Eco Scammers
https://www.examiner.com/x-1449-Dallas-Libertarian-Examiner~y2009m2d17-environmentalists-vs-ecoscammers
Environmentalists vs. eco-scammers
Some people are truly concernedenvironmentalists. Some people are eco-scammers.
Let’s find out which youare, if either.
First there were those magnificent “green” light bulbs.You know, those long-lasting but more expensive CFL bulbs that will replace allordinary incandescent light bulbs through coercive government mandate. (TheEuropean Union has already banned them, causing libertarians to ask, “If they’reso incredibly good why do they have to be mandated?”)
They’reenvironmentally friendly, but only if you don’t drop one. If a bulb hits thedeck you have a mini toxic waste dump on your hands. And you get to inhale adose of mercury vapor if you don't immediately run, open all the windows andshut down your central forced air heating and cooling system.
Instead ofbroom and dustpan, cleanup Involves things like a glass jar with a metal lid,plastic bags, duct tape, wet wipes, possibly throwing clothing away and, in somestates, taking a trip to your local friendly neighborhood recyclingcenter.
Breaking a CFL bulb is an EPA event. In fact, the cleanup cluesabove came from the Environmental Protection Agency website.
Then there are wind farms, Dallas Billionaire T.Boone Pickens’ wet dream of millions upon millions of acres given over to rowupon row of gigantic wind turbines, subsidized by billions upon billions of ourtaxbucks. Unfortunately, they’re almost all located miles away from places thatneed the electricity (like, maybe, cities?) requiring mile upon mile of newtransmission lines, which lose power over distance. In reality, the generatorsproduce and the power lines deliver tiny fractions of the juice needed for morethan a third world existence. Politically connected rich people (like what’sleft of the Kennedy clan) love them but won’t allow them to be built in theirown backyards.
Makes one wonder how big of a backyard T. Boone has, andhow many more acres will be stolen from their owners by eminentdomain.
And all assurances aside, they still kill birds. How many birds,and whether it matters, depends on ideology rather than reality.Environmentalists protested in the 1970s after an oil spill off Santa Barbarathat killed less than 100 birds and got most of California’s offshore drillingshut down. Meanwhile, stats show that 10,000 to 40,000 birds are killed by windturbine blades every year.
The Green message seems to be clear: We hatebig oil for killing a handful of birds so we shut them down, but we love bigwind so let the killing continue. The fact that “other things” kill more birdsthan blower blades doesn’t change reality.
Now there’s the problem of“green” solar panels.
Solar power is the Arc of the Covenant of greenpower advocates. It’s clean, it’s natural, it’s environmentally friendly, it’srenewable, it’s heavily subsidized by our taxbucks, and it’s not bigoil.
But it is big on Nitrogen trifluoride.
NF3, as it’s known, isa chemical used for cleaning microcircuits during the manufacture of consumergoodies like flat-screen TVs, iPhones, computer chips and, oh by the way,thin-film solar panels.
Ten years ago it wasn’t considered dangerousenough to make the Kyoto Protocol hit list, so manufacturers concerned abouttheir green image have been using it like crazy. The EPA has actively encouragedits use. Now, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, say NF3 has apotential greenhouse impact “larger than even that of the world’s largestcoal-fired power plants.”
Another source described NF3 as “a gas that is17,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide in contributing to globalwarming.”
Oops.
So are these examples of environmentalism oreco-flimflamism? Fire up your facts and figures and stats and arguments andcounterarguments and “yeah, buts” and let the din of the spin begin. Everyonehas an opinion but few have the facts. Most people just keep recycling otherpeople's opinions of other people's opinions of other people'sopinions.
To most people, ideology means more than actual science when itcomes to environmentalism.