Posted on 08/27/2014 3:29:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
Thanks, Environmental Protection Agency! You've required sewage treatment plants, catalytic converters on cars and other things that made the world cleaner than the world in which I grew up. Good work.
Today, America's waterways are so much cleaner that I swim in New York City's once-filthy Hudson River -- right beside skyscrapers in which millions of people, uh, flush. The air we breathe is also cleaner than it's been for 60 years.
In a rational world, environmental bureaucrats would now say, "Mission accomplished. We set tough standards, so we don't need to keep doing more. Stick a fork in it! We're done."
OK, I went too far. America does still need some bureaucrats to enforce existing environmental rules and watch for new pollution problems. But we don't need what we've got: 16,000 environmental regulators constantly trying to control more of our lives. EPA should stand for: Enough Protection Already.
But bureaucracies never say they've done "enough." That would mean they were out of work.
Like all bureaucracies -- regulatory, poverty-fighting and military -- the EPA spends every day hunting for new things to do, even if its new efforts cost much more and accomplish far less. Its biggest current crusade is global warmi -- I mean, "climate change."
Even if it turns out that man's emission of greenhouse gases is a threat, "EPA's own cost-benefit analyses don't really identify any benefits" from additional regulation, says Case Western Reserve law professor Jonathan Adler. "If we are serious about dealing with climate change, we need to reduce per capita emissions of carbon dioxide to the level they were during the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War."
That reduction in our industrial capacity would be one of the worst costs the human race had ever suffered, all for tiny benefits. Even if we did everything the environmentalists want, the regulators admit it might only lower temperatures a fraction of a degree, a century from now.
By that time, we will have cheaper ways of dealing with the problem, if it is a problem. But government rarely pays attention to costs vs. benefits.
Today, instead of environmental regulations that actually save lives, we pay to subsidize politicians' cronies and pet projects, such as electric cars.
Voters rarely object to such deals, says David Harsanyi of The Federalist, because government hides their real costs. "If people actually paid what a Chevy Volt cost to make, it would probably be around $200,000. Without government -- essentially, government cronyism and all kinds of subsidies -- the Volt wouldn't exist."
He says Chevy, even with its government subsidies, loses about $49,000 on every Volt it builds. It's ironic that, as environmentalists talk about "sustainability," they create totally unsustainable subsidy schemes.
"It's happening with all kinds of alternative energy companies that rely on government subsidies," Harsanyi says. Politicians, by shifting money away from private-sector experiments, "are hurting companies that actually have some innovation that might work better."
Since people rarely question spending that supposedly is "good for the environment, green subsidies create opportunity for corruption," Harsanyi says. "The people who lobby and have the closest ties to government are typically the ones who benefit from the subsidies the government gives."
Close associates of President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and former Vice President Al Gore all benefited from well-timed investments in green companies that got a leg up from government subsidies and regulations.
Unfortunately, green companies often do poorly even with government assistance, as was the case with solar panel maker Solyndra.
I don't doubt there are important technological advances ahead that will make energy use more efficient -- and make the environment cleaner, sometimes as an unintended side effect. But I don't trust government to pick the technologies.
Why should we think government's ideas for cleaning the environment are on the cutting edge? As Harsanyi points out, windmills, one of environmentalists' favorite ideas and biggest subsidy-recipients, "have been around since the Middle Ages."
There will be a better way. Government probably won't find it.
OK!! Everybody pay attention!
Lesson for today:
1. The sun is 1,300,000 times as big as the earth.
2. The sun is a ball of fire that controls the climates of all its planets.
3. The earth is one of the sun’s planets.
4. The earth is a speck in comparison to the size of the sun.
5. Inhabitants of the earth are less than specks.
Study Question: How do less-than-specks in congress plan to control the sun?
“Study Question: How do less-than-specks in congress plan to control the sun?”
They won’t, so Obama will use his pen and phone. He’s already stopped the oceans from rising, so he’s looking for new challenges.
Wait! Getting rid of CFC’s will fix EVERYTHING.
Um.....no.
LOL! Benefited? In the real world, it would be called insider trading.
Simple, send the E.P.A. to the sun, to study it. Too hot you say? Simple again, send them at night.
“How do less-than-specks in congress plan to control the sun?”
The same way they always fix things.
By limiting our freedom, taxing us more, and making our lives miserable. It’s their answer to everything.
“Simple again, send them at night.”
Good one.
You can add to your list the Earth’s 100,000 year “wobble” as well as our solar system bouncing up and down across the galactic plain exposing us to God only knows what.
I was just going to post “go at night” and you beat me. Twisted minds think alike
May I copy this?
Life is rough when you live on a shooting gallery..! :)
Most of the cost associated with the Volt was the original R&D work ($750 million) which usually benefits a company and society far beyond the specific product it was originally targeted for. Any product with a large initial R&D is planned to make a profit over time as sales recoup that initial expense. The Volt is seems to be reaching that point now.
Also I would hope the conservative community here would be intelligent enough to realize that a tax credit for an individual purchasing a vehicle is not the same thing as a government grant. Or perhaps you are just in favor of paying more taxes. Sarc.
Lastly while the EPA is a behemoth that is independent from the facts about damage already done, and being done to our health from the environment. Just from air pollution alone it is estimated there are 200,000 premature deaths per year3, about 3 times that of traffic fatalities. Then there are the effects of everything from pesticides to chlorine.
So yes, let’s substantially cut back government, but let’s not let Monsanto and other mega companies ruin us instead.
1. http://www.auto-types.com/autonews/new-generation-chevrolet-volt-to-debut-at-2015-naias-11982.html
2. http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/the-chevy-volt-falling-short-on-profit/
3. http://www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2002/update17
You certainly may copy it.
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