Tag Archives: Topic: Environmentalism

The Heritage Foundation Foundry Blog:  ”The front page of USA Today claims: ‘President Obama’s attempt to use the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to help propel comprehensive energy legislation has failed.’ Don’t believe it for a second. On Monday the Obama administration reissued a ban on offshore oil drilling in the gulf after federal courts twice invalidated the first ban, calling it “arbitrary and capricious.” The new ban is, if anything, more restrictive than the first, thus guaranteeing even more job losses for the already devastated Gulf region. Meanwhile, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is set to introduce a bill . . . ”

Holmes Rolston III, Saving Creation: Faith Shaping Environmental Policy, 4 Harvard Law & Policy Review 121-148 (2010)

How Appealing links to several reports and the ruling in Hornbeck Offshore Services, L.L.C v. Salazar, No. 10-30585 (5th Cir. July 8, 2010)

Heritage Foundation | The Foundry: “The Heritage Foundation has offered a great deal of research and analysis related to the current crisis. It can be found indexed here. Starting today, we will also highlight the top actions the federal government must take immediately to assist the citizens of the Gulf as they cope with this tragedy. As the government responds or acts on these actions, we will directly update this post online to reflect the news and add new actions as we deem appropriate.”

NY Times: “In contrast to the Obama vision, the plan here preserves a central role for coal — the dirtiest fossil fuel in terms of emissions of greenhouse gases, but a resource that China has in abundance. And while Mr. Obama voiced goals of addressing climate change and improving national security at the same time, the discussions in China have been focused almost entirely on security issues, people inside and outside the government said . . . ”

Daily Mail: “Prince Charles yesterday urged the world to follow Islamic ‘spiritual principles’ in order to protect the environment.
In an hour-long speech, the heir to the throne argued that man’s destruction of the world was contrary to the scriptures of all religions – but particularly those of Islam.”

New York Times: “[F]armers like Mr. Stoltzfus are facing growing scrutiny for agricultural practices that the federal government sees as environmentally destructive. Their cows generate heaps of manure that easily washes into streams and flows onward into the Chesapeake Bay. And the Environmental Protection Agency, charged by President Obama with restoring the bay to health, is determined to crack down. The farmers have a choice: change the way they farm or face stiff penalties.”

The Hill: “Democratic leaders are scrambling to prevent the Senate from delivering a stinging slap to President Barack Obama on climate change.”

The Hill: “‘I intend to vote for Senator Murkowski’s Resolution of Disapproval because I believe we must send a strong message that the fate of West Virginia’s economy, our manufacturing industries, and our workers should not be solely in the hands of EPA,’ Rockefeller said in a statement.”

FRC Washington Update: “When it was obvious that Congress didn’t have the votes to move the cap-and-trade bill, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) moved on to Plan B: bypassing the House and Senate altogether. Instead of waiting on Congress, agency officials decided on the next best thing–imposing the emission rules without any input from Capitol Hill.”

Times Online: “The measure, unveiled as BP began a new attempt to contain the ruptured well that has leaked millions of gallons of crude oil into America’s southern coastal waters, would put an extra $500 million (£340 million) over ten years into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which covers damage caused by such disasters.”

Washington Post: “The White House vowed Friday that no expansion of offshore oil drilling will take place until investigations are completed into a rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, which is sending thousands of gallons of crude oil lapping toward Louisiana’s shores.”

Heritage Foundation, The Foundry: “In fact, if anything, the policies announced by President Obama yesterday will actually decrease and delay future U.S. oil production. The President actually canceled four lease sales off the Alaska coast that were planned to begin producing oil within the next two years, delayed a planned lease off Virginia until at least 2012, and placed some areas off limits for at least seven years. Go back and look at President Obama’s actual announcement again: he only promised new exploration off the Atlantic coast. There is absolutely no guarantee that any new drilling will ever occur. Secretary Ken Salazar’s Interior Department still has full discretion to never allow a single drop of oil to be harvested from these waters. And that doesn’t even begin to address the court challenges the enviro-left will employ to attack and delay the entire process.”

NY Times: “Critics of the teaching of evolution in the nation’s classrooms are gaining ground in some states by linking the issue to global warming, arguing that dissenting views on both scientific subjects should be taught in public schools . . . ”

Telegraph: “Prof Jones stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s climate change unit in December after leaked emails appeared to show academics were manipulating data to bolster claims that global warming is caused by humans. Now the academic has admitted he may have lost track of some of the data used to produce the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph, which uses climate readings from worldwide weather stations to show a sharp rise in global temperatures.”

Talking Points Memo carries the video and reports: “The Virginia Republican Party is out with a whopper Web video today mocking the incoming massive snowstorm as ‘global warming.’”

