By Rich Kozlovich
Environmentalism, ignorant to criticism, has thus developed inside an insular, self-regarding bubble. Perhaps only someone from within it could prick that bubble, revealing to its members what those outside it have been telling them for decades. Ben Pile
Admit it: environmentalism was an ugly experiment
Ben Pile
Mark Lynas has converted from being an eco-alarmist to a pro-growth rationalist. But he still doesn’t get the problem with green thinking.
Since becoming an advocate of genetic modification (GM) and nuclear power, Mark Lynas has drawn increasingly hostile criticism from his erstwhile comrades in the green movement. In turn, he has sharpened his criticism of environmentalists for their hostility to technological and economic development. In his new book, The God Species: How the Planet Can Survive the Age of Humans, he attempts to reformulate environmentalism to overcome the excesses that have so far prevented it from saving the planet. This book will no doubt provoke debate, but what is this transformation really about, and is it really based on new ideas or merely the revision of old ones?
Last November, Channel 4 aired What the Green Movement Got Wrong, which featured prominent environmentalists, including Lynas, reflecting on the failures of environmentalism. The film claimed that environmentalists’ opposition to technologies that offered environmentally benign methods of energy and crop production had impeded their aim of creating an ecologically sustainable society. Since then, the debate between pro- and anti-nuclear environmentalists has deepened, exposing the many divisions that exist within the green camp…..
Science held hostage in climate debate
Garth Paltridge
The broad theory of man-made global warming is acceptable in the purely qualitative sense. If humans continue to fill the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, there can be little doubt that the average temperature of the world will increase above what it would have been otherwise. The argument about the science is, and always has been, whether the increase would be big enough to be noticed among all the other natural variations of climate. The economic and social argument is whether the increase, even if it were noticeable, would change the overall welfare of mankind for the worse.
Attempts to resolve the arguments are plagued with problems, a lot of which are inherently insoluble. There are many aspects of the behaviour of the natural climate system and of human society that are unpredictable in principle, let alone in practice. But perhaps the biggest of the underlying problems, and it is common to both arguments since it inevitably exists when there is large unpredictability and uncertainty, is the presence of strong forces encouraging public overstatement and a belief in worst-case scenarios.
EXCLUSIVE: Godfather of Global Green Thinking Steps Out of Shadows at Rio+20
Maurice Strong, the godfather of global environmentalism and organizer of the United Nations’ 1992 Rio environmental Earth Summit, is making a quiet comeback to the limelight on the eve of that meeting’s successor, the Rio + 20 summit on “sustainable development,” which starts June 20 in Brazil.
My Take – I will be running a series of articles and one will be dealing with Maurice Strong. He has an interesting history that everyone should have known right along….along with the real history of Nelson Rockefeller. If old John D. Rockefeller could see what his descendants have done with his fortune and the corresponding influence that brings; funding and promoting the most irrational, misanthropic and radical environmental groups on the planet…. he would roll over in his grave.
Britain 'kills off 130,000 elderly every year'
Treatment on average brings patient to death in 33 hours
NHS doctors are prematurely ending the lives of thousands of elderly hospital patients because they are difficult to manage or to free up beds, a senior consultant claimed yesterday. Professor Patrick Pullicino said doctors had turned the use of a controversial ‘death pathway’ into the equivalent of euthanasia of the elderly. He claimed there was often a lack of clear evidence for initiating the Liverpool Care Pathway, a method of looking after terminally ill patients that is used in hospitals across the country. It is designed to come into force when doctors believe it is impossible for a patient to recover and death is imminent.
