Russian Revolution: Move over Reds and Whites; Make room for the Greens?

Dmitry Besanovich credits his upset victory over the Vladimir Putin-backed candidate in the mayoral race in the Russian town of Mozhaisk to his green platform, according to a report in today’s Washington Post:

He attributed his victory to his promise to protect the natural ecology of this rural municipality, which he calls the “lungs of Moscow” because nearly half its territory is covered with forests. He campaigned on pledges to block construction along rivers and a major reservoir, clean up a polluting pig farm and promote agriculture and tourism instead of industry.

Here’s a description of Mohaisk from RussianJournal.com:

A resident advertises his cow for sale in the local newspaper. The only cafe in the village, still decorated in Soviet style, offers a three-course meal for $1.50. Only one out of every 600 people here has a computer.

According to a resident, people in the city live “without too much enjoyment; however, with some cautious hopes.”

Mozhaisk, only 100 km west of Russia’s capital and the oldest city in the Moscow Oblast, has simply been left in the dust, with only its crumbling ancient churches signifying that here once existed a dynamic town.

Before Perestroika, most of Mozhaisk’s residents were employed in agriculture. However, a lack of funds in the last decade has turned the fields fallow. The only source of jobs is in the local printing house and concrete factory, and a juice factory in Borodino. As the factories employ mainly men, unemployment is especially high among women…

The dark side of the ‘village’ feel is the lack of modern infrastructure and services. There is only one hotel in the city, which leaves a lot to be desired, and only one cafe. Despite the seeming hardships, many Muscovites rent houses in Mozhaisk to spend their summer vacations.

If you are traveling by car, beware of bad roads. According to local journalist Alexei Safronov, the city’s new administration, headed by Vlasimir Nasonov, has said improving road conditions is one of his top priorities. Some new asphalt has already been laid…

It apparently has not dawned on the citizens of Mozhaisk that they need economic development. If they don’t want to be mired in rural poverty under their new mayor, they may have to rely on Putin making Besanovich an offer he can’t refuse.

Wealthy to poor: Here’s your cardboard cooker

A cardboard box with foil and a plastic cover, positioned as a “solar-power cooker” (see YouTube video below) won the $75,000 first prize in the Hewlett-Packard-sponsored Financial Times Climate Change Challenge. The contest goal was “to find and publicize the most innovative and scalable solution to the effects of climate change.”

The apparent idea behind the so-called “Kyoto Box” is to reduce the burning of wood for cooking. The plan of inventor Jon Bohmer is to have Kyoto Boxes distributed to poor Africans courtesy of corporations that would earn carbon credits for distributing the boxes. Each box would earn Bohmer an estimated $26-40 annually.

Some thoughts:

  • How do you cook when the sun goes down? Or are Africans supposed to be tucked away in their beds by then wrapped in that other 21st century western “technology” offered by the greens — i.e., mosquito netting?
  • Why doesn’t HP sponsor a contest to figure out development projects that would enable poor Africans to obtain the money they need to obtain electricity, water & sewer, etc.?
  • Isn’t the Kyoto Box, at best, like putting a band-aid on a cancer lesion?
  • Isn’t it interesting how the purpose of the contest is to avert climate change rather than to help poor Africans lead a better life? if you’re a poor African, do you really care about atmospheric carbon dioxide and mean global temperatures 100 years from now?
  • How much climate change could possibly be caused by poor Africans cooking on wood fires in the first place?
  • Doesn’t it seem like the only true beneficiaries are Bohmer (who will profit obscenely by assembling some cardboard, plastic and foil) and the corporations who can earn carbon credits (while continuing to emit greenhouse gases) and score PR points.

Though many plan to profit by exploiting poor Africans, here’s the real math behind Bohmer’s cardboard cooker:

Kyoto Box = Moral bankruptcy + Intellectual bankruptcy

US Airlines: CO2 regulation not necessary

The Air Transport Association, the trade association for U.S. airline industry, told Carbon Control News this week that it didn’t “think that an emissions trading scheme is necessary.”

Instead of CO2 controls, the ATA said, policymakers should seek to modernize the government-run air traffic control system — which by some estimates could reduce airline fuel usage by around 10 percent — before penalizing the industry in the form of mandatory CO2 controls, according to Carbon Control News.

Obama climate plan: Blot out the sun

President Obama’s science advisor John Holdren has suggested that we consider blotting out sunlight to reduce global warming, according to an Associated Press report.

Holdren would shoot particles into the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays back into space– I sure hope plants and people don’t need those rays for say, photosynthesis or vitamin D production, respectively. And what would be the other unintended consequences?

Holdren, of course, is a people-hating population control fanatic, anyway, so perhaps he’s hoping to killing two birds (or half the population) with one stone.

