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The great green movement driven by the Sierra Club, the Audobon Society, and other more nefarious forces appears about to run out of gas. A half century of a reckless orgy of economic extravagance driven by environmental values is finally coming home to roost. We are about to discover that you cannot protect anything if you are broke.
For nearly fifty years the new environmentalists have hounded industrial manufacturing out of business in the interest of protecting the environment. The result has been a constant elimination of jobs and the transfer of manufacturing capacity to foreign shores. That is a monstrous expense in a world economy dominated by balance of trade considerations critical to the value of one’s currency. Industry by industry, it could be selectively justified in genuine feel-good considerations of the intellectually unwary. Collectively, it has been a formula for disaster.
For nearly forty years, the new environmentalists have prevented the development of nuclear power plants as an alternative to fossil fuel powered electrical plants while the nation’s demand for more and more power has increased incrementally. Site by site, an emotional argument in opposition could always be fabricated. The cumulative effect was to have the nation buy into a collective policy recklessly discarding cheap, clean, renewable energy. In the face of growing demand, another formula for disaster.
For nearly thirty years, the new environmentalists have log-jammed the exploitation of our domestic oil resources, be it drilling in ANWR, drilling on the continental shelf, or using the shale on the continental divide. In the face of that constraint nationally, we are today forced to purchase oil overseas in a market controlled by a hostile cartel and foreign speculators. The cumulative effect of that has been a further deterioration of our balance of trade and the subjection of our currency to the artificial inflation induced by regimes bent on our destruction. Yet another unthinking, ill-conceived disaster.
For twenty years, particularly here in the Northwest, the new environmentalists have frustrated the utilization of natural resources, renewable or not. Once again creating a loss of jobs and a dependence on foreign imports. This has been an unmitigated disaster community by community, with no relief in contemplation.
Recently, the new environmentalists are driving for and effecting the removal of our hydro-electric power generation system. Once again eliminating cheap, clean, renewable power and forcing greater reliance upon foreign fuel imports.
Today, the new environmentalists are pressing our representatives Wyden and DeFazio for legislation to effectively turn the rural portions of our state into a great pristine wilderness area.
The forces of the new environmentalism recognize no economic restraint and they are more relentless than a spend-happy teenager.
We have gasoline at $4.00 per gallon, looking for $5.00 by the end of the summer. That cost factor is appearing in every commodity we consume. We cannot avoid it any more than the spendthrift can avoid the interest on his credit card debt. The effect is runaway inflation with further devaluation of our currency. The total impact portends to be an economic disaster on a scale of the great depression.
The message is the fundamental one that one cannot spend one’s limited money on luxuries one cannot afford. Enhancing the environment at the expense of the economy has led us to the brink of national insolvency. Having to work for a living is not nice, but a necessary reality of life. One undergoes the unpleasantness in the interest of comfort and survival. Despoiling the environment to a limited degree is also a necessary trade-off in the interest of economic survival.
Unthinking and injudicious commitment to aesthetic values, emotions, and desires has brought us to the brink.
As a matter of survival, it is time to consign the environmental movement to the stupid bin in the ashcan of history. We need to get about the business of restoring our solvency and we need to do it now.
— Jack H. Swift
Government is Not Your Daddy 
from the article:
That is the bottom line, but I doubt we have the will to fight.
Great article.
I’m shocked that no one has attempted to belittle this common sense view of the “new environmentalist” nazi-ism that we face in America today. Of course, it’s such a well written and thought out piece that it would be hard to dispute…But I am, nonetheless, surprised that some Greenie hasn’t attempted a rebuttal or smear…Well, Mr. Swift, as they say, “When you’re right, you’re right.”
I agree, Gladiator. I guess, when the truth is spoken so plainly, it leaves the opposition speechless.
I’m kind of surprised Mr. Guy hasn’t weighed in on this, but perhaps he sees the light now and can’t bring himself to admit it… 8)
Well, you asked for it…
“The great green movement driven by the Sierra Club, the Audobon Society, and other more nefarious forces appears about to run out of gas.”
Keep dreaming.
“The result has been a constant elimination of jobs and the transfer of manufacturing capacity to foreign shores.”
We’ll just safely ignore globalization and a disasterous trade policy on the part of the USA. Why is everything with you guys a race to the bottom? We can’t have a clean enironmant *and* good jobs? Of course we can! It requires change though…there’s plenty of green to be made being more “green” yanno…
“the value of one’s currency”??
Gee, I wonder under who’s watch in the White House that the bottom fell out of our nation’s currency? Endless debt & deficits anyone?