The Trouble with Multiculturism
Cliff May
Back in the day, when I was a newspaper columnist in Denver, representatives of the local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League paid a visit. Over coffee, they told the opinion editor and me that they had a program, “A World of Difference,” that “celebrates America’s diversity.” They asked for our editorial support. The editor and I had the same reaction: Would it not be better to celebrate all the things we have in common, all the things that unite Americans of whatever ethnic or religious backgrounds? Our friends left the meeting mightily miffed…..I later realized this was part of a larger campaign to promote multiculturalism – which seemed like a fairly harmless attempt to encourage appreciation of varying styles of art, dress and cuisine by pretending that all are of equal merit……Only years later did I come to realize: Multiculturalism is an ideology with far-reaching – and damaging -- consequences…..it empowers new citizens “to demand that their host country adapt” to their cultural requirements while relieving them of any responsibility to weave themselves and their children into the cultural fabric of their adopted homeland. In this and other ways, multiculturalism is a “slippery slope” that “imperils” liberal democracies…..But the big trap of multiculturalism is simply this: If all cultures are equal, why defend your own? The culture that replaces it will be just as good, won’t it?
My Take – The thing that I find amazing is that those who are the most vociferous about this are from countries that are the most intolerant of others, especially regarding their lack of respect of other’s religious views. In Muslim countries they can’t even tolerate those who profess to follow a form of Islam that is different than the majority Islamic sect in the nation. Is it any wonder that Muslims are always killing each other as much as they kill others that they also consider infidels? Any religion that requires its members to kill in the name of that religion is not a religion as we understand it in the West and should not be given status as a religion. It is in effect a criminal organization masquerading as a religion. Why is that so hard to understand?
World leaders' Rio accord is epic failure, says Greenpeace
NEGOTIATORS in Rio de Janeiro have claimed success after finalising a statement to be issued by more than 100 world leaders who arrive in the Brazilian city over the next few days.
But many observers said the "success" at the United Nations conference was possible only after the agreement was watered down so far it became meaningless. "Rio has turned into an epic failure..”….Mr Naidoo said Greenpeace would have to give up on international negotiations and move to a campaign of civil disobedience to try to overcome the state parochialism that was stopping any progress in multilateral talks to address environmental problems.
Senate kills effort to block EPA regulations on coal-powered plants
Legislation to defeat an EPA emissions rule that critics say would kill thousands of jobs and raise electricity rates for consumers was killed in the Senate Wednesday. A handful of Republicans sided with Democrats to block the measure on a procedural vote of 46 yeas to 53 nays, including Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and Susan Collins and Olympia Snow of Maine. Democrats who crossed over to vote with Republicans included Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Warner and Jim Webb of Virginia.
Regulating Political Speech
John Stossel
It's presidential season, so again pundits are indignant that money is spent on politics. Spent by corporations! And rich people! Because the Supreme Court allowed that, "2012 will be a miserable year," says The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne.....2012 may be miserable -- but if it is, it won't be because corporations spend on politics. And anyway, they have a right to spend. In politics, money is speech. The very first amendment that the Founders chose to add to the Constitution couldn't be more clear: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech ... ."Yet most people support laws against political speech -- when they don't like the speakers……It is shameful that leftists let their hatred of corporations lead them to throw free speech under the bus. There is a smarter way to get corporate money out of politics: Shrink the state. If government has fewer favors to sell, citizens will spend less money trying to win them.
$11 Billion in Green Grants Produces Few Jobs, House Report Says
By Fred Lucas
An Obama administration green jobs grant program that spent $11 billion lacks a verifiable job-counting system and likely created only a fraction of the jobs it claims, according to a staff report by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
How Obama Bureaucrats Fueled Western Wildfires
By Michelle Malkin
The Obama administration's neglect of the federal government's aerial tanker fleet raises acrid questions about its core public safety priorities. Bipartisan complaints goaded the White House into signing a Band-Aid fix last week. But it smacks more of election-year gesture politics: Too little, too late, too fake……Imagine if Obama's Forest Service had been a private company. White House eco-radicals would be rushing to place their "boots on the necks" of the bureaucrats who made the fateful decision to put an experienced aerial tanker firm out of business as wildfires raged and the available rescue fleet shrunk…..Where there's smoke swirling over Team Obama there are usually flames of incompetence, cronyism and ideological zealotry at the source. The ultimate rescue mission? Evacuating Obama's wrecking crew from the White House permanently. November can't come soon enough.
