Month: March 2009

Greens woo, but hurt blacks

The Wall Street Journal‘s Naomi Schaeffer Riley opines today about how the largely white-and-rich greens are trying to make themselves less so.

But, as Riley points out with our help, the greens really represent a threat to African Americans:

… It may be mere condescension to assume that racial minorities don’t understand what’s at stake in [the environmental debate] — that it is the outreach effort that is failing and not the message itself. It could well be that minorities understand all too well. “Environmentalism doesn’t appeal to minorities,” says Steven Milloy, the publisher of JunkScience.com, because “it doesn’t bring them anything.” He explains: “Environmentalists scare companies from building plants where people could use the jobs, and the plants go overseas instead.” In the late ’90s, for instance, the greens managed to run the Shintech company out of Convent, La., where it had planned to build a chemical plant that would have created more than 150 jobs. Though three-quarters of the black residents near the site wanted the facility, the company eventually backed out, tired of the harassment from the Clinton administration’s EPA.

Driving jobs away, particularly in today’s economy, is much more harmful to the health of racial minorities than any presumed “environmental” threat. As Mr. Milloy explains: “People who have jobs have health insurance and a higher standard of living.” As for what we might call “heat justice”: People with jobs also have more air-conditioning units, which can presumably prevent heat-related deaths.

As for the claim about asthma, Mr. Milloy notes that childhood asthma rates have climbed in the past three decades as our air has become considerably cleaner. Moreover, he notes that asthma is not triggered by chemical fumes, but by allergens, which are not produced by industrial plants.

Steve Milloy’s new book Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them spotlights how the greens are a menace to everyone — no matter what your skin color.

Maryland Steelworkers: Get New Leadership

The United Steelworkers are supporting a bill in Maryland to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, reports the Washington Post.

According to the Post, the greens bought the Steelworkers support with assurance that the bill,

… cannot cost manufacturing jobs, cannot “decrease the likelihood of . . . affordable electrical service” and must produce a net economic benefit for Maryland.

And they cannot require greenhouse gas reductions from the manufacturing sector, which produces between 4 and 7 percent of the state’s overall emissions.

Steelworker spokesman Jim Strong told the Post,

“We’re concerned about the environment. But as a labor organization, our primary concern is the jobs of our members.”

But if Strong was telling the truth — or knew enough to tell the truth — he would oppose the greens to the bitter end.

First, we all care about the environment — the greens don’t hold a monopoly on that. But greenhouse gas regulation has nothing to do with the environment. Greenhouse gas regulation will make no detectable difference to our environment.

Next, the greens care don’t for, or about, steel manufacturing or steel workers — except to the extent that blue-collar workers and their unions can serve as “useful idiots” who help achieve the green social and political agenda.

Sure the Maryland bill may not hurt manufacturing, but it will never really be implemented anyway — looming national legislation is the real threat. What the greens have accomplished is to lull Maryland steelworkers to sleep on the climate issue.

Greenhouse gas regulation can only hurt blue-collar workers. Maryland Steelworkers should unite to get rid of Jim Strong and anyone else in union leadership boneheaded enough to think that steel jobs can survive the green agenda.

Take action:

Contact United Steelworkers District 8 director, Ernest R. “Billy” Thompson, and tell him that if green wins, steelworkers lose:

USW District 8
85 C. Michael Davenport Blvd, Suite B
Frankfort, KY 40601
502-875-3332 – Telephone
502-875-2917 – FAX

You can also try to contact Jim Strong at:

Sub-District 1
8019 Corporate Drive, Suite H
Baltimore, MD 21236
Phone: 410-931-6900
Fax: 410-931-6904

Shareholders beat NRG on ‘Carbon Principles’

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ruled that nuclear power utility NRG Energy must allow shareholders to vote on a proposal to have the company justify its involvement with the so-called “Carbon Principles” –a green initiative to pressure banks not to finance coal-fired power plants.

The Free Enterprise Action Fund submitted the following proposal to NRG Energy on December 1, 2008:

Carbon Principles Report

Resolved: The shareholders request that the Company prepare by October 2009, at reasonable expense and omitting proprietary information, a Carbon Principles Report. The report should describe and discuss how the Company’s involvement with the Carbon Principles has impacted the environment.

Supporting Statement:

Coal is used to provide 50 percent of the U.S. electricity supply. The burning of coal by U.S. electricity utilities is clean and safe for the environment. Air emissions are regulated by states and the federal government. Since burning coal is the least expensive way to produce electricity, consumers and the U.S. economy benefit from comparatively low electricity rates.

The Company is an “industry advisor” to the so-called “Carbon Principles,” a voluntary bank lending policy stigmatizing and discriminating against coal-fired electricity based on the dubious assumption that carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal are causing global warming.