“the new environmentalists have prevented the development of nuclear power plants as an alternative to fossil fuel powered electrical plants”
So, you’d rather have many multiple, permanent nuclear waste dumps across the USA as opposed to alternative ways of generating energy? No thanx to that…the govt. & the people have said the same thing BTW. To call nuclear energy “clean” & “renewable” is like calling Pope black & Jewish. Haven’t heard that we’re going to run out of uranium in less than 70-80 years eh?
Gee, I wonder what all those coastal, GOP Governors think of “drilling on the continental shelf”? Oh yea, there’re mostly opposed to it…ooopppsss…
“the new environmentalists are driving for and effecting the removal of our hydro-electric power generation system.”
We have a very little of that going on here in VT, but this is by far a minority view. It’s mostly, as far as I can tell, driven by a misguided thought-process where flooding lands is thought to cause more greenhouse gases & “disruption” the natural landscape. It’s a bunch of baloney IMO.
“The effect is runaway inflation with further devaluation of our currency. The total impact portends to be an economic disaster on a scale of the great depression.”
Let’s not go all “Chicken Little” just yet.
“Despoiling the environment to a limited degree is also a necessary trade-off in the interest of economic survival.”
I agree, but the key word there is “limited”. There are many forces at work in the world that see no limits when it comes to devastating our environment in order to make a profit.
Who is this Right-wing hack “Jack H. Swift” anyways? Should I know him (not being from the NW)?
“‘new environmentalist’ nazi-ism”
Sure, everyone you guys are opposed to are Nazis…sure…
This Jack Swift fellow is a conservationist from the old school. I favor the utilization of natural resources coupled with responsible protection of the environment. Strip mines can be a terrible blight. Yet the largest strip mine in the world, the Black Thunder Mine in Wyoming is a marvel. The coal is removed. The overburden is replaced and the natural condition restored. The mine is both a shining success and a deplorable extravagance in the ilk I tried to chastise.
Besides restoring the overburden, the operators are required to inventory every plant and creature to be disturbed and to replace them according to the inventory. Experience shows that after such a disturbance, replacement of the overburden and topsoil is sufficient. Nature on its own always restores the environment. The additional expense cannot be justified although it is pleasing to the green weenies.
The point is that the cost of compliance with all these environmental regs must be weighed against the value of the supposed benefit. That is not a factor in the green philosophy and that is what is killing us.
PS: I’m not buying into “pie-in-the-sky” dreams of finding a miracle replacement for our traditional power sources any time soon. Invest in research but rely upon what works.
“Invest in research but rely upon what works.”
There hasn’t been *enough* investment in alternative energies in this country, yet many of them are viable right now. Much of the rest of the world has already latched onto these ideas, but the USA continues to lag behind because our leaders are influenced too much by the people that control the “old” sources of our energy…oil, coal, gas, etc.. Heck, if the UAE can sucessfully plan for a future with no oil (that is rapidly approaching BTW), then so can we.
Most of Europe depends on nuclear power. GB has the North Sea oil. (Which was a terrible fight to get.) We are blessed with a lot of hydro-electric which the greens are desperately trying to dismantle. We have ANWR, the continental shelf, and Rocky Mountain shale. We have lots sitting there like a stuffed refrigerator of food with a padlock on it.
The only reason the alternatives you mention are presently viable is because of government subsidies. I call that investment. Keep it up. Keep up the research grants just as we do attempting to find the cure for cancer. In a generation or so, the scientists will pull off something and every little discovery they make along the way helps. I’m all for it. But for the moment it is all pie-in-the-sky.
The problem is that we need our own power as quickly as we can get it. We will not achieve solvency until we get it.
“Most of Europe depends on nuclear power.”
And they are running out of uranium faster than we are, especially France. The idea that this form of energy is “renewable” is complete & total farce.
“GB has the North Sea oil.”
LOL…as of 2006, the UK had about 4 billion barrels of oil reserves…the USA has 21 billion barrels. Our oil production is about TRIPLE theirs too. We get more oil from Norway & Angola than we do from the UK. I’m beginning to think that you know a whole lot *less* about this issue than you seem to indicate.
“We are blessed with a lot of hydro-electric which the greens are desperately trying to dismantle.”
Like I said, this is a small minority view in that community which you are intentionally overblowing.
“We have ANWR, the continental shelf, and Rocky Mountain shale.”
ANWR has about 1.5 years worth of oil in it, and it would takes decades to get it all out. As far as I can tell, no one knows what lies what lies off the continental shelf, and you’re going to have to get past all those GOP coastal Governors first before you can drill any of whatever’s there. Shale is not exactly the same as liquid oil, and not all of those type of reserves can be easily recoverd (if they can be at all).
