So It Has Come To This in England: The Green Gestapo

Pic Borrowed From Zipline

They're not billing this new greenie enforcement agency across the pond as the "Green Gestapo", but it sure does sound like it. Decked out in green jackets, the ability to barge in on private property, shaking down factories for their power readings, do they think these companies are akin to the Fratelli Brothers hideout or something? From The Times:

Decked out in green jackets, the enforcers will be able to demand access to company property, view power meters, call up electricity and gas bills and examine carbon-trading records for an estimated 6,000 British businesses. Ed Mitchell, head of business performance and regulation at the Environment Agency, said the squad would help to bring emissions under control. “Climate change and CO2 are the world’s biggest issues right now. The Carbon Reduction Commitment is one of the ways in which Britain is responding.”

The formation of the green police overcomes a psychological hurdle in the battle against climate change. Ministers have long recognised the need to have new categories of taxes and criminal offences for CO2 emissions, but fear a repetition of the fuel tax protests in 2000 when lorry drivers blockaded refineries.

This is just more evidence that environmentalism seeks to appease its own eco-guilt/juvenile emotions instead of actually improving society at large. Yes indeed, there is a need to improve emissions standards and air quality through engineering innovations and established science. But, for too long the environmental movement has been dominated by green-chic busybodies and politicians who make ridiculous promises of energy independence through solar panels and windmills to win elections. Nevermind the fact that countries have developed from subsistence farming and a generally lousy quality of life by exploiting fossil fuels. Countries rapidly modernizing like China and India need serious engineering solutions, not calls for more bike lanes and Al Gore bumper stickers.

Note: Wired had an interesting article last year about how environmentalism was too important to be left to the environmentalists and their bizarre cult of Gaia-worship.

Green Gestapo Blocks Green Energy on West Coast

Desolate Expanse of Land To Be Saved From Evil Solar Panels

Here's a few examples that highlight the problem with the modern environmental movement. They raise a ruckus about fossil fuel plants choking up their precious Gaia, and then when some savvy entrepreneurs want to construct alternative energy solutions, they shit all over them too. It wouldn't be such a problem if these Birkenstocked totalitarians didn't have the ability to hold up construction for years in the courts while they drag ass making environmental impact studies, but they do, and liberal politicians buy into this farce hook, line, and sinker.

The latest bit of anti-civilization extremism comes from California, where solar panel construction in the Mojave Desert is being held up because of some tortoises. I've been to the desert in California many times, and besides the occasional meth addict and abadoned mine, there's really not too much there. But that hasn't stopped Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) from blocking green energy production. From FOX:

Feinstein said Friday she intends to push legislation that would turn the land into a national monument, which would allow for existing uses to continue while preventing future development.

The Wildlands Conservancy orchestrated the government's purchase of the land between 1999-2004. It negotiated a discount sale from the real estate arm of the former Santa Fe and Southern Pacific Railroad and then contributed $40 million to help pay for the purchase. David Myers, the conservancy's executive director, said the solar projects would do great harm to the region's desert tortoise population.

"It would destroy the entire Mojave Desert ecosystem," said David Myers, executive director of The Wildlands Conservancy.

With wind turbine construction being blocked in Oregon because of threats to the "sage grouse" population and being blocked in Washington because "people don't like to look at them", it's becoming increasingly clear that hardline greenies want us to either live in the good ole' days of the stone age or just get wiped off the planet all together.

A rare moment of wisdom came from Gov. Schwarzenegger when he was quoted in the Fox article with:

"If we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave desert, I don't know where the hell we can put it," Schwarzenegger said at Yale University.

I would suggest to the Governor that they put some solar panels out in the old Nevada nuke testing sites, but there would probably be opposition from special interest groups about encroaching on the cannibalistic mutants that dwell in the area.

NYT Op-Ed Ecstatic That Obama Replacing God

Frank Rich has a strange editorial in NYT where he argues that Obama lifting the ban on federal funding stem cell research indicates the culture wars are over, because politicians and pundits had better things to talk about this week (like the economy sucking ass). He cites how Prohibition was one of the early culture wars crusades (which he tries to equate to today's Pro-Life crowd) and how Americans don't like the gubment intruding on their business since we have bigger things to worry about. Actually, Prohibition was primarily a Progressive reform in the 20s and the issue gained much prominence once women were given the right to vote (sorry ladies, but history isn't always convenient). But let's not split hairs here, because Mr. Rich might be onto something.

While the Bill O' Reilly wing of the GOP has been talking about cultural decay and unwed mothers for a long time (remember Dan Quayle and Murphy Brown?), but the Dems are not free from their own morality crusades. Taxing the bejeezus out of cigarettes for social engineering purposes, banning fast-food restruants, and seeking the elimination of ladies night in New Jersey because it was "discriminating" were all born out of lefty policy ideas. So really, the only difference between these culture warriors is whether the state or the church should tell individuals how to live their private lives. Frank Rich comes out for the state [NYT]:

The new American faith, Allen wrote, was the “secular religion of social consciousness.” It took the form of campaigns for economic and social justice — as exemplified by the New Deal and those movements that challenged it from both the left and the right. It’s too early in our crisis and too early in the new administration to know whether this decade will so closely replicate the 1930s, but so far Obama has far more moral authority than any religious leader in America with the possible exception of his sometime ally, the Rev. Rick Warren.

