We have already explained why New Jersey’s new climate plan, written by Lisa Jackson, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, is a boondoggle shrouded in smoke and mirrors. Evidently, environmentalists agree.
Jeff Tittel, the director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, concedes that the Garden State’s global warming plan “has some good ideas,” but he says that more is needed (“State’s plan to curb global warming tepid,” Asbury Park Press, 12 December 2008).
To give New Jersey’s climate plan some teeth, Mr. Tittel suggests a “mandatory trip reduction program.” Simply put, he wants to give government the power to force you and me to drive together.
After proposing that the state tell us with whom we must drive, Mr. Tittel says that government should also tell us where we are permitted to live. Specifically, he frets that the legislature would never pass a law that would limit new development until 99% of existing buildings are occupied. He further suggests that the state should prohibit the construction of water and sewer lines to rural developments.
Mr. Tittel says that “climate change is the most serious threat facing our planet,” but that’s debatable. After all, disease and hunger kill scores of millions of human beings every year; climate change has led to an invasion of Japanese beetles.
It is, however, unquestioned that government is an awfully imprecise cudgel whenever it tries to influence social patterns like energy consumption. History suggests that Mr. Tittel’s statist energy policies would be as annoying as they would be ineffective.
In Poland recently, representatives of the European Union were discussing ways to look like soldiers in the war against global warming while once more dodging the draft, and outside there were the usual sorts of doomsday-prognosticating protesters. Some were dressed as penguins, devils and polar bears, it's reported.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection released its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The proposals were crafted by former DEP head Lisa Jackson, who was tapped this week by President-elect Barack Obama to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. The plan has three components. The first is Governor Corzine’s Energy Master Plan (read here why it’s a boondoggle). The second part of the plan is to regulate tailpipe emissions from cars, but a federal court have yet to decide whether states have the authority to regulate fuel efficiency, and even if they did, the $100 billion regulatory burden would ruin the American auto industry. The final component is New Jersey’s participation in a regional energy rationing program that is designed to increase the price of energy.
Global warming alarmists, picking up where the Grinch left off, are trying to steal Christmas, some critics say. From children's books to school plays, the climate change crowd is dreaming of a green Christmas, angering opponents who say 'tis NOT the season to be preachy.
SCIENTISTS have warned that Christmas lights are bad for the planet due to huge electricity waste and urged people to get energy efficient festive bulbs.
The most expensive secret you’re not supposed to know is that George W. Bush leaves office with the planet cooler than when he entered. This dangerous trend threatens the multi-billion dollar “global warming” industry, adding new urgency to the ritual shriek of “we must act now!” in the scramble to impose a costly regime of mandates and energy taxes.
In choosing Nobelist and alternative energy enthusiast Steve Chu as his nominee to head the Department of Energy (DOE), President-elect Barack Obama is saying he is serious about his plan to invest an awful lot of taxpayer money in alternative "clean" energy schemes.
Winter officially arrives today with the solstice. But for many Americans, autumn 2008's final days already felt like deepest, coldest January.
This week in Chicago, President-elect Barack Obama introduced key members of his new energy and environmental team and gave a statement expressing his administration's ambitious goal to make America energy independent. While his desire to do so is sincere, such a strategy would be disastrous for our economy.
The election of Barack Obama, and his selection of what the League of Conservation Voters’ Gene Karpinski calls the “dream green team” to fashion energy and environmental policy, heralds a dramatic shift from the energy priorities of the last eight years, on issues ranging from offshore drilling to climate change.
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