Environment
July 3, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I ran across another old column of mine from 1999 that never appeared online anywhere and which I think holds up pretty well in some ways, so why not? Save Farmland—Drive a Car WASHINGTON DC—If memory serves me correctly, there was a book out a few years back with the title Monster Trucks and Hair in a Can: Who Says America Doesn’t Make Anything Anymore? This title came back to
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June 16, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Power Line’s sports desk (Paul) is covering the Euro 2020 soccer tournament, but at the risk of annoying him with my soccer denialism, I want to bring to readers’ attention some real excitement yesterday in Munich, when a Greenpeace stuntman seriously injured two spectators, and ripped up the overhead “spidercam,” with a parachute jump into the stadium ostensibly intended as some kind of incoherent climate protest. The Daily Mail has a
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April 22, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Everyone’s favorite pagan holiday has rolled around again: It’s Earth Day! Of course, the religion of environmentalism now has to compete with the religion of anti-racism to get attention, so expect that there will be lots of talk today about “environmental racism” to tie the two together. When dealing with a fundamentalist religion it does no good to point out the facts and data about improving environmental conditions, or the
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April 14, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Fresh off of its announcement of a plan to make women and “people of color” 50 percent of its new pilot hires, United Airlines has taken its wokeism one giant step further. It has “committed to being 100% green by reducing our carbon emissions 100% by 2050.” The airline says it “has invested in ground-breaking technology to make our goal a reality” but acknowledges that “there’s still a long way
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March 21, 2021 — John Hinderaker
The damage done by contemporary environmentalism is a big topic. For now I want to note two important instances that are on my mind because they are fronts on which my organization, Center of the American Experiment, is battling self-interested or misguided environmentalists. Environmentalists cause great damage by blocking needed development, including exploitation of mineral resources. This is grossly hypocritical, since the principal goal of today’s environmental movement is to
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December 14, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Two days ago we reported on how the intersectional diversicrats are wreaking havoc on Joe Biden’s selections for senior appointments, and today the New York Times returns to the subject to confirm one of the victims of the diversicrats: Mary Nichols, who had been the obvious choice to run the EPA until she ran afoul of the racial justice fanatics. Claims of ‘Bleak’ Environmental Justice Record Appear to Fell a
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October 10, 2020 — John Hinderaker
There are many reasons why Joe Biden and his cohorts should never govern the country, but let’s not forget their commitment to some version of the Green New Deal. Biden has alleged that he doesn’t support Ocasio-Cortez’s fantasy, apparently unaware, in his senescence, that his web site says that he does support it. Or maybe he is just confident that reporters won’t tell on him. In any event, a Biden/Harris
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September 16, 2020 — Steven Hayward
The western fires haven’t gone away yet, and likewise it is too much to hope that the climatistas would give up their narrative that climate change is the dominant factor in increasing fire area and intensity. Herewith a second helping of some facts and data to supplement our previous item on this topic. Start with NASA’S Earth Observatory, which presents data showing that on the global scale wildfires actually declined
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September 13, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Churchill once defined a fanatic as “someone who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject,” so it was entirely predictable that the climatistas would declare the massive wildfires raging in the west right now are proof that the climate change debate is over. Shut up, they explained. Governor Gruesome Newsom says so, so there! Also the Los Angeles Times today: The real reason for the large fires is the
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July 22, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Fun news today that Planned Parenthood in New York has decided to remove the name of its founder, Margaret Sanger, from its local headquarters building because they’ve figured out that she was a deeply racist supporter of eugenics. The New York Times reports: Planned Parenthood of Greater New York will remove the name of Margaret Sanger, a founder of the national organization, from its Manhattan health clinic because of her
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July 17, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Michael Shellenberger is author of the new book Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All. Quillette excerpted it in “Why I Believe Climate Change Is Not the End of the World.” Last month John Tierney reviewed the book for the Wall Street Journal in “False Gods for Lost Souls.” Tierney writes: [Shellenberger] chronicles environmental progress around the world and crisply debunks myth after gloomy myth. No, we are not
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June 21, 2020 — Steven Hayward
This week’s guest is Michael Shellenberger, the founder and president of Environmental Progress, and author of an important new book, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All. Most books about the environment typically feature breathless panic about how the world is coming to an end. Michael’s book is a rare outlier that debunks the extremism of most such apocalyptic claims, which too often are the predicate for not just
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May 4, 2020 — Steven Hayward
My county out here in Krazifornia ostentatiously banned single-use plastic bags back in 2012, to “save the planet” naturally. So I whooped a whoop of joy through my mask when the local grocery store bagged my haul in plastic bags over the weekend. My guess is plastic bags will be back for good. The aftermath of the virus crisis is going to change a lot of things—a process I’m calling
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April 30, 2020 — Steven Hayward
There’s not much new to report on the fuss on the left over the Michael Moore anti-renewable energy film “Planet of the Humans,” but as a public service I just have to share the agony of The Nation magazine, which today published this delicious headline and primal scream: Meet the New Flack for Oil and Gas: Michael Moore Like many of Moore’s fans, I thought, “Cool, how timely!” Trump is
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April 28, 2020 — Steven Hayward
The environmentalist freakout about Michael Moore’s new film “Planet of the Humans” continues. The Guardian reports today about demands that the “dangerous” film be “taken down” and suppressed: Planet of the Humans has provoked a furious reaction from scientists and campaigners, however, who have called for it be taken down. Films for Action, an online library of videos, temporarily took down the film after describing it as “full of misinformation”,
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April 27, 2020 — Steven Hayward
As John has already noted, the environmental left (aka, “the left”) is losing its lunch about the new Michael Moore-produced documentary “Planet of the Humans.” I have seen the the whole thing, and you might want to take it in, too, if you have 90 minutes to spare. If not, I have prepared a 10-minute highlight reel below that has a few (but only a very few!) of the best
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April 22, 2020 — Steven Hayward
It’s Earth Day today—and not just any old Earth Day, but the 50th anniversary. It’s passing rather more quietly than in many previous years because the coronavirus crisis is eclipsing everything at the moment. But a lot has changed since the first Earth Day. Not only is the environment in the United States, and in most places around the world, in much better condition than it was in 1970, but
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