Welcome to the new religion, America.

Aliens on Other Worlds To Save us From Our Wretched Existence

It'll Be Like Plan 9 From Outer Space...Everyday!

Great news. For all of you folks who got wedgied in high school for reading a copy of the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy and praying that a UFO would take you away from this cruel world, cheer up! It seems that it's virtually statistically impossible to not have planets capable of sustaining life. From Live Science:

There are about ten thousand billion billion habitable planets in the observable universe, and some of these Earth-like worlds could be found by a mission set to launch early next month, a leading planet-formation theorist now speculates.

Alan Boss, astrophysicist at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C., and author of "The Crowded Universe" (Basic Books), published this month, came up with that rough number by estimating there is about one habitable planet around every sun-like star in the galaxy, of which there are about 10 billion, and multiplying that by the number of galaxies in the universe (about 100 billion).

This result is inexact of course, so give or take a power of ten or so, Boss said, which is standard for these types of estimates in astronomy.

"Based on what we already know, the universe is going to turn out to be chock full of habitable planets (i.e. Earth-like worlds), and therefore life is likely to be widespread," said Boss, who discussed these estimates with a group of reporters last weekend in Chicago at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Now if only NASA could get something into space without it getting blowed up, maybe we could accelerate civilization's destiny before we all end up killing each other.

Obama's Energy Secretary All About Fission

Here's a bit of good news for a soon to be unemployed Navy nuke guy like myself and a country that is in desperate need of an electrical infrastructure makeover. Obama's incoming energy secretary is a nuclear nerd. From Politico:

The Nobel Prize-winning physicist told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee during his confirmation hearing that he’d help streamline nuclear loan guarantees that would help the industry construct several new plants to produce low-emission energy and would push the Energy Department to examine options for recycling nuclear waste.

“I’m supportive of the fact that the nuclear industry should have to be part of energy mix in this century,” Chu said. “And recycling [nuclear waste] in the long term can be part of the solution.”

While counting on government subsidies is hardly a valid business model, if cap and trade were imposed or a gas tax, that some prominent conservatives are supporting, nuke power would be much more economically viable. Obama has hinted that he supports splittin' atoms before, but has waffled on what to do with nuke waste. I suggest dumping it at Al Gore's house..."for the children", or if his house unavailable going with the Yucca Mountain option. Either way it's good to see the administration at least paying lip service to new power plant / grid construction. However, expect most of the opposition to come from NIMBY types that expect all the benefits of living in modern civilization without any of the "eyesores".

Global Warming Score Cards and Boondoggles

Brought to You By the California Taxpayers

January 1st saw the implementation of California mandating all new vehicle sales having a "global warming score" sticker of 1-10, where 10 is a greeny self-righteous electric car driven by grown-up hippies and 1 is a gas guzzler driven by seal-clubbers/whale-harpooners. California already has strict vehicle emission standards through the process of smog check certification, so what this program hopes to achieve is unclear. But the state has an entire online eco-campaign dedicated to educating the public on how to "drive green". CO2 is a byproduct of the combustion of octane (gasoline), so a car that burns more gas to get from point A to point B would make an automobile "less" friendly to Gaia. That's a one-sentence summary of this entire wasteful government PR.

The California Resources Board defends their existence:

"This label will arm consumers with the information they need to choose a vehicle that saves gas, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and helps fight smog all at once," said ARB Chairman Mary Nichols. "Consumer choice is an especially powerful tool in our fight against climate change."

Real change in CO2 emission policy would be developing transit infrastructure which is woefully inadequate in Los Angeles, the second biggest city in America where traffic is a baffling ordeal. Instead, the state has chosen to waste money on a program that has negligible value while the state budget reaches a disastrous deficit and teeters on bankruptcy. No wonder California is fast becoming the "get packing" state for businesses.

American Thinker weighs in on this touchy-feely legislation as well.

A Government Cheese Kind of Christmas

Christmas in Michigan

Sorry for my AWOL status, as I've been hanging out with the fam in Michigan. I understand that due to the auto bailout there may be some animosity towards the Great Lakes state. So, you'll be glad to know that it is cold as fuck here with Antarctica-sized snow drifts, and I'm half-expecting some kind of yeti to come through the door looking for a human snack. And on that note, Subrookie sent an interesting article from some smart professor (ooo, Stanford) about "Global Cooling". From Seattle P-I:

"Global Warming is over, and Global Warming Theory has failed. There is no evidence that CO2 drives world temperatures or any consequent climate change," Imperial College London astrophysicist and long-range forecaster Piers Corbyn wrote British Members of Parliament on Oct. 28. "According to official data in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been colder than that year, yet CO2 has been rising rapidly." That evening, as the House of Commons debated legislation on so-called "global-warming," October snow fell in London for the first time since 1922.

I'm not really a global-warming denier, but when Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" is "Very Convenient" for government-subsidized special interest groups and extorting money from big business through carbon taxes, it can arouse suspicion. The politicization of global warming alarmism is nauseating, and the fact that the entire country is freezing its collective ass off just gives more reasons to get frustrated with global warming advocates who are high on rhetoric and low on science.