“Green Power Failure” is a May 10, 2012 article by Canadian columnist Lawrence Solomon for Canada’s Financial Post.
The article is a warning for the United States of pitfalls from adopting renewable electricity sources of solar and wind. Quoting Mr. Solomon, ”Global-warming-related catastrophes are increasingly hitting vulnerable populations around the world, with one species in particular danger: the electricity ratepayer. In Canada, in the U.K., in Spain, in Denmark, in Germany and elsewhere the danger to ratepayers is especially great, but ratepayers in one country — the U.S. — seem to have weathered the worst of the disaster.”
Mr. Solomon then addresses situations in the U. K., Germany, Denmark and other countries which have adopted sizable amounts of solar and wind electricity generation that has led to electricity rates so high that 15 percent of households or more are in “fuel poverty”–ten percent or more of household income goes to electricity or gas. Many of these countries pay electricity rates triple the U. S. average.
This is a brief list of attacks on skeptics of man-made global warming, which despite their vulgarity saw preferential tolerance from the mainstream media.
Know of any others? Email me at tsmith@heartland.org
America’s fixation on diversity is logical. We are a nation of immigrants, a great “melting pot” of ethnicities, nationalities and cultures, brought together by a choice to be an American made by us or our ancestors, and by a shared commitment to a unique set of values that constitute what George Will has called the “catechism” of America’s civil religion.
To acknowledge and appreciate our national diversity is to embrace our American heritage and culture. But diversity itself pales in comparison to the values that all Americans share; we come together as Americans not because we respect everyone’s differences, but because we are commonly invested in a core set of beliefs enumerated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. These ideals transcend diversity.
The blogosphere is all atwitter this week after the disclosure of the “crucifixion” video, in which the director of U.S. EPA Region 6 in Texas urged his staff to “crucify” oil and gas companies in enforcement actions.
In the video, disclosed by U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), Regional Director Al Armendariz said:
It was kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them. And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years. And so you make examples out of people who are in this case not compliant with the law. Find people who are not compliant with the law, and you hit them as hard as you can and you make examples out of them, and there is a deterrent effect there.
Sen. Inhofe calls this a “’rare glimpse’ into the Obama administration’s mindset” and is launching an investigation. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said: “I have spoken to Dr. Armendariz, I have made clear to him that I am glad he apologized because his comments were disappointing, they are not representative of the agency, they don’t reflect any policy that we have, and they don’t reflect our actions over the past two years.”
A new group has recently released a video advocating free-market policies from a whole new perspective, and the result is very compelling.
The group is called Free Market America, and its stated mission is to defend economic freedom, particularly from environmental extremism.
The video puts the viewer in the perspective of someone who wants to dismantle the country, and walks them though what they would do to accomplish it. Throughout the video, the viewer becomes aware of how many of today’s ideas match the destructive actions learned through this perspective.
What makes this argument compelling is that this sort of connection cannot be built from anything other than concrete evidence. Leaving the viewer to digest the sobering truth once the video ends.
After watching the video, feel free to read the transcript below if you would like a closer look at the video’s points.
If I wanted America to fail …
To follow, not lead; to suffer, not prosper; to despair, not dream — I’d start with energy.
I’d cut off America’s supply of cheap, abundant energy. Of course, I couldn’t take it by force. So, I’d make Americans feel guilty for using the energy that heats their homes, fuels their cars, runs their businesses, and powers their economy.
Recently “Color of Change,” Common Cause, the Center for Media and Democracy, and other extreme leftist groups’ have attempted to defame a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). These attacks are not surprising considering the groups that are making them. Rather than discussing and debating actual policy, these groups resort to ad hominem attacks and bullying tactics. What is downright shameful is their use of a tragedy like Trayvon Martin’s death to dishonestly attack an organization with which they disagree on policy.
Like ALEC’s corporate donors, The Heartland Institute’s supporters are under fierce attack by the same left-wing groups using the same tactics. While “Color of Change” uses the Trayvon Martin tragedy as cover for its ideological campaign, “Forecast the Facts” and its allies are using our efforts to bring sound science to the debate over global warming. Such tactics have no place in the national debate over public policy.