But in May 2008, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine released a petition signed by more than 31,000 U.S. scientists stating, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will cause in the future, catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate…”

India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change issued in June 2008 states, “No firm link between the documented [climate] changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic climate change has yet been established.”

Researchers belonging to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in the science journal Nature (May 1, 2008) that, after adjusting their climate model to reflect actual sea surface temperatures of the last 50 years, “global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade,” since natural climate variation will drive global climate.

Climate scientists reported in the December issue of the International Journal of Climatology, published by the UK’s Royal Meteorological Society, that observed temperature changes measured over the last 30 years don’t match well with temperatures predicted by the mathematical climate models relied on by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

A British judge ruled in October 2007 that Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” contained so many factual errors that a disclaimer was required to be shown to students before they viewed the film.

NRG asked the SEC asked for permission to exclude the proposal from its annual proxy statement — and thereby deny shareholders a chance to vote on the proposal — claiming that it had only a limited advisory role in the development of the Carbon Principles.

But the Fund countered that,

[The proposal] requests a report on how NRG’s involvement with the Carbon Principles has impacted the environment. NRG admits it helped draft the Carbon Principles. NRG now apparently wants to get away with claiming that, “All we did was draft the Carbon Principles. But we’re not involved with them.” This is disingenuous. Drafting rules for lenders to comply with renders NRG inseparable from the Carbon Principles’ process.

The SEC decided in favor of the Free Enterprise Action Fund — and the rest of NRG’s shareholders.

The upshot is that NRG shareholders will have the opportunity to vote on the proposal through proxy voting and at the NRG annual meeting.

Stay tuned for developments.

Video: Green slimes UK official; Walks away free

We reported on March 6 about a green protester assaulting a UK government official with green goo — and then walking away without being arrested.

Here is video of the crime-and-no-punishment-assault and an TV interview with its perpetrator.

Greens seek to shutdown coal plants

Moving on their success in slowing, if not halting the construction of new coal-fired power plants across the country, the green are setting their sights on existing plants.

Carbon Control News reported that a Sierra Club official told a March 14 meeting of the American Bar Association that,

“The next thing in the environmental community is how do we start shutting down old plants . . . and replace those with energy efficiency or renewable power… That’s where our efforts are focused now.”

“Old,” of course, is a euphemism for “existing.” A plant could have been built yesterday, but if it burns coal the greens want you to think it was built 50 years ago.

Carbon Control News further reported that,

[The Sierra Club official] said that he and other environmentalists plan to use a combination of strict emissions mandates to address air quality and climate change—such as new national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) and first-time rules on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions—to make traditional coal-fired electricity generating units (EGUs) “dinosaurs” that need to be shut down and replaced with energy efficiency and renewable energy generation.

The greens also plan to make coal waste disposal more difficult:

… environmentalists say the potential regulation of coal combustion waste (CCW) as a hazardous substance could also contribute to the activists’ overall effort to curtail the use of coal-generated power by making the business less profitable because of disposal costs.

Steve Milloy’s new book Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You CAn Do to Stop Them spotlights how the greens aren’t really interested in “clean energy.”

Senate seeks home appliance mandates

From the Competitive Enterprise Institute:

Congress Considers New Mandates on Consumers,
Appliances In Midst of Recession

Senate Seeks Costly New
Product Restrictions

Washington, D.C., March 19, 2009—In the midst of the current economic crisis, Congress is considering new mandates and restrictions on consumer appliances. The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources today is scheduled to hear testimony on a bill (the Appliance Standards Improvement Act of 2009) to impose more stringent energy efficiency standards.

“When Congress talks about ‘efficiency mandates’ and ‘saving consumers money’ in the same bill, it’s time for the public to run for the hills,” said Sam Kazman, General Counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “If new technologies will truly save consumers money, we don’t need Congress to mandate them. And when Congress does mandate them, it’s a good hint that those are lousy technologies.” In recent years there have been a number of appliance fiascos caused by higher efficiency standards, ranging from clothes washers that couldn’t wash to “high-efficiency” dishwashers that were anything but.

The bill, introduced by committee chair Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and ranking member Lisa Murkowski (R-Ark.) would expand the Department of Energy’s appliance standards program and the federal Energy Star program. It would also subject floor and table lamps to the upcoming ban on incandescent bulbs. Mr. Kazman stated: “The federal ban on incandescent bulbs is one of the most extreme examples of nit-picking government intrusion into every aspect of our daily lives.”

» Read more on President Obama’s proposed appliance efficiency mandates at OpenMarket.org.

» Read Sam Kazman in the American Spectator on light bulb mandates.