Vancouver Sun: “Call it the mystery of the missing thermometers. Two months after ‘climategate’ cast doubt on some of the science behind global warming, new questions are being raised about the reliability of a key temperature database, used by the United Nations and climate change scientists as proof of recent planetary warming.”

Wesley J, Smith writing at National Review Online: “As we come to the end of the first tenth of the 21st century, pundits are making lists about the decade just past: the biggest stories, the worst movies. In that spirit, here’s a list of the top ten stories in bioethics. This isn’t an idle exercise. Bioethics matters. The field exerts tremendous influence over the most important questions of public policy and moral values: How should we treat the most vulnerable and dependent among us? What makes us human? Indeed, is it even morally relevant that one is human? Trends in bioethics, thus, illuminate where we are as a society and the nature of the culture we are creating for our progeny.”

AZ Capitol Times: “Gov. Jan Brewer issued an executive order Jan. 5 that aims to continue Arizona’s participation in a multi-state agreement to reduce greenhouse gas and carbon emissions.”

Western Climate Initiative: “The centerpiece of the WCI strategy is a regional cap-and-trade program. The WCI released the design of its program on September 23, 2008. When fully implemented in 2015, this comprehensive program will cover nearly 90 percent of the GHG emissions in WCI states and provinces . . . ”

Law.com: “Three important court rulings have been handed down in recent weeks regarding claims for harm alleged to have resulted from “climate change” caused by private companies’ carbon emissions. Two of those decisions, by federal courts of appeal, found that such actions may proceed, while the third, by a lower federal court, ordered such a lawsuit dismissed.”

National Post: “The Christian tradition has a rather different view about whether producing ‘non-persons’ is the proper means to exercise our obligation to care for creation.”

Breitbart carries the video which runs 1:28 minutes.

Zenit: “The Copenhagen climate summit has brought with it an outpouring of opinions on environmental issues. Among these is a disturbing return to the Malthusian position of seeing population control as the solution to the world’s problems.”

Charles Krauthammer writing in the Washington Post: 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.

WorldNetDaily: “A Mumbai-based Indian multinational conglomerate with business ties to Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman since 2002 of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, stands to make several hundred million dollars in European Union carbon credits simply by closing a steel production facility in Britain with the loss of 1,700 jobs.”

“China has proven that birth restriction is smart policy. Its middle class grows, all its citizens have housing, health care, education and food, and the one out of five human beings who live there are not overpopulating the planet. For those who balk at the notion that governments shou

“. . . the population issue has remained a blind spot when countries discuss ways to mitigate climate change and slow down global warming, according to Zhao Baige, vice-minister of National Population and Family Planning Commission of China (NPFPC) .”

The Hill: “A political scuffle has broken out about which lawmakers will be allowed to go to Copenhagen, Demark, on a congressional delegation led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) . . . “It’s really a question of whether they are excluding someone who has a different opinion than ‘Isn’t this wonderful?,’” Issa said, noting that there is still a possibility that he would be allowed on the trip. Around 20 House members are expected to be on the codel.”

Fox News: “The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn’t move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a ‘command-and-control’ role over the process in way that could hurt business.”

AP: “The EPA will announced its findings at a news conference Monday. The announcement is timed to boost the Obama administration’s arguments at an international climate conference . . . ”

“But Christmas is a religious holiday that has no place at a United Nations function, according to the Foreign Ministry’s Svend Olling . . . ”

AP: “Australia’s plans for an emissions trading system to combat global warming were scuttled Wednesday in Parliament, handing a defeat to a government that had hoped to set an example at international climate change talks next week . . . ”

The Guardian: “There is ‘virtually no possibility’ of a few scientists biasing the advice given to governments by the UN’s top global warming body, its chair said today. Rajendra Pachauri defended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”

James Taranto writes at the NY Times:  ”And it hardly needs to be said that peer review is a sham if papers that present alternative hypotheses are not even allowed into the process . . . What we now know about the ‘peer review’ process in this field indicates that this is a predetermined conclusion.”

US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works: “Specifically, I will discuss the systematic and documented abuse of the scientific process by an international body that claims it provides the most complete and objective scientific assessment in the world on the subject of climate change – the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.”

HotAir.com: “Controversy has exploded onto the Internet after a major global-warming advocacy center in the UK had its e-mail system hacked and the data published on line . . . those e-mails expose a conspiracy to hide detrimental information from the public that argues against global warming . . . ”

AP: “The battle against global warming could be helped if the world slowed population growth by making free condoms and family planning advice more widely available, the U.N. Population Fund said Wednesday.”

BBC News: “His solicitor, Shah Qureshi, said: ‘Essentially what the judgment says is that a belief in man-made climate change and the alleged resulting moral imperative is capable of being a philosophical belief and is therefore protected by the 2003 religion or belief regulations.’”

