Observations From the Back Row

By Rich Kozlovich

I am amazed everyday when I run through my web searches at how the same stuff keeps coming up in spite of the fact that so much of it has been shown to be nothing less that junk science, lies and propaganda.....and expensive at that. There are three things we need to absolutely get if we are to work our way out of this economic mess.

1. Turning food into fuel is economically unsustainable and since it really is forcing the price of food to go up worldwide; it is morally unsustainable. In the U.S. it isn't that big of a deal, but in some countries it is a death sentence to their citizens.
2. We need to abandon all alternative energy schemes NOW before any more money is wasted.
3. We need to realize that everything the greenies say is a lie. That hasn't always been true, but it doesn't matter what they used to be, we must recognize what they are now. Irrational and misanthropic!

High crop prices a threat to nature?
Grain prices are tempting farmers to plow up protected land, even as conservation subsidies shrink…. Thousands…..Minnesota farmers, is looking a painful decision square in the eye: cleaner water or the irresistible temptation of corn at stratospheric prices of $6 to $8 a bushel……..In the following years, millions more acres in Minnesota, North and South Dakota -- critical prairie and wetland habitat for a fourth of the nation's migratory birds -- may also fall to the plow as farmers choose between leaving it to nature or converting it to cash crops. Many predict that nature will be the loser.

CRP is a case in point. The 25-year-old program pays farmers a nominal amount per acre to idle environmentally sensitive land……Nationally, between 2004 and 2007, CRP lands retained 1.86 billion pounds of nitrogen, 420 million pounds of phosphorus and 1.8 billion tons of soil -- much of which would have found its way into the Mississippi River and the so-called dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. It also reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 200 million tons. And that was just four years. But today, with soaring grain prices, most CRP payments don't come close to competing with cash crops……"We need to pay farmers for producing environmental and habitat benefits," he said.

From the top of his hilly farm near Zumbrota, Thomforde has a pretty clear-eyed view of the world. Global demand and population growth drive his decisions, he said, and the people around Lake Pepin and on down the Mississippi will pay the environmental price. But it's up to everyone, urban and rural, to decide what kind of landscape they want in the next 100 years, he said. "We need to decide whether or not CRP is worth keeping," he said.

My Take –The answer is simple, whether we pay these people or not……drill! If governments drop these stupid mandates on ethanol, abandon the stupidity of CO2 emissions as a cause for global warming, abandon the junk science about ocean acidification, abandon all of these expensive and inadequate alternative energy program and simply drill, the problem will solve itself.

I would like to state one more time for the record; this is another stupid greenie solution to a non-problem that has caused more problems than it was supposed to have fixed. I would also like to state for the record that all of this was perfectly predictable because all of this failed during the Carter years.

We live in a world where the greenies demand perfection. They then present solutions that are so disastrous that they end up protesting their own solutions. We live in a world of risk versus benefit and the benefits of their solutions are virtually nonexistent!  We live in a world where their solutions cause:

1. Energy costs to soar
2. Make it less available
3. Is so environmentally unsustainable that no matter what problems exist from drill and processing of traditional energy sources their solutions are far worse in every aspect of this issue.
4. We live in a world where the greenies demand perfection.

We need to understand that there is no perfection! There can only be a search for the most acceptable imperfection. And green is the least acceptable imperfection that could ever be inflicted on humanity.

Cost, availability and sustainability. Those are their key arguments against traditional energy production, and they have turned out to be wrong, and in point of fact are not only wrong in their statements ..... they lie. Furthermore, all of their key solutions are all failures in their own terms of cost, availability and sustainability. The greenies almost have a monopoly on being wrong, so why do we listen to these people. There is one upside to this though. When we are confused on an issue as to what position to take....we can take solace in the fact that if you go in the opposite direction of the green movement; the odds of being right go way up!

Herbicide spurs reproductive problems in many animals, ‘report’ says
What does Tyrone Hayes do when none of a multitude of studies show that atrazine harms wildlife? Publish a “review” of all of them and claim there’s something going on.
From a University of Illinois media release:

An international team of researchers has reviewed the evidence linking exposure to atrazine – an herbicide widely used in the U.S. and more than 60 other nations – to reproductive problems in animals. The team found consistent patterns of reproductive dysfunction in amphibians, fish, reptiles and mammals exposed to the chemical.

Except that the only “consistency” is inconsistency (not a hallmark of science!)

“One of the things that became clear in writing this paper is that atrazine works through a number of different mechanisms,” Hayes said. “It’s been shown that it increases production of (the stress hormone) cortisol. It’s been shown that it inhibits key enzymes in steroid hormone production while increasing others. It’s been shown that it somehow prevents androgen from binding to its receptor”…

There also are studies that show no effects – or different effects – in animals exposed to atrazine, [co-author Val] Beasley said. “But the studies are not all the same. There are different species, different times of exposure, different stages of development and different strains within a species.”

Hayes‘ “review” is a transparent attempt to keep his fading anti-atrazine crusade alive.
He’s reached his usual pre-determined anti-atrazine conclusion by compiling a bunch of nothing and hoping that together they make something. But a multitude time zero is still zero.

Read the University of Illinois media release.
Click here for more on Tyrone Hayes.

Chemical fear mongering goes into overdrive
The debate on “reforming” the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) has recently emerged before the U. S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Eagerly anticipated by a wide variety of environmental groups, whose common raison d'être is essentially a deeply held fear of chemicals in our environment, they are now chomping at the bit at the prospect of tightening our already restrictive chemical safety laws.

Dump the EPA
Like a bad lover, the EPA is a nagging, beguiling mooch. The EPA unconstitutionally barged into our lives and we need to break free from this destructive relationship; let’s give the EPA a two-letter title beginning with ‘E’ and ending with ‘X.’

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson…is proud to work for a President who will bypass Congress and create his own rules via executive order: ‘I’m proud to be part of an EPA that has mobilized science and the law to create modern and innovative protections for the health of the American people. I’m also proud to be working for a president who has said that “we can’t wait” on these issues.’ We already have Congress to make laws; we don’t need the EPA. “It has long been clear to me that elected representatives should write the rules, not the EPA,” Sen. Lindsey Graham has said.

The EPA’s regulations are so burdensome, sweeping and impractical that it’s nearly impossible for energy companies to comply without going out of business. Hence, businesspeople in the energy industry increasingly find themselves facing enormous fines and even criminal allegations.

In Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged,” a state scientist quips: “Did you really think we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. … We’re after power and we mean it. … There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them.”


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