Wolverines Threatened by Climate Change, Earlier Springs

Business and industry is enmeshed in a Lilliputian tangle of government regulation at federal, state and local levels. California is a perfect example of the anti-business climate that is entrenched in government. There seems to be a Green Barny Fife in charge of every government department, agency and commission.

This madness raises the costs of every phase of business development, and results in higher prices for consumers or jobs outsourced overseas.

As just one of a thousand examples - here in California, the government is tearing down hydroelectric dams at a cost of billions of dollars, is then going to spend more billions restoring "scenic rivers" and salmon habitat. The government plans to replaces this loss of 6% of our power with windmills and solar panels covering thousands of acres of foothills and desert. This building is already well underway and the destruction of the habitat is beyond description. But I suppose killing rabbits, squirrels, coyotes, reptiles and birds is more palatable to the Greens than forcing the salmon to use fish ladders. Nothing lives under solar panels or under giant, nightmarish, whirling scarecrows - nothing.

The insanity continues when one considers that a wind-turbine never even produces the amount of energy it takes to: mine and transport the raw materials to the factory to build it, transport it again across the ocean from China or Italy, then move it, and the giant steel towers across the country, build the roads to each of thousands of wind-towers, dig the hundreds of miles of trenching for the underground cables, erect the transmission towers, build transformer stations and support facilities, strings thousands of miles of cables, transport and pour the 50+tons of concrete for each windmill foundation and the transmission towers, and then move the the 2 hundred foot high cranes for installation and maintenance. Add to that the energy expended by the hundreds of workers traveling to and from the job site. Having men build pyramids would expend less energy, create less carbon, do less damage to the environment, and would probably have the same net energy gain.

Even Governor Moonbeam admits that the wind and solar plants currently being built on these thousands of acres won't even replace the power lost from the planned destruction of the hydroelectric dams and reservoirs. Duh....what a great plan.

Meanwhile, our President and his Green acolytes, Ken Salazar and Lisa Jackson are closing down oil drilling, blocking nuclear power, natural gas and clean coal - and creating more onerous regulations to further strangle jobs and industry. All of which results in higher costs for energy, food production and everything else. Expensive energy is not a job creator - at least not in the "real sense".

Obama said, under his plan, "energy costs will necessarily skyrocket."

Well, this is one time I can certainly agree with the president.

"Going Green Has Gone Too Far".

R.L. Schaefer of CA 8:58PM February 07, 2011