businesses leaving the state. Taxes too high. Too much “green nonsense.” The great Central Valley suffering drought and sky-high unemployment for the sake of a supposedly endangered minnow.
Those of the green persuasion are determined to get people out of their cars. They use traffic gridlock as an excuse, but the truth is they just don’t want people to have cars or the freedom to use them. People who have cars are free. People who are forced to use public transportation can be controlled. They just don’t like people much.
“California Dems Want To End Free Parking” read the headline in the Los Angeles Times.
There is too much of it, the legislators say, and it encourages people to drive instead of taking the bus, walking or riding a bike.
All that motoring is contributing to traffic jams and pollution, according to state Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), and on Thursday he won Senate approval of a proposal he hopes will prompt cities and businesses to reduce the availability of free parking.
“Free parking has significant social, economic and environmental costs,” Lowenthal said. “It increases congestion and greenhouse gas emissions.’’ …
The bill, supported by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club, provides financial incentives for cities and counties to stop providing free parking on the street and at government offices and to reduce the amount they require businesses to provide.
Why am I not surprised that the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club are behind this nuttiness?
Filed under: Environment, Freedom, Global Warming | Tags: Environmental Extremism, Global Cooling, Little Ice Age, Snow and Ice
THE sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
With compliments to John Greenleaf Whittier, we have been snowbound. Snowed in since the Friday before Christmas. People with four-wheel drive managed to get around gingerly, but the rest of us were just stuck. We had 8 to 10 inches of snow, and here in the hilly Seattle area it quickly turns to ice. In Seattle, the mayor decided that salt was beyond the pale for it might run into the salt waters of Puget Sound, and many streets were to be left undisturbed, to form a nice snowpack. Sigh.
On the Eastside, city road crews plowed, but short neighborhood streets are left till last, and through streets get first attention, which is fair. We have a well-stocked pantry, so were not reduced to eating strange things; a good-sized woodpile (the result of last winter’s storms) and a snow shovel.
The snowplow came by the day after Christmas and, with some vigorous shoveling we escaped to crowded malls and grocery store to get ready for a postponed Christmas celebration. Merry Christmas to all, and a happy New Year.
Filed under: Conservatism, Environment, Global Warming, Humor, Science/Technology | Tags: Environmental Extremism, Global Warming Crisis, Green Idiocy
This was a letter to the editor at American Thinker by Richard Strimple:
I don’t know if any one else has noticed, but I have detected a new crisis that I have named “the daylight change crisis”. I first noticed it sometime around the end of June this year. I started paying attention and created computer models and sure enough I was right! We are losing daylight at an astonishing rate. Each day we are losing approximately 2 minutes of daylight and my computer models predict total darkness by next July.
I have been able to detect this phenomenon around the entire Northern Hemisphere. And here is the scary part: the daylight appears to be leaking to the Southern Hemisphere.
I thought I should bring it to the attention of great scientists like Al Gore so he can help solve this new crisis.
This is an absolutely brilliant analogy. The global warming “crisis” may never recover. Hopefully!
Filed under: Developing Nations, Energy, Environment, Freedom, Health Care, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Socialism | Tags: Environmental Extremism, Green Politics, Social Justice
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.
