A war is going on in the environmentalist community that deserves our
attention. This war is between those who care about clean air, clean
water and safe food and those who lust after raw power. This war pits
those who appreciate the American dream against those who despise all
that makes America great.
What we are witnessing is an attempted bloodless political coup.
People calling themselves environmentalists are taking over
organizations that once were concerned about clean air, clean water and
other desirable things. They are replacing real environmentalists with
radical socialists whose sole purpose is to impose federal control over
every aspect of our lives. They are using the environment as an
emotional Trojan Horse to conceal their real aim, political power. They
are desperate, because changes in technology threaten to solve most of
the environmental problems that they claim to care about.
Wednesday, Henry Lamb, in a column for WND, wrote about the plans of
some federal government and environmental organization officials to
declare as much of America as possible “off limits” to humans. Thursday,
Sarah Foster, in a WND exclusive, wrote about HR 701, the proposed
Conservation and Reinvestment Act of 1999 that would use billions more
of our tax dollars to buy up private land. Their articles are only the
tips of a very frightening iceberg.
Americans created the Sierra Club a century ago to preserve and
protect what was to become Yosemite National Park. Over the past decade,
however, radical environmentalists have made significant inroads into
the Sierra Club. Two summers ago, the Sierra Club membership voted on an
amazing offensive proposal. Environmental radicals wanted the Sierra
Club to oppose immigration because Latino immigrants were more likely to
“damage the environment.” Fortunately, this racist resolution lost, but
not by much.
Recently, several radical environmentalist groups sued the
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). They want to stop the INS
from using search lights and bull dozing dirt roads on the border. The
INS uses these and other tactics to make it harder for illegal
immigrants and drug pushers to enter the U.S. The radical
environmentalists want them to stop because, they claim, the night
lights and dirt roads interfere with the nocturnal activities of feral
cats. These people say that wild cats are more important than the
sanctity of our borders or the safety of our people.
This week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that it had
reached an agreement which gave it jurisdiction over land development
for a 345 square mile area of Central Texas so it could protect the
Barton Springs Salamander. The Fish and Wildlife Service recently
declared this salamander an endangered species. Fish and Wildlife says
that this salamander is endangered although no one knows how many
salamanders exist. What we do know is that at least we have killed or
seriously injured 3,000 per year for the past 70 years so that Central
Texans can swim in Barton Springs without slipping on algae.
The federal government owns 28 percent of the land in America, but
radical environmentalists want the feds to own even more. They are using
tax exempt organizations like the Nature Conservancy to get around
congressional spending limits. One of their tricks is to get these
tax-exempt land banks to buy land from private owners and then sell that
land to the feds in a year or so. You and I support this ruse through
our tax dollars. We pay the first time by allowing taxable land to be
taken off the tax roles by taxpayer subsided tax exempt organizations.
We pay again when these tax exempt organizations flip the land to the
federal government in exchange for, that’s right, more of our tax
dollars.
If all of this is not bad enough, and it is, the Environmental
Protection Agency insists that new air pollution standards for soot and
internal combustion engines be enacted without congressional approval.
This is in the face of compelling scientific evidence that these new
standards will not help our health and will waste billions of dollars,
disrupt the lives of millions of Americans. These new standards will,
however, create thousands of new jobs for the EPA.
Al Gore likes to talk about urban sprawl and “smart growth.” The
problem is there is no such thing as urban sprawl. Americans live on
only 5 percent of the land. Texas, for example, is one and a half times
as large as France, but France has three times as many people as Texas.
Japan is smaller than California and has half as many people as the
entire United States. Sure there are cities like Los Angeles and Houston
that seem to run on forever. However, those cities take up an
infinitesimal percentage of America’s land.
Run the numbers. America is one of the least settled advanced
economies in the world. Urban sprawl is a political issue, not a
land-use issue.
The EPA says that we need stringent new air pollution standards to
clean up the air. Everyone knows that motor vehicles are the No. 1
source of air pollution. The EPA says new fuels and other restrictions
are the only solution, even though they know that Honda and Toyota will
start selling cars that solve the air pollution problem this fall.
That’s right, this fall.
These cars have hybrid engines with electric and gasoline power
sources. They average 60 to 70 miles a gallon and are twice as clean as
the cleanest gasoline cars made. Every major car manufacturer will have
hybrid engine vehicles on the road in the next three years. In five
years, air pollution will be much lower and overall gas mileage will go
up because consumers will buy cleaner, more efficient cars.
If the EPA wanted to help, meanwhile, they should encourage cities
and states to coordinate their traffic lights and build more roads and
highways. The No. 1 source of vehicle pollution is cars stuck in
traffic. If you keep traffic moving smoothly, you substantially reduce
air pollution.
However, the EPA won’t support road construction because of Al Gore’s
“smart growth” scheme. Smart growth calls for us to return to the past.
It calls for us to get out of our cars and take mass transit. It calls
for us to leave our houses and live in apartment boxes. It calls for us
to do what the government wants us to do and give up our freedom. It
demands thousand of new government bureaucrats and billions of dollars
of new taxes.
The reality is that the Internet economy is making large cities
obsolete. The Internet is making it possible for millions of Americans
to work for major corporations out of their homes or in small towns.
Internet researchers predict that 30 million Americans will telecommute
by the end of 2000. So any plan that tries to force people to live in
high rises in urban cities makes no sense … unless you look at the
politics of the deal.
Al Gore realizes that the liberal wing of American politics is on the
verge of losing power. The prolonged economic boom has lifted many of
their traditional supporters into the middle class. These people now
have homes, or dream of having homes. They now have a stake in keeping
taxes down and government small. They are leaving the rust belt and
large cities. As they do this, they are leaving the liberal wing of the
Democrat party.
I used to be a Democrat, and I can tell you this. All liberals care
about is staying in power. They will say whatever they need to say and
do whatever they need to do to hold onto power. Their dream of greatness
is to have a government job where they can take our money and tell us
how to live our lives. Technological advances are threatening their use
of the “environmental” movement as a front for their power grab. That is
why Al Gore and the EPA are desperately trying to create an
environmental crisis where none exists. That is why so many political
radicals are now resurfacing in “environmental” groups.
