THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 123, July 12, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
DESTROYING BIODIVERSITY: THE GREATEST THREAT TO SPECIES
IS NOT MODERN TECHNOLOGY, BUT ENVIRONMENTALISTS
By Paul K. Driessen
THE ADVERSE IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTALISTS & THEIR POLICIES ON HUMAN PROGRESS & PROSPERITY: HOW THE
POLICY AGENDA OF THE ENVIRONMENTALIST MOVEMENT WILL IMPAIR HUMAN HEALTH & ECONOMIC GROWTH --
ENVIRONMENTALISM, MISGUIDED ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES, & ANTI-TECHNOLOGY ZEALOTRY AS THE REAL THREATS TO
THE DIVERSITY OF SPECIES ON PLANET EARTH
FULL STORY:
The Soviet Union’s demise helped usher in man-made catastrophic global warming as the new “central organizing
principle of civilization.” Now, global warming is giving way to a growing recognition that: climate change is primarily
natural, cyclical and moderate; China, India, and other countries will not sacrifice CO2-generating economic growth to
prevent speculative climate crises; and carbon taxes strangle competitiveness, destroy jobs and send families into
fuel poverty.
Thus, while not recanting predictions of disastrous climate change, environmentalist activists and the United Nations
are already launching a new campaign. The real threat to the planet, they now assert, is the impact of modern energy
technologies and civilization on biodiversity. The case for saving species, they insist, is even “more powerful” than
the need to address climate change.
They seek to preserve biodiversity by controlling people’s energy use, economic activities, and population – through
new regulations and taxes under the auspices of the United Nations and global treaties. These efforts, they claim, will
generate benefits “worth $4.5 trillion per year” (based on questionable studies and computer models that underscore
the intrinsic value of species and biodiversity).
To accept these claims, one would have to ignore the sordid history of Climategate and the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – and believe a larger, more powerful United Nations will somehow ensure
honesty, transparency, and accountability for misfeasance, misrepresentation, intimidation, and adverse impacts on
people and economic growth. One would also have to ignore a growing body of evidence that the greatest threats to
the world’s species are misguided environmental and anti-technology policies.
Among the policies adversely impacting biodiversity are the following:
(1) Intense opposition to coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydroelectric plants for generating the electricity that two
billion people worldwide so desperately need.
Not only does this force people to rely on open fires for heating and cooking – perpetuating poverty, lung disease,
and premature death. It also destroys mountain gorilla and other wildlife habitats, as people cut trees for fires and
charcoal.
China and India are self-financing hundreds of power projects, to avoid conditions placed by wealthy countries on
World Bank and other international loans. But poor countries must still rely on such loans – and thus must run
gauntlets laid down by regulators and environmentalist activists who oppose critically needed power plants and the
economic growth and middle class living standards the plants generate.
(2) Steadfast promotion of expensive, unreliable wind and solar power.
Wind turbines slice up birds and collapse bat lungs. Wind turbines and solar arrays would have to cover millions of
acres to provide power for cities. They require ultra-long transmission lines and backup gas generators, and consume
millions of tons of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass, polymers, and rare earth (lanthanide) minerals – all of which
have to be extracted from the earth and processed into finished products, burning fossil fuels and generating mining
wastes and air and water pollution.
Con Ed had to generate some 13,500 megawatts to meet New York City’s air conditioning and other electricity needs
during the recent July heat wave. The 600-turbine Roscoe wind farm blankets 100,000 Texas acres to generate 780 MW
at full capacity. That means NYC would need a wind farm 1.6 times the size of Connecticut (5 million acres or 2 million
hectares), if the turbines are running at an average 30% of capacity. But during the heat wave, there’s barely a breeze.
Now multiply that habitat demand times the world’s biggest cities, and calculate the biodiversity impact. No wonder
the wind industry wants exemptions from endangered species rules and environmental impact studies that
hyper-regulate fossil fuel and nuclear companies. No wonder U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein has introduced legislation
to prohibit solar panel installations in the super-sunny Mojave Desert.
(3) Equally passionate advocacy for biofuels, especially ethanol.
Every 7 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol requires crops grown on an area the size of Indiana (23 million acres) –
and Congress now wants the U.S.A. to produce 20 billion gallons of EtOH annually by 2020. In addition to
expropriating vast crop land and wildlife habitat, ethanol production requires billions of gallons of water, millions of
tons of fertilizer and insecticides, and enormous quantities of natural gas and diesel fuel to power tractors, tanker
trucks and conversion plants – to distill a fuel that gets 20% fewer mpg than gasoline.
And yet, President Obama told a Ghanaian audience in July, 2009, that malnourished Africa should forego even
gas-fired electricity generators in favor of wind, solar, and biofuel power. The continent and its arid, nutrient-depleted
soils already cannot feed their populations adequately, and the U.S. President wants them to divert cropland and
wildlife habitats to biofuels. Meanwhile, environmentalists continue to --
(1) Oppose biotechnology, genetically engineered crops, and even hybrid seeds.
These specialized crops survive better during droughts, increase farm family incomes, improve nutrition, and reduce
the need for insecticides. They offer the best hope for growing more biofuel crops on less acreage.
The New York Times says we can ill afford “not to make the best use of genetic engineering.” If we “allow
propaganda to trump science, then the potential for global agriculture to be productive, diverse, and sustainable will
go unfulfilled.” The late Dr. Norman Borlaug warned that forcing the world to rely on organic and traditional farming
to feed even current populations would require plowing under nearly every remaining acre of forest and grassland
habitat. That’s without factoring in biofuels.
And yet, environmentalists and European Union bureaucrats threaten African nations with punitive boycotts if they
plant biotech crops. Radical Greens want Third World farmers to rely on “traditional” seeds and agricultural methods,
and oppose the use of seeds that have been “touched by corporations.”
(2) Oppose timber cutting and even tree thinning and mechanized fire suppression on vast acreage of U.S.
national forests.
Too often the result of following this policy advice of the environmentalists is fiery conflagrations that incinerate
trees, wildlife, soil and streams, causing extensive erosion and longterm habitat loss.
(3) Support the policies and decisions of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA’s recent endangerment decision, low-carbon fuel standards, and power plant emission rules will force even
greater expansion of wind, solar and biofuel use, further impacting habitats and biodiversity.
It is bad enough that “biodiversity stabilization” is a reprise of past government-environmentalist eco-scares. Like its
predecessors, the new program offers horrifying predictions of a dying planet – backed by little more than dubious
theories, assumptions, assertions and statistics, fed into fancy computer models that generate ominous scenarios and
graphics. It also proposes the same tired “solutions” – more taxes, regulations, and government control over lives,
energy development and economic growth.
The far greater problem is that the UN, the EPA, the mainstream media, and the Liberal Leftist political establishment
are ignoring the real threats to habitats, species, and biodiversity -- the anti-energy, anti-technology, anti-people
agenda of radical Green ideologues.
We now have an opportunity to make earth a better place for people and the natural world. We need to reject the
environmentalist agenda, demand sound science and solid evidence that a threat exists, and recognize that modern
technology actually offers the best hope for protecting the diversity of species.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and
author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity