Another Green Hoax

A new study on electric cars has come out by the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, an organization jointly funded by Britain's government and automobile industry. Its findings? Electric cars actually are likely to produce HIGHER CO2 emissions over their lifetime than gasoline cars. The study found that mid-size electric cars produce only slightly less CO2 than their mid-size gasoline counterparts during their lifetime. This is not near enough to make up for the fact that it takes 50% MORE energy to manufacture electric cars in the first place and also 50% MORE energy to dispose of them. Not to mention the fact that most electric cars need a battery replacement after a few years (more carbon emissions!), and that some of the materials needed to manufacture the batteries are only available from countries like China and are difficult to dispose of in an environmentally safe way. And then there's the point that most electric cars are not suitable for long trips because they only drive a short distance on a single charge.

So tell me again: why is our government spending massive amounts of money subsidizing the electric car industry and incentivizing people to buy these very expensive cars?

The environmