The environmental industry, led by Vice President Al Gore, has decided that good science and facts should not stand in the way of their faith-based conclusion that certain human behaviors, like driving, building homes and recreating, must be stopped to save Mother Earth. Inconvenient values like freedom and property rights must give way to this new-age Druidism which worships trees and sacrifices people, since Green ends will justify any means.
Gore elaborated this strategy in his book, "Earth in the Balance. " He called for dismissing those who didn't believe in global warming, and asked the press not to report the views of such skeptics. This book's "seeds" were planted in Maine and now Gore's political agenda is being implemented by a group of King administration bureaucrats, collaborating "privately" with green advocates to plan an "educational" conference on global warming.
However, for a Maine citizen and taxpayer to participate in it, they must share an unquestioning acceptance that humans, i.e. you and me, are the root cause of global warming.
The early "scientific" theories upon which this view was based are being challenged by new studies that argue for a different interpretation. A recent study from Harvard and the Smithsonian Institution suggests that increased solar activity is the cause of any global warming, and there is a reason to believe that warmer temperatures could have untold economic benefits forMainers, i.e. longer growing seasons, cheaper food, lower heating bills, longer tourist season, more wildlife, more diverse forest and grassland species, etc.
These state bureaucrats and green activists, some of the same folks who gave us Car Test, have followed the Gore-Green script -- ignoring and marginalizing critics, excluding them to obtain consensus, substituting propaganda for education and politicizing science for a predetermined end. For instance, the Environmental Protection Agency has ignored the consensus advice of it's scientific advisory panels (SAP's?) on dioxin, ozone, and particulates. In each case, the EPA not only adopted stringent standards despite a lack of scientific support, but then refused to release data, claiming it was "privileged," "privately held" or "likely to be misinterpreted" by you and me.
Stung by criticism on these matters, the EPA adopted a new strategy on Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS, or second-hand smoke) -- cook the science and stack the SAP. That backfired in July when Federal Judge Thomas Osteen overturned the EPA's "finding of fact" on ETS. Judge Osteen wrote: "EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun, excluding industry by violating (the Indoor Air Quality Act's) procedural requirements; adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate the Agency's public conclusion, and aggressively establish(ed) a de facto regulatory scheme intended to restrict (tobacco) products and to influence public opinion. " In the meantime, however, a host of policies banning smoking were enacted based on the EPA's "study. "
Other federal agencies like the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have shown a similar cavalier attitude towards due process and scientific integrity in implementing the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Ask any fisherman on the Maine coast about NMFS and the facts, but make sure you stand back because you'll get an earful! Remember the proposed right whale rules?
The Green faithful already know the answers, and they don't want dissenting views getting a public airing. Scientists as long as they support the Green agenda, are the movement'spriests.
Anyone questioning accepting dogma (which what real scientists do all the time) will be branded a heretic and attacked and smeared.
Just ask Dr. Edward Krug, whose debunking work on acid rain resulted in him being blacklisted and his career destroyed.
Apostasy cannot be tolerated.
But this stategy of manipulation, disinformation and censorship in not sustainable, an irony that is somehow lost on the environmental industry. Like the boy who cried wolf, they are slowly losing their credibility. One or two more car-tests, ice-age warnings, $ 100 a barrel oil or other false Armageddon prophecies ought to do it. It may be easier in the short run to "massage the truth," but it doesn't work forever. Strange that folks who profess to a long run view don't understand that.
Jon Reisman is the Republican candidate for congress in Maine's 2nd District. He teaches environmental policy at the University of Maine at Machias.
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