THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 212, November 12, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
KANSAS RULES AGAINST ELECTRICITY
By Alan Caruba
POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS & GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISTS AT WORK IN THE STATE OF KANSAS:
IMPACTING UPON STATE PUBLIC POLICY & JEOPARDIZING THE ABILITY OF KANSAS TO MEET ITS GROWING ENERGY
NEEDS -- KANSAS STATE GOVERNMENT LEADERS, UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM &
ERRONEOUS NOTIONS OF HUMAN-INDUCED CLIMATE CHANGE & THE LONGTERM EFFECT OF CARBON DIOXIDE & OTHER
GREENHOUSE GASES IN THE ATMOSPHERE, REJECT A PROPOSAL TO BUILD TWO COAL-FIRED ELECTRIC POWER PLANTS IN
KANSAS
FULL STORY:
I wonder if the folks at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment think that electricity is made by fairies who live
in the garden or that an army of elves produce it?
On October 19, 2007, a Washington Post article was headlined: “Power Plant Rejected Over Carbon Dioxide for
First Time.” Let’s hope it is the last time, or those of us around the nation who depend on coal to produce over 50% of the
electricity we use are in big trouble.
Roderick L. Bremby, Secretary of the Kansas DHE and an anti-coal, anti-fossil fuels environmentalist ideologue, said, “it would be
irresponsible to ignore emerging information about the contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to
climate change and the potential harm to our environment and health if we do nothing.” So the KDHE killed a proposal by
Sunflower Electric Power, a rural electrical cooperative, to build a pair of big, 700-megawatt, coal-fired power plants in
Halcomb.
Someone needs to tell Secretary Bremby that greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere consist of 95% water vapor. Or
that not a single blade of wheat or corn would grow in Kansas, were it not for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Someone needs to tell Secretary Bremby and his fellow global warming simpletons that, between 1970 and 2004, the
population of the United States grew by 40%, its Gross Domestic Product by 18%, and electricity consumption by 115%.
During that same time period, the aggregate air pollution of the U.S.A. was cut in half, due to advances in pollution
control technologies.
The United States Department of Energy predicts that overall electricity demand will grow by 45% between now and 2030.
The power plants in question would have provided power to parts of Kansas and to eastern Colorado. Presumably,
electricity is needed by residents, industries and the farmers of Kansas, so where will it come from? To produce anywhere
near what the two plants would produce, Kansas would need border-to-border wind turbines or be entirely covered over
by solar collectors.
It happens that the U.S.A. has tons and tons of coal. When used to produce electricity, it costs half as much as using
natural gas. While the people in Kansas are using electricity, an estimated 1.6 billion people worldwide lack any access to
it. An estimated 2.4 billion still rely on biomass — wood, crop waste, and dung — for cooking and heating.
Meanwhile, despite fears that Kansas will tip the planet into an inferno of global warming, China is building a new
coal-burning plant every week. India is making similar plans to provide for its growing energy needs.
This is what happens when people responsible for making decisions like where the electricity comes from believe in fairy
tales that global warming is “a moral issue” and not one to be based on science. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius
(Democrat), in her State of the State address said:
“The question of where we get our energy is…no longer just an
economic issue, not solely an issue of national security. Quite
simply, we have a moral obligation to be good stewards of this
state.”
It is hard to believe that the leader of a state where agriculture is a major part of its economy would think that its farmers
and ranchers are disinterested in being good stewards of the land. It is even harder to believe that Governor Sebelius
thinks that a lot of businesses and industries in Kansas aren’t going to go somewhere else, if they cannot secure energy
at a reasonable cost.
On the other hand, in his book, The Late Great U.S.A., Jerome Corsi noted:
“... the Council of Kansas City voted on May 18, 2006, to name
the Mexican customs facility the ‘Kansas City Customs Port,’
despite the fact that it is actually a Mexican possession, staffed
by Mexican government customers officials. The $3 million
facility will be paid for by Kansas City taxpayers, not by the
Mexican government.”
You cannot invent stuff like this, just like you cannot believe that Kansas is more concerned about global warming than it
is about providing the electricity its people will need in the years ahead.
This is what happens when the Supreme Court of the United States rules that carbon dioxide, the most essential gas other
than oxygen to all life on earth, is a “pollutant.”
This is what happens when the lies behind the global warming myth become a reason to reject electrical generation at half
the cost of other forms of energy.
This is what happens when Kansas decides it’s more important to become a hub for the import of cheap goods produced
in places that pay their workers a pittance, while contributing far more CO2 than we do at the same time we are ceding
sovereign U.S. territory to Mexico!
At this rate, in Congress and in the various states and local communities around America, our economy is going to be
wrecked by the “environmentalists,” whose activities are as pernicious in their effects as were those of the Soviet
sympathizers of the last century, anti-American and anti-Western subversive elements considered “useful idiots” by
Vladimir I. Lenin.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Agriculture, the Economy, & Human Welfare:
Policy Issues Relating to Food Production
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba has a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.
Caruba’s new book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press.
© Alan Caruba 2007
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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