The Environmental Shakedown

[Zoom-boing]

Environmentalism is the new Socialism.

On the day Copenhagen opened, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed jurisdiction over the regulation of carbon emissions by declaring them an "endangerment" to human health.

Since we operate an overwhelmingly carbon-based economy, the EPA will be regulating practically everything. No institution that emits more than 250 tons of CO2 a year will fall outside EPA control. This means over a million building complexes, hospitals, plants, schools, businesses and similar enterprises. (The EPA proposes regulating emissions only above 25,000 tons, but it has no such authority.) Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life.

This naked assertion of vast executive power in the name of the environment is the perfect fulfillment of the prediction of Czech President (and economist) Vaclav Klaus that environmentalism is becoming the new socialism, i.e., the totemic ideal in the name of which government seizes the commanding heights of the economy and society.

Socialism having failed so spectacularly, the left was adrift until it struck upon a brilliant gambit: metamorphosis from red to green. The cultural elites went straight from the memorial service for socialism to the altar of the environment. The objective is the same: highly centralized power given to the best and the brightest, the new class of experts, managers and technocrats. This time, however, the alleged justification is not abolishing oppression and inequality but saving the planet.

Not everyone is pleased with the coming New Carbon-Free International Order. When the Obama administration signaled (in a gesture to Copenhagen) a U.S. commitment to major cuts in carbon emissions, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb wrote the president protesting that he lacks the authority to do so unilaterally. That requires congressional concurrence by legislation or treaty.

With the Senate blocking President Obama's cap-and-trade carbon legislation, the EPA coup d'etat served as the administration's loud response to Webb: The hell we can't. With this EPA "endangerment" finding, we can do as we wish with carbon. Either the Senate passes cap-and-trade, or the EPA will impose even more draconian measures: all cap, no trade.

Forget for a moment the economic effects of severe carbon chastity. There's the matter of constitutional decency. If you want to revolutionize society -- as will drastic carbon regulation and taxation in an energy economy that is 85 percent carbon-based -- you do it through Congress reflecting popular will. Not by administrative fiat of EPA bureaucrats.

Congress should not just resist this executive overreaching, but trump it: Amend existing clean air laws and restore their original intent by excluding CO2 from EPA control and reserving that power for Congress and future legislation.

Do it now. Do it soon. Because Big Brother isn't lurking in CIA cloak. He's knocking on your door, smiling under an EPA cap.

RealClearPolitics - The Environmental Shakedown

 

[PoliticalChic]

Environmentalism is the new Socialism.

On the day Copenhagen opened, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed jurisdiction over the regulation of carbon emissions by declaring them an "endangerment" to human health.

Since we operate an overwhelmingly carbon-based economy, the EPA will be regulating practically everything. No institution that emits more than 250 tons of CO2 a year will fall outside EPA control. This means over a million building complexes, hospitals, plants, schools, businesses and similar enterprises. (The EPA proposes regulating emissions only above 25,000 tons, but it has no such authority.) Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life.

This naked assertion of vast executive power in the name of the environment is the perfect fulfillment of the prediction of Czech President (and economist) Vaclav Klaus that environmentalism is becoming the new socialism, i.e., the totemic ideal in the name of which government seizes the commanding heights of the economy and society.

Socialism having failed so spectacularly, the left was adrift until it struck upon a brilliant gambit: metamorphosis from red to green. The cultural elites went straight from the memorial service for socialism to the altar of the environment. The objective is the same: highly centralized power given to the best and the brightest, the new class of experts, managers and technocrats. This time, however, the alleged justification is not abolishing oppression and inequality but saving the planet.

Not everyone is pleased with the coming New Carbon-Free International Order. When the Obama administration signaled (in a gesture to Copenhagen) a U.S. commitment to major cuts in carbon emissions, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb wrote the president protesting that he lacks the authority to do so unilaterally. That requires congressional concurrence by legislation or treaty.

With the Senate blocking President Obama's cap-and-trade carbon legislation, the EPA coup d'etat served as the administration's loud response to Webb: The hell we can't. With this EPA "endangerment" finding, we can do as we wish with carbon. Either the Senate passes cap-and-trade, or the EPA will impose even more draconian measures: all cap, no trade.