Alex Renton writes at the Guardian: “The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children. If they behave as the average person in the rich world does now, they will emit some 11 tonnes of CO² every year of their lives. In their turn, they are likely to have more carbon-emitting children who will make an even bigger mess. If Britain is to meet the government’s target of an 80% reduction in our emissions by 2050, we need to start reversing our rising rate of population growth immediately.”

The Guardian: “The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children. If they behave as the average person in the rich world does now, they will emit some 11 tonnes of CO² every year of their lives. In their turn, they are likely to have more carbon-emitting children who will make an even bigger mess. If Britain is to meet the government’s target of an 80% reduction in our emissions by 2050, we need to start reversing our rising rate of population growth immediately.”

Minnesota Free Market Institute: “Last week, climate skeptic Lord Christopher Monckton spoke to an audience of over 700 in St. Paul. The event also featured the national premiere of a new documentary from the Cascade Policy Institute titled ‘Climate Chains.’”

CNSNews: “Andrew Revkin, who reports on environmental issues for The New York Times, floated an idea last week for combating global warming: Give carbon credits to couples that limit themselves to having one child.”

CNSNews: “Climate change must become our highest priority,” a fact sheet attached to the plan said. “Consequently, we will deploy our resources, creativity and energy in a long-term campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and safeguard fish, wildlife and their habitats.”

Reuters: “The U.S. ‘Religious Left’ — which has been active at the grassroots level to support President Barack Obama’s drive for health care reform – has now launched a campaign in support his other major domestic initiative: climate change legislation.”

WSJ: “How else to explain the coordinated release on Wednesday of the EPA’s new rules that make carbon a dangerous pollutant and John Kerry’s cap-and-trade bill? Ms. Jackson is issuing a political ultimatum to business, as well as to Midwestern and rural Democrats: Support the Kerry-Obama climate tax agenda—or we’ll punish your utilities and consumers without your vote.”

ABA Journal: “The ruling by the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said there was no need for the courts to defer to Congress, the New York Law Journal reports. A trial judge had found the nuisance suit …

Voice of America: “U.S. President Barack Obama says inaction on climate change could leave future generations with an ‘irreversible catastrophe.’ Mr. Obama called on global leaders Tuesday to move ‘boldly, swiftly, and together’ to combat the problem.”

“Giving contraceptives to people in developing countries could help fight climate change by slowing population growth, experts said Friday.”

Telegraph: “Contraception is almost five times cheaper as a means of preventing climate change than conventional green technologies, according to research by the London School of Economics.”

Reuters: “United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on world leaders on Monday to take urgent action to combat climate change for the sake of ‘the future of humanity.’”

Jillian Bandes writes at Townhall: “What’s the best way to save the planet? Don’t have kids, say researchers from Oregon State University. ‘Clearly, the potential savings from reduced reproduction are huge compared to the savings that can be achieved by changes in lifestyle,’ the report states . . . ”

Live Science at Yahoo News: “A study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the United States, the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environment-friendly practices people might employ during their entire lives – things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs . . . Murtaugh’s findings are detailed in a 2009 issue of the journal Global Environmental Change.

William McGurn writes at the Wall Street Journal: “More and more, we are hearing from people who might best be described as anti-birthers. Their claims have nothing to do with long- versus short-form Hawaiian birth certificates. Instead, they advance a simple proposition: that the birth of each additional American child is a kind of calamity for the environment.”

AP: “Costs resulting from global warming in the decades ahead, according to a new report. Global warming could translate into annual costs and revenue losses throughout the economy of between $2.5 billion and $15 billion by 2050, according to a …

CNSNews: “Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, told the International Conference on Climate Change that the true aim of environmentalists is to stop global development, not save the planet.”

Erin Brown and Matt Philbin write at The Culture and Media Institute: Popular author Steven Kotler has declared that responsible adults should stop having children in order to save the planet. Those who are having kids, are being selfish and …

CNSNews: “Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the committee chair, told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference Tuesday that Democrats on the committee are writing a global warming bill that she says will not only preserve the environment, but also help …

Stephen Moore writes in the Wall Street Journal: . . . Now, as the Golden State prepares to implement this regulatory scheme, employers are howling. It’s become clear to nearly everyone that the plan’s backers have underestimated its negative impact …

AFP: Czech President Vaclav Klaus took aim at climate change campaigner Al Gore on Saturday in Davos in a frontal attack on the science of global warming. “I don’t think that there is any global warming,” said the 67-year-old liberal, …

Times Online: COUPLES who have more than two children are being “irresponsible” by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the government’s green adviser has warned. Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government’s Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through …

The AP reports: The world needs to invest $45 trillion in energy in coming decades, build some 1,400 nuclear power plants and vastly expand wind power in order to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to an energy study …