THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 242, December 12, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
CLIMATE MCCARTHYISM & ECO-INQUISITIONS:
Censoring News & Views to Advance Ideologies & Legislation
By Paul K. Driessen
POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM & GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISM VERSUS AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY &
ECONOMIC GROWTH: THE ENDEAVOR OF POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS & GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISTS TO
MUZZLE OPEN, ROBUST DEBATE ON VITAL PUBLIC POLICY ISSUES -- ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR OUR CONSTITUTIONAL
DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT & OUR ENERGY & ECONOMIC FUTURE -- THE NEED TO CHALLENGE THIS BLATANT
THREAT TO BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS & FREEDOMS & TO THE GENERAL WELFARE & INTERESTS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
FULL STORY:
Two centuries years ago, Voltaire proclaimed, “I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to
say it.” Today, our free speech traditions are under assault.
Colleges prohibit “offensive” or “politically incorrect” speech. Radical Islamists threaten to kill scholars, artists and even
popes who “disrespect” the Prophet. And, when we desperately need unfettered scientific debate, intolerant eco-activists
have ushered in an era of climate McCarthyism and eco-Inquisitions.
Al Gore seeks to muzzle anyone who raises inconvenient truths about climate alarmism. Greenpeace wants “climate
criminals” pilloried and silenced. Grist magazine wants “Nuremberg-style war crimes trials” for climate disaster
skeptics, followed by hanging, one assumes, since burning at the stake would release greenhouse gases.
Climate catastrophist Ross Gelbspan told a District of Columbia audience:
“Not only do journalists not have a responsibility to report
what skeptical scientists have to say about global warming.
They have a responsibility NOT to report what those
scientists say.”
Reuters, Time, 60 Minutes, and the Discovery Channel appear to have taken his views to heart.
UK alarmist George Monbiot says the airlines contribute to climate change – so “every time someone dies as a result of
floods in Bangladesh, an airline executive should be dragged out of his office and drowned.” (Were his standard applied to
environmental groups, their offices would be depopulated in days, since their continued opposition to DDT and other
insecticides causes the deaths of a million African children annually from malaria.)
During a congressional hearing, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer shamefully treated physician-scientist-author Michael Crichton like
a child molester, for suggesting that claims about climate chaos should be reviewed by double-blind studies and evidentiary
standards akin to what the Food and Drug Administration uses for new drugs. And on October 27, 2006, U.S. Senators
Olympia Snowe and Jay Rockefeller issued what the Wall Street Journal aptly called a “gag order” against
ExxonMobil. “Its message: Start toeing the Liberal Leftist Senators’ line on climate change, or else,” said the Wall Street
Journal.
The Catholic Church’s dogmatic Earth-centered-universe theology has been replaced by a far more intolerant Church of Gaia
catechism of cataclysm. But the problem goes well beyond that, well beyond constitutional rights and traditions of open,
robust debate being trampled by newspapers and politicians duty-bound to uphold them.
It is, above all, an unprecedented power grab by radical environmentalist activists, Liberal Leftist politicians, and Statist
bureaucrats -- people who want to be the final arbiters of every energy and economic decision, while forcing the reduction of
energy use and economic growth.
Yes, Earth’s climate is changing again, though far less than it has changed repeatedly throughout our planet’s history. Yes,
people are influencing our weather and climate, to some degree. But few scientists have joined astronomer James Hansen in
saying that humans have replaced the sun and other natural forces as the primary cause of climate change, that Climate
Armageddon is nigh, and that drastic action must be taken immediately.
Cataclysm theorists point to computer models. But models are not evidence. Neither are headlines, hype or Hollywood
special effects, nor are incessant claims that every storm, drought, heat wave, or cold snap is due to fossil fuels. Moreover,
even perfect compliance with the Kyoto Protocol would do virtually nothing to stop hypothetical human-induced climate
change. And the true costs of imposing Draconian emission control measures would be astronomical.
Carbon taxes, carbon caps, and greenhouse gas targets and timetables would send already high energy prices into the
stratosphere, raise the cost of every consumer product and service, reduce profits, impair productivity, stifle innovation,
and drive numerous jobs overseas, to countries where energy is still available and priced lower. Simply put, no juice – no
jobs.
In the coming decade, according to energy analysts, Colorado alone will need 5,000 megawatts of new electrical generation;
Texas, over 25,000; the USA, hundreds of thousands. Most will have to come from fossil fuels. Will policymakers enable or
prevent us from meeting these needs? Will they try to curtail the efforts of China and India to generate electricity and lift
their people out of poverty?
If it takes 13,000 wind turbines (on 105,000 California acres) to generate the electrical output of one 500-mW gas-fired power
plant, how many turbines will it take to produce 50,000 mW? How many scenic vistas will they despoil? How many birds and
bats will they kill?
If we emphasize intermittent, unreliable wind and solar power, will utility companies be reduced to promising they can ensure
12 hours of power a day, as we fire up assembly lines or head into surgery? If utilities have to sequester CO2 at $40-50 a ton,
will they follow Britain’s lead, and tell parents who can no longer afford to heat their homes adequately: just send your
children to bed with hats, mittens, sox – and bags of rice warmed in microwaves?
To reduce electricity demand, will Ebenezer Gore tell kids they can’t have Sony Playstations or computers? Will he begin with
his own grandchildren? Will he seek a ban on plasma televisions, which use five times the electricity of conventional TVs?
Will he stop flying all over the planet, to lecture lesser mortals about climate apocalypse?
Will the Senate Inquisitors – and fear-mongering Green organizations – now run their offices solely on whatever electricity
they can get from wind and solar power? What will they tell families of elderly folks who die in Summer heat waves, because
they can’t afford air conditioning, or because AC has been banned as “polluting and unnecessary”?
How much will California really preserve our environment by having its future electricity generated by power plants sited in
Montana, Idaho, Utah, and the Dakotas – and sent to Los Angeles via 2000-mile-long transmission lines – so that its
legislators can claim to have reduced Golden State carbon dioxide emissions?
How many Third World families will remain impoverished and threatened with death from lung and intestinal diseases,
because eco-imperialist agitators, politicians, and bureaucrats continue to pressure banks and companies not to build power
plants in poor countries?
These are just a few of the inconvenient questions and truths that alarmists want silenced. That’s why companies, legislators,
scientists, and citizens need to raise them, despite threats of repercussions.
Raising these issues – and defending open, robust, civil debate about them – is the essence of ethics, social responsibility,
citizenship, and now courage. Our forebears risked their lives to speak the truth. Surely we can risk a little public browbeating
from U.S. Senate neo-McCarthyites, Liberal Leftists and political environmentalists to ensure that our nation is not stampeded
into enacting state and federal laws that will be economically and ethically disastrous.
We do not face looming climate chaos. We have time to respond rationally and responsibly, evaluate competing claims,
demand real science and evidence, devise sensible laws and policies, and develop new energy generation technologies that
will meet growing demand for abundant, reliable, affordable electricity – while improving efficiency, reducing pollution, and
protecting the health and economic vitality of families, companies, and communities.
Let’s hope the march toward totalitarian government ends, wisdom prevails, and we again place our faith in American optimism,
creativity, innovation, and true social responsibility.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality, the Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow, and the
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Driessen is author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death, which can be
obtained at www.Eco-Imperialism.com. Email: pdriessen@cox.net --- Telephone:
(703) 698-6171
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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