Forget for a moment the economic effects of severe carbon chastity. There's the matter of constitutional decency. If you want to revolutionize society -- as will drastic carbon regulation and taxation in an energy economy that is 85 percent carbon-based -- you do it through Congress reflecting popular will. Not by administrative fiat of EPA bureaucrats.

Congress should not just resist this executive overreaching, but trump it: Amend existing clean air laws and restore their original intent by excluding CO2 from EPA control and reserving that power for Congress and future legislation.

Do it now. Do it soon. Because Big Brother isn't lurking in CIA cloak. He's knocking on your door, smiling under an EPA cap.

RealClearPolitics - The Environmental Shakedown

This is an expansive description of the "Watermelon Effect."

The “Watermelon Effect,” it is made up of the ‘green’ pro-environment policies on the outside, hiding the red Marxist redistributive policies on the inside.


"The Bay Area's Van Jones was a visionary, early recognizing the social justice potential in the green economy. Jones, you may recall, was hounded out of his job as environmental adviser to the White House by conservative talk show host Glenn Beck. Jones is the founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland. In June, the Oakland Green Job Corps, launched by the Ella Baker Center and the Oakland Apollo Alliance, graduated its first class of students, previously handicapped by inadequate education or prison records.


One of the lessons learned by the job corps organizers is the importance of flexibility. Recognizing the limited number of solar energy jobs, they shifted the program's focus to energy efficiency. But they expect the federal Recovery Act's $500 million allocation for green jobs to kick-start solar and other green construction projects."

Read more: Green jobs help climate, boost social justice


BTW, have you seen what the push for 'green jobs' has done to the economy in Spain?
19% unemployment.

Read more: Green jobs help climate, boost social justice

 

[uscitizen]

Is it socialist or conservative to want to preserve our planet for future generations?

Environmentalists are true conservatives. Not like those that just call themselves conservatives. But only think of it in a monetary or social sense.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Is it socialist or conservative to want to preserve our planet for future generations?

Environmentalists are true conservatives. Not like those that just call themselves conservatives. But only think of it in a monetary or social sense.

More often than not there are unspoken assumptions in a position or argument.

In your case, you are overlooking, probably unintentionally, the possibility that man has an almost negligible effect on either damaging the planet as a whole, as is the assumption of your argument, or in changing it for the better.

The forces of nature are huge in comparison.

Consider, if you will, this possibility, and then consider the draconian 'solutions' that have been proposed by real 'environmentalists.'

Now, add to the mix the further possibility that the 'environmentalists' are being used by the far left.

If you are unable conceive of these possibilities, you will see why those on your side are viewed by my side as mere children who can type.


BTW, how did you like that Jimmy Higdon deal?

 

[Bern80]

Is it socialist or conservative to want to preserve our planet for future generations?

Environmentalists are true conservatives. Not like those that just call themselves conservatives. But only think of it in a monetary or social sense.

And the problem with environmentalists is that they only think about things in the green sense. They don't consider things like cost efficiency (I really hope you have at least learned what happens to economies when you subsidize the shit out of things), whether or not they will lower people's living standards, etc.

When an alternative form of energy is the best choice from ALL perspecitives; efficiency, cost, AND environmentally friendly then we will switch. It's that simple.

 

[Oddball]

Is it socialist or conservative to want to preserve our planet for future generations?

No...It's just arrogant.

Environmentalists are true conservatives. Not like those that just call themselves conservatives. But only think of it in a monetary or social sense.

Environmentalists are dictatorial collectivist authoritarians....Period.

 

[Sinatra]

Is it socialist or conservative to want to preserve our planet for future generations?

Environmentalists are true conservatives. Not like those that just call themselves conservatives. But only think of it in a monetary or social sense.

And the problem with environmentalists is that they only think about things in the green sense. They don't consider things like cost efficiency (I really hope you have at least learned what happens to economies when you subsidize the shit out of things), whether or not they will lower people's living standards, etc.

When an alternative form of energy is the best choice from ALL perspecitives; efficiency, cost, AND environmentally friendly then we will switch. It's that simple.

The extremist environmentalists don't see humankind as a natural component of the environment - that everything we do is somehow "unnatural". This is of course absurd and based in some deeply rooted self-loathing that is a common thread among many hard-core environmentalists - and religious zealots, of which environmentalism is akin to.

One need look no further than this example...


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLzhueLb47Q[/ame]