By Chuck Rogér
"Don't you care about global warming?" asked a sign carried by a Sierra Club demonstrator. The preachy admonishment packs the same intellectual weightiness as "Free the color purple!"
Well-adjusted people "care" about neither purple nor global warming. Colors and recurring natural climate phenomena fly below the radars of emotionally healthy minds. Earth's atmosphere did indeed heat up a bit from the mid-1800s until 1995. But for the last fifteen years, there has been no "global warming" to "care about."
Considering the downward average temperature trend for Earth's atmosphere so far this century [1], maybe Sierra Clubbers will take to waving signs warning, "Global cooling: Be Afraid; Be Very Afraid." Interestingly, rumor has it that some Sierra members are forming a new club. The debut demonstration is expected to include enraged psychogeologists protesting the lack of consideration for the welfare of granite. The poor stone is violently hacked from Mother Earth's bosom to satisfy humanity's vulgar desire for "buildings."
Exactly how do zealots react when confronted with stunning proof of the pointlessness of their zealotry? Zealots double down. America has seen this brand of arrogance stepped up a notch in congressional Democrats since the lefty agenda was shellacked on November 2. Global warmists are doubling down as well. Since Climategate revealed the massive dishonesty that shaped the global warming hoax, "climate change" goons have ratcheted up the gooniness.
During the demonstration featuring the "Don't you care about global warming?" sign, another sign demanded "No More Coal." Under the unproven claim that CO2 released by coal combustion causes global warming, the Sierra Club wants to ban the cheapest form of electricity production and replace it with unreliable and unaffordable "green" power sources. Christopher Horner reports that legal actions initiated by the Sierra Club and other radical "green" groups have caused a wind and solar power facility construction binge. But those projects offer zero promise for meeting increasing electricity demand.
The Sierra Club's coal-killing tactics seriously threaten America. The Wall Street Journal reports that coal plants will constitute only 10 percent of new power generation capacity by 2013, a 44-percent drop since 2009. Natural gas is taking up the slack. But because natural gas is also used to manufacture plastics, fertilizers, and other chemicals, the higher demand will drive up gas and electricity prices.
...Which is what the Sierra Club wants.
Sierra-style global warmists have a firm Capitol Hill lobbying foothold from which to push the "no more coal" objective. Many more Climategates may be needed to loosen the grip that environmental dogmatists have on campaign contribution-hungry politicians. Worse still, unless and until Obama leaves the White House in 2013, there's little hope for reversing the president's ruinous national energy policy. A Wall Street Journal analysis summarizes Obama's approach: "Phase One: Inaugurate the era of ‘green' energy. Phase Two: Overturn the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Phase Three: Carbon neutrality."
The Sierra Club is doing Obama's bidding. The organization sues to block new and shut down existing coal plants. In its zeal to "save the planet," Sierra is demonizing life-giving technology. Horner again:
The truth is that countries that don't have modern coal-fired electric power have terrible air, soil and water quality. They fall victim to outrageous levels of infant respiratory disease. Their young people are sentenced to spending their days cutting down forests for wood and wading through dung to form patties for fuel. If poor countries had the coal-powered electricity that the Sierra Club wants to take away from Americans, their economies would radically improve and, to use President Obama's words, would "fundamentally transform" their people's lives by creating wealth and improving the environment.
Unfortunately, the President and his political party pander to activist environmental groups that would litigate, legislate and regulate central coal-fired electricity out of existence.
Nonexistence is precisely what the Sierra Club wants for coal-fired electricity plants. To Earth-worshiping ideologues, it matters not one iota that today's coal-burning process is amazingly clean. Nasty humanity may wither for want of coal, but holy Mother Earth must thrive.
Since 2001 alone, the Sierra Club claims to have killed two-thirds of the 150 coal-fired power plants originally proposed for construction. The hopes and wishes of green zealots are now also bolstered by backdoor EPA regulatory methods that help the Sierra Club further its anti-progress agenda.
So, then, primitivists are poised to control the lives of 310 million people through legal maneuvering, scientifically baseless regulation, and political coercion. The Earth worshipers pose a clear and present danger to America's energy supply, and therefore to the people's health and wealth. Continued coal-fired power plant shutdowns will also result in insufficient power generation at the worst possible times -- during demand-intensive temperature extremes. But human suffering does not concern the Sierra Club.
Three years ago, I witnessed a cocktail-sipping San Francisco area Sierra Club attorney sit and hold court with enthralled listeners. The attorney described the pleasure that she derives from inflicting economic pain on manufacturers and sending "messages" to consumers of capitalists' products. I wondered aloud if her computer, refrigerator, TV, phones, and air conditioners were powered by electricity. Court spectators chuckled. But the jab flew over the head that sported the up-tilted chin, spittle-flinging lips, and angry eyes peering down a nose with nostrils flaring each time the brain recalled a legal victory over planet-hating wretches.
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