“The only reason the alternatives you mention are presently viable is because of government subsidies.”
Tell that to the rest of the world…they are not living in a “pie-in-the-sky”, period.
I’m sorry NYD…your guest “expert” here doesn’t seem to know that much…
A fundamental problem in the logic here is that we are out of sufficient resources depending upon current domestic production capacity. The proposition is that we need to start increasing that now.
Arguing that there is no immediate relief doesn’t change the issue. Five years from now, in the absence of a miracle, when the situation is worse, we will still be five years from solving the problem. You are arguing we will be better off at that time being then 10 years behind the curve.
ANWR will produce something. All the guys who have to put big money on their evaluations are eager. Those who oppose domestic oil production have their doubts. Backing the money investors costs us nothing, even if they are wrong.
Having come from California, the political reality there is simply that the environmentalists hold the state hostage. That’s opinion, but it’s reality.
The viability of shale oil was established in Grand Junction, Colorado back in the mid 1980s. Commercially at the time it didn’t pay. They closed the operation waiting until oil went past $60 per barrel. Even with inflation we are well past that breakeven point now. The recent attempt to reactivate production was frustrated by environmentalists complaining about the damage to the environment. The shale involved is located up and down the Rockies and it is established there is more oil therein than there is in the Arabian Gulf.
These, along with nuclear installation, are available for development now with science we have mastered.
The enviro argument against hydro-electric goes to alteration of fish habitat.
If the rest of the world is surviving on sun and air, why is there so much competition for the oil?
“A fundamental problem in the logic here is that we are out of sufficient resources depending upon current domestic production capacity. The proposition is that we need to start increasing that now.”
We have never, I repeat never, been able to drill or produce the amount of oil that we currently consume here in the USA. The only clear way out of this mess is more energy efficiency & conservation along with alternative energy promotion. Doing more of the same ole same, ole and expexting a different result is just silly.
“Arguing that there is no immediate relief doesn’t change the issue.”
Yes, it does. There are things that we can do, right this second, to get off of the oil kick that we’ve been on for too long. Homes in the USA can generate their own power, right now, using wind & solar.
“Backing the money investors costs us nothing”
It costs us TIME…time that can be betetr used implementing alternative energies and the like! The issue around this “drill now-pay less” nonsense has absolutely *nothing* to do with solving this country’s energy crisis. It has, instead, everything to do with adding more money into the pockets of the oil industry, period. After all, if we don’t drill the trillions & trillions of dollars worth of oil out of the ground…how an anyone make a buck off of it??
I agree that the price of oil now and in the future makes oil shale look a whole lot better…look at what Canada is doing with it now.
“it is established there is more oil therein than there is in the Arabian Gulf.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. These deposits are always overstated when they are originally reported, and then, when the final analysis comes in that sez that there was way less viable oil in that shale…no one is around to pay attention. The USGS has a much more sobering estimate of these types of “reserves”:
bp2.blogger.com/_VyTCyizqrHs/R_5Z9dJlPcI/AAAAAAAAAYs/WTH1annkSqU/s1600-h/USoil2007.JPG
Nuclear is a dead end in this country. People on the Right side of the polictical spectrum would do better trying to grow wings & fly than to try and get more nuclear plants opened. Give it up…
“The enviro argument against hydro-electric goes to alteration of fish habitat.”
I understand this (we some of this here in VT), but you are again *intentionally overstating* the impact of this very small minority of people.
“If the rest of the world is surviving on sun and air, why is there so much competition for the oil?”
Give me break. The USA consumes more oil than any other country in the world (actually, we consume more oil than Japan & most of Europe *combined*). Fuel economy standards have been basically stagnant for decades in this country until very recently due to undue pressure from the oil & auto industry.
If the UK, Sweden, and Cuba can plan to be more efficient and phase out the old ways of doing things with respect to energy, then so can we I think. We currently get about 40% of our nation’s energy from oil. The rest of the world only gets 37% of their energy from oil, and they get roughly 8 times as much energy from biomass (where countries like Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Poland are leading the way). We need to take the lead from other countries around the world that are getting more of their energy from wind (like Spain & Denmark), hydro (like Canada, China, Brazil & India), solar (like Japan & Portugal), and geothermal. These things are being done…right now!
[…] Jack H. Swift presents Greenology is a Bankrupt Philosophy posted at Government is not your Daddy. […]
GAWWWWWWWWWD I wish Jack Swift would move back to California and shut the hell up. Your team lost the election, Jack. It’s over for at least eight years for any traction you thought you may have gained with your hate-filled, shoot-em-up Constitution Party views. Why don’t you play nicely with others for a while?