Racial Double Standards
Walter E. Williams
Back in 2009, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said we were "a nation of cowards" on matters of race. Permit me to be brave and run a few assertions by you just to see whether we're on the same page. There should be two standards for civilized conduct: one for whites, which is higher, and another for blacks, which is lower. In other words, in the name of justice and fair play, blacks should not be held accountable to the same standards that whites are and should not be criticized for conduct that we'd deem disgusting and racist if said or done by whites………..
Similar episodes of unprovoked violence by black thugs against white people…..have occurred in Philadelphia, New York, Denver, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, Los Angeles and other cities. Most of the time, the race of the attackers, euphemistically called flash mobs, is not reported, even though media leftists and their allies are experts in reporting racial disparities in prison sentencing and the alleged injustice of the criminal justice system.
Racial double standards are not restricted to the political arena and crime reporting; we see it on college campuses and in the workplace. Black people ought to be offended by the idea that we are held accountable to lower standards of conduct and achievement. White people ought to be ashamed for permitting and fostering racial double standards that have effects that are in some ways worse than the cruel racism of yesteryear.
Four teens, 20-year-old charged in connection with delivery driver's murder
Five people, including four teens, are charged in connection with the murder of a Chinese restaurant delivery driver in Wilmington. Zhen Bo Liu, 60, was found dead in a car near 13th and Queen Streets June 14. He was on duty when he was killed. I spoke with a few of Liu's coworkers at the China King on S. 17th St., who were rocked by their friend's cold-blooded murder. The restaurant has stopped delivering because of it.
Police say Liu was shot and killed over a $48 meal.
My Take - When I saw the headline on one of the other sites I visit I wondered if they were black. If the article didn’t have these kids pictures on it you would have never know this was a black (group killing) on non-black crime. Should it matter? Since the media plays the game in the other direction so hard….yes it does matter; especially since the numbers are so out of balance, and the crimes are so serious!
The media is a corrupt leftist mouth piece. At least under Stalin in the old Soviet Union they had an excuse.... it was mandatory on pain of…..well….you can guess. It is a voluntary and conscious decision on the part of the main stream media (which is getting smaller all the time, and for good reason) to wallow in the corrupt thinking of leftism.
It's hard to believe that so many with so many information sources at their disposal are so incredibly stupid. Being ignorant is universal. It merely means that we don't know; and since there is so much information on so many subjects we are all ignorant of more things than we can imagine. That's normal. However, when we refuse to become aware that is no longer ignorance; it's stupidity....and in this case the media is stupid by choice!
Islamic Taliban Guns Down Popular Female Singer in Pakistan
A popular female singing icon has been gunned down in Pakistan and the Taliban may be to blame, but don't worry, the country isn't harboring terrorists. Well-known Pashto singer Ghazala Javed and her father were shot and killed by unidentified men in Peshawar city of northwest Pakistan, police said. The men fired indiscriminately at Javed and her father Mohammad Javed while she was leaving a beauty parlour at the busy Mohallah Nau in Dabgari Bazar last night, the singer's relatives told police. In recent years, several singers and musicians in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province have been gunned down by the local Taliban, who have declared music "un-Islamic"……Religion of peace, right? She was either murdered by Islamists for daring to embrace western culture or killed by her husband for getting away from him.
Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood is leading riots in Egypt again.
Pipeline Death By a Thousand Studies
By Phil Kerpen
There has never been a more "shovel ready" project in history than the Keystone XL pipeline, which has been exhaustively engineered, studied, reviewed, and re-reviewed as Obama tries to kill the project without admitting that's what he's doing. At stake are about 20,000 immediate jobs, a secure supply of North American oil, billions in private investment, and the global efficiency benefits of connecting a major crude source to the world's most efficient refining center. The latest news is that rather than simply say "yes," Obama is conducting yet another open-ended study.
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