Environmental Restrictionists Could Use Polar Bears to Get in the Way of Infrastructure Projects
By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
In his townhall.com column, Hugh Hewitt cites my recent blogpost on Interior Secretary-designate Ken Salazar and raises the question of how Salazar will deal with polar bears. Yes, polar bears. As Hewitt points out in this column and as he has written on his blog at hughhewitt.com, environmental restrictionists want to use the threat that supposed global warming poses to polar bears as the basis of legal suits to stop economic development not just in Alaska but throughout the United States. This sounds outlandish, but it's true. No economic growth because it might raise temperatures in the Arctic, which might in turn reduce the number of ice floes that these attractive carnivores jump on.
As Hewitt has pointed out, polar bear populations have actually been increasing lately. The species is not endangered but thriving. In February 1998, I visited the oil fields in the North Slope of Alaska. It was 40-below zero (don't ask which scale: It's 40 below in both Fahrenheit and Centigrade), and I was being driven around in an all-terrain vehicle on ice roads. The vehicle had been warmed up for three hours, but I could still see my breath inside; the road conditions were such that we couldn't go more than 30 miles an hour. "Wouldn't it be great," I said to the driver, "if we saw a polar bear." "No, it wouldn't," he said. "A polar bear can run faster than this car can go and can punch through the windshield with his paw. And to him, you're lunch."
Democrats say they want major infrastructure projects. The usual argument against them—that they take too long to get up and running to stimulate a recessionary economy—is weak because the current recession threatens to linger and perhaps turn into long-running deflation. But we can't have major infrastructure projects if environmental restrictionists sue and stop them in the name of the polar bear. This is something Democrats, especially Ken Salazar, might want to think about.
- Read more by Michael Barone.
- Read more about endangered species.
- Read more about the environment.
Tags: environment | Ken Salazar | animals | endangered species | Department of the Interior | Obama administration
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Reader Comments
Polar Bears...
Wow, almost forgot to cheer FOR GLOBAL WARMING! Why, simple. Last winter in the Northeast we had a very mild temp range. This meant that we used far less fossil fuels to heat our homes, so, less Co2! Voila, global warming is a good thing. See how easy it is to switch sides here?
polar bears
Wow, too bad we can't tap the energy generated by these posts! Global warming is a recurring, natural cycle geologically according to my sources, fact. Unfact: Humans caused it, and can stop it. Now for the main point, Al Gore is NO scientist, did NOTHING as VP, and doesn't even understand that the primary human negative interaction w/ the Earth is OVERPOPULATION! But the Leftist, PC weenies won't dare address that, will they? Send out equal amounts of birth control pills with food shipments to the Third World and we might have a chance. But we won't, adios future...
The Emperor Has No Clothes.....
Welll, at least I didn't invest in the opening of the Northwest Passage due to sea ice melt. I'd bet that there's lots of venture capitalists in Canada biting their nails as the earth cools and the economic development of Northern Canada recedes into the distance!
Global Warming scaremongers are just frustrated Communists who have to have something to argue against industrial Capitalism with. Even the founder of Greenpeace had to quit his own organization because he couldn't stomach their garbage.
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