Despite what these fringe groups want you to believe, ALEC is not involved in any black helicopter conspiracy. ALEC is in fact a very effective and respected public-private partnership that brings together state legislators, members of the private sector, the federal government, and general public to openly discuss public policy and free-market solutions. It does not hide that its stated mission is to advance “Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty.”
As Georgia Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers put it, “I stand with ALEC, and together we stand ready to defend our guiding principles of free markets and limited government, which is what our nation needs now more than ever.”
The Heartland Institute stands with ALEC in support of free enterprise, limited government, and federalism, and asks that you do so as well.
Can we agree that a man with a gun who pursues someone is not standing his ground? That he is in fact doing the opposite of standing his ground by advancing from where he is standing?
By now millions of people have heard of the shooting of a teenager in Florida named Trayvon Martin by a self-appointed neighborhood watchman named George Zimmerman. There’s outrage across the nation that a 250-pound man who was carrying a gun shot and killed a 140-pound teen who was carrying a bag of Skittles. Outrage that the teen was black and the shooter is part-white and part-Hispanic. Outrage that the shooter has not been charged with a crime because of Florida’s “stand your ground” law, which allows a person to use deadly force without first trying to flee if he fears for his life. Zimmerman told police the teen began fighting with him and he therefore feared for his life when he fired the fatal shot.
Yet Zimmerman called police to report he was following Trayvon. A police dispatcher warned him not to follow. He did anyway. Moments later Trayvon was dead.
These basic facts suggest if anyone should have been protected by the stand your ground law, it is Trayvon. He was walking down a street, minding his own business. There would have been no confrontation if Zimmerman had stayed where he was — if he had, in fact, followed the police dispatcher’s warnings and stood his ground.
We don’t yet know exactly what happened at the end. At least two witnesses have said they were in their houses and heard Trayvon crying for his life. After hearing the shot they went outside and saw him lying face down with Zimmerman standing over the body, indicating Trayvon had been shot through the back.
Today marks the second anniversary of the signing of President Obama’s health care takeover, a law which now hangs in the balance before the Supreme Court. But there is another anniversary too, and one far more meaningful in the course of human events.
It was 237 years ago today, in Virginia, that Patrick Henry gave a speech that rang out through the colonies and urged the people to stand up for their liberty. The speech is doubtless familiar to all of you. But there is a line that comes before the more famous conclusion which I have always loved.
In making his case that the colonists should be willing to stand even against the armed might of the British Empire, which had put down so many colonial rebellions in the past, Henry urged the Virginians on, saying:
The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
To which I would add: Whether this younger anniversary matters a few years from now depends in large part on us remembering the counsel of the older one.
As a lifelong Illinois resident, I long ago came to believe that my state government is more than corrupt, incompetent, inept, wasteful, abusive, etc. It is evil.
Last Thursday I read a news story that convinced me of its evil. I was so bothered by it that I could not bring myself to comment on it until now.
The hard-copy version of the Chicago Sun-Times had an article headlined, “7 years for driver who had traces of pot in her system.” I am looking at it this very second. It’s about a woman, Alia N. Bernard, who reached for her sunglasses while driving. She took her eyes off the road and caused a crash that killed two motorcyclists.
Cops and prosecutors admit she was not under the influence of any substance. But a blood test detected a tiny amount of marijuana from several days earlier. Last April the Illinois supreme court had ruled “prosecutors did not have to prove impairment was a ‘proximate cause’ of a fatal crash but just that defendants have any amount of a drug in their systems,” the Sun-Times reported.
Note: ANY AMOUNT of a substance is enough for the state to level felony driving-under-the-influence charges.
CPAC 2012 is underway. The Marriott Wardman Park i DC is packed! Organizers expect 11,000 or so conservatives here — and an undetermined number of Occupy protesters either Friday or Saturday (or both).
If you’re here, come by our booth for free materials that help explain and defend free markets and liberty over big government control of our lives and economy. We have books such as The Obama Care Disaster and The Patriot’s Tool Box, information about school choice and improving public education, decks of playing cards with the faces of libertarian heros — and, of course, our global warming realist literature.
Also, stop by to check out our new iPad app, the Heartlander.
“Green Power Failure” is a May 10, 2012 article by Canadian columnist Lawrence Solomon for Canada’s Financial Post.