Oh… and what about all those solar power projects Obama keeps talking about? Don’t they need as much sunlight as they can get?

So many questions, so few brain cells for Holdren to work with.

Climate bill greases way for green lawsuits

The recently introduced Waxman-Markey climate bill would make it easy for individuals to sue greenhouse gas emitters, including enabling plaintiffs to seek financial compensation, according to a report in Carbon Control News.

Click here to read the specific provisions of the Waxman-Markey climate bill that will allow the greens to harness the power of trial lawyers to make our lives miserable.

Click here to buy Steve Milloy’s new book Green Hell and learn how to fight back!

Green war against AC: ‘Deadly heat on elderly’

From the Herald Sun‘s Andrew Bolt:

The green jihad against airconditioners must stop. Too many elderly Australians have died already.

Victoria’s chief health officer, Dr John Carnie, this week said some 374 Victorians may have been killed by the January heat wave, most of them old.

In South Australia, the toll is estimated at 80.

Just how many died because power blackouts knocked out their airconditioning is not known. And I doubt either government will ever say.

But what we are told is that both states now have plans to cut off the airconditioning – or make it too costly for pensioners to use – just when the heat is at its most lethal and the lives of the elderly hang in the balance…

Barack Obama plans on installing 40 million air conditioning-killing smart meters across America. Will your utility turn off your AC just when you need it the most?

Read Steve Milloy’s new book Green Hell to find out how environmentalists plan to make your life a living hell and what you can do to stop them.

Orange Punch: ‘Green Hell, a heck of an insight’

Orange County Register editorial writer Mark Landsbaum writes at the Orange Punch blog:

We just received Steve Milloy’s new book, Green Hell, and it’s great…

Have you picked up your copy of Green Hell from Amazon.com or your favorite bookstore?

Green rent-seekers ‘see nirvana coming’

As reported in the April 2 Energy & Environment News article, “Wall Street sees ‘bucks to be made’ in House climate plan,” the folks that brought us Enron and credit default swaps are back:

NEW YORK — In the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, city officials and Wall Street executives are talking about turning the battered U.S. financial center into a global hub of green finance and environmental commodities trading.

The spark: draft energy and climate legislation unveiled by two senior House Democrats in Washington this week…

What stands out to many here is that the bill reflects the position on cap and trade for greenhouse gases outlined by the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a green coalition heavy on corporate membership.

“It’s very heavily influenced by that,” said Rubén Kraiem, a partner with the energy law practice Covington & Burling…

And money managers are lining up for the challenge…

Though unemployment is expected to continue to rise and the deep recession is seen lasting throughout 2009, analysts say the stock markets appear to be ending their wild swings and are bottoming out. Those who have cash on hand are looking to environmentally friendly asset plays for places to invest.

Some 97 green hedge funds are actively operating, and more are expected to enter the fray as economic conditions improve…

… One venture capital manager, ironically, compared the momentum to the start of the infamous dot-com push, noting that virtually all funds now take it for granted they need exposure to renewable energy and cleantech — regardless of how good the returns are.

“There are bucks to be made,” said Neal Dikeman, a founding partner of Jane Capital. “Huge playground.“…

“A lot of trading is going to reside here in New York,” said Peter Fusaro, chairman of Global Change Associates and organizer of the Green Trading Summit. “I can see nirvana coming.“…

“We’re here about the environment first and making money second,” Ertel said. “We have to be self-policing.“

Yeah, like that last quote will happen.

‘Useful Idiot’ of the Day

David Frum’s dubious attempt to “[build] a conservatism that can win again” features a piece from Washington, DC attorney John Murdock entitled “Global Warming: It’s true, get used to it.”

An earlier posting by Murdock reveals his basic thinking:

  • CO2 could do to Earth what it is doing on Venus;
  • Increases in CO2 and temperature are correlated; and
  • CO2 levels are higher today than they have been for thousands of years.

If this is the “the new conservatism under construction,” Murdock and Frum (who edits the NewMajority.com blog) are going to need hard hats.

Read Steve Milloy’s FoxNews.com column “Al Gore and Venus Envy” for a debunking of the Venus point and watch Steve Milloy’s award-winning YouTube video “Al Gore debates global warming” for a debunking of the other CO2 factoids.

Worse than his ignorance is Murdock’s cavalier dissing of columnist George Will, Chris Horner (author of Red Hot Lies), Weather Channel founder John Coleman and Steve Milloy (author of Green Hell).

For his clients’ sakes, I sure hope Murdock is better at lawyering than blogging about global warming.

Finally, conservatism doesn’t need to be rebuilt; it just needs to offer candidates that are actual and articulate conservatives — i.e., no Bushes and/or McCains need apply. Meantime, the greens will no doubt applaud the well-intentioned fools who call themselves “conservatives” while advancing the socialist cause in America.