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Another Environmental Crises Movie?

Posted by BLOGASSAULT on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 10:36:17 AM
   Don't click on the link below or read any further if you don't want the plot line spoiled for you in the upcoming new film from M.Night Shyamalan, The Happening. If this turns out to be the case, I will be very disappointed. 
   I will still spend the money and see the film, because it is just a movie after all. But for all the limitless possibilities for a storyline of
Shymalan's style, why did it have to be about an environmental crises?
 
Final judgement will be made after I see the film.
 
The Happening Poster
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Cap And Tax...Calling The Bluff

Posted by BLOGASSAULT on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 12:13:38 AM
Op-Ed columnist Robert J. Samuelson had a great article yesterday in the Washington Post, calling out the Warner-Lieberman Bill that will create a new way to collect taxes without calling it that. 

The chief political virtue of cap-and-trade -- a complex scheme to reduce greenhouse gases -- is its complexity. This allows its environmental supporters to shape public perceptions in essentially deceptive ways. Cap-and-trade would act as a tax, but it's not described as a tax. It would regulate economic activity, but it's promoted as a "free market" mechanism. Finally, it would trigger a tidal wave of influence-peddling, as lobbyists scrambled to exploit the system for different industries and localities. This would undermine whatever abstract advantages the system has.

Regulation, taxation, and opening the possibility of corruption. That is all this bill is. The Kyoto treaty was basically a failure and this will be as well. And we the consumer will end up footing a bill that will gain us little if any real decline in CO2 reduction. Of course the idea that CO2 is causing global warming or humans are causing it or whatever, is still up for debate in the real world. 
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Germanys High Hopes On Environment Hopeless

Posted by BLOGASSAULT on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 12:09:06 PM
   German Chancellor Angela Merkel is having a hard time living up to the environmentalists name she made for herself when running for office. This story bashes her for all the things she has done to surcomvent the green  movement since getting into office.
 
   This is the so-called "climate chancellor?" This woman who, at the International Transport Forum in Leipzig, spoke enthusiastically about the nearby air freight hub, economic growth and the transport of goods? Who suddenly seems awkward and at a loss for words when it comes time to talk about climate protection? Who has stopped offering answers on the subject and only asks questions, like: Does it make sense to subsidize electricity from renewable sources? Is it fair to expect the owners of older cars with high CO2 emissions to pay higher taxes?   
   This is the same "climate chancellor" who opposes a speed limit on German autobahns and wants the European Union to exempt large, German-made sedans from its emissions restrictions. In fact, Angela Merkel has even stopped talking about the German goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 40 percent by 2020. Instead, she mentions values of 20 or 30 percent.
 
   And if that wasn't enough, the writers attach another story directly to the one above about her ties to the German car industry.
 
   When it comes to cars, the only thing Merkel has lost is her credibility. She is already the chief lobbyist for Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Porsche in Brussels, where CO2 limits for the European Union are currently being negotiated. New Franco-German talks on the issue are scheduled for next week.
 
   They go on to pummel Merkel with not being able to make the difficult and costly decisions for the environment and the public good, forgetting the fact the fuel and food prices are already wieghing down the average consumer.
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Enviromentalism, Socialism, Or Religion

Posted by BLOGASSAULT on Monday, June 02, 2008 11:07:46 AM
   Charles Krauthammer had an excellent piece today via the Rocky Mountain News. His first sentence is what I believe and what most reasonable people believe also.
 
   I’m not a global warming believer. I’m not a global warming denier. I’m a global warming agnostic who believes instinctively that it can’t be very good to pump lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but is equally convinced that those who presume to know exactly where that leads are talking through their hats.
 
   He also suggests that the enviromental movement has something else in mind.
 
   Environmentalists are Gaia’s priests, instructing us in her proper service and casting out those who refuse to genuflect. (See Newsweek above.) And having proclaimed the ultimate commandment — carbon chastity — they are preparing the supporting canonical legislation that will tell you how much you can travel, what kind of light you will read by, and at what temperature you may set your bedroom thermostat.
 
   And what better way than to get the government to harness that control because, as we all need to understand, the government knows what is best for us.
 
   There’s no greater social power than the power to ration. And, other than rationing food, there is no greater instrument of social control than rationing energy, the currency of just about everything one does and uses in an advanced society.
 
   Control means power. Socialism...Literally.
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