Greens take aim against oil shale

The U.S. is the “Saudi Arabia” of oil shale, a potentially huge domestic resource of oil. As current technologies for processing oi shale require substantial amounts of water, oil companies are naturally purchasing water rights in the West.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that the green group Western Resource Advocates has issued a report on the oil industry’s water rights acquisitions.

The aim of the report is to pit “Colorado communities, farmers, ranchers” against the oil industry in order to stymie oil shale development and American energy independence.

Steve Milloy’s new book Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them spotlights how the greens are trying to cause chaos in our energy and water supplies.

Starbucks CEO: Lobbying against his own earnings

The Wall Street Journal reported today that,

Starbucks Corp. Chief Executive Howard Schultz said the coffee chain would combat the notion that its drinks are expensive, as he outlined plans to weather an economic downturn.

Starbucks starting suffering when gas skyrocketed to a green-induced $4/gallon. The choice for consumers between gasoline and a $4 coffee was pretty easy to make. And where $4 gasoline left off, the global financial crisis picked up.

Starbucks investors might want to ask CEO Howard Schultz why he is lobbying for economy-harming global warming regulation, which could easily bring back $4+ gasoline, higher electricity prices and more — none of which is good for the $4 coffee business.

Take action:

E-mail Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and tell him to wake up and smell the coffee — mindless green will hurt his business.

Steve Milloy’s new book Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them spotlights how corporate CEOs are leading our country to green wreck-and-ruin.

EU energy chiefs: Taxpayer cash is king

Today’s Financial Times features a headline that reads,

Energy chiefs urge action on carbon

And what do you think that action might be? Reducing fossil fuel use? Increased wind power? What?

The FT reported,

The chief executives’ demands include the speedy release of subsidies for carbon capture and storage, incentives to build new grid connections…[Emphasis added]

As always in the case of rent-seekers, cash (from taxpayers) is king.

UN: ‘Global Green New Deal’

Reuters reports that the UN Environment Programme wants to levy an oil tax on developed nations of $5 per barrel to fund a “Global Green New Deal.”

According to Reuters,

“[The tax] would be almost, if not totally, unnoticed by the consumer,” [UNEP head Achim Steiner] said, especially since oil prices have fallen from more than $140 a barrel at mid-2008 peaks to about $40.

A barrel of oil contains 158 liters and OECD consumption is about 20 billion barrels a year, he said. “This is just one example, there may be many others,” of funding, he said.

“I am concerned about the prospect of a meaningful deal in Copenhagen if there is not a significant financial package on the table,” he said. Cash would encourage poor nations to step up actions to curb rising greenhouse gas emissions.”

Remember how the UN’s oil-for-food program worked out — for Saddam Hussein?

Imagine the UN klepto-crats with $750 billion (of our money) to spend.

Wells Fargo: Saving the planet or killing jobs?

Taking advantage of federal securities regulations that permit publicly-owned companies to transmit annual proxy statements to shareholders by e-mail rather than by mail, banking giant Wells Fargo stated in its preliminary 2008 proxy statement that,

Wells Fargo is also committed to promoting a clean environment and working towards a greener future. The SEC rule also allows us to reduce the environmental impact of printing and mailing hard copies of proxy materials to each stockholder. We printed 100,546,728 fewer pages of proxy materials for our 2008 annual meeting than we did for our 2007 annual meeting because we used the SEC’s notice and access rule. As a result, last year we saved the equivalent of at least:

  • 7,500 trees;
  • Greenhouse gas emissions of more than 250 cars driven for one year; and
  • Nearly 40 garbage trucks full of solid waste.

While the e-proxy may save Wells Fargo some money, its exaltation of its e-proxy’s green “benefits” is a bit unthinking, if not shortsighted:

  • Given that discarded proxy statements are only a small part of the waste stream, e-proxies won’t reduce garbage truck traffic or significantly increase landfill capacity. That’s good news for employees of garbage hauling companies and landfill operators./li>
  • Trees are a renewable resource. They are continually planted and harvested to make paper. Wells Fargo may have “saved” 7,500 trees, but how many jobs in the timber/paper industry will that cost? How many of those employees would have opened accounts at Wells Fargo?
  • Wells Fargo says it has saved the planet from the greenhouse gas emissions of 250 cars? Do you know how many cars Americans own? More than 250 million. Even if you buy into CO2 hysteria, trivial doesn’t begin describe the banks “achievement.”
  • And if we start applauding the removal of cars from the road, where will auto workers, gas station attendants, road workers, etc. work? Even Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm is starting to figure this one out.

Wells Fargo is going to need a healthy, growing and jobs-producing economy for the sake of its own prosperity.

People can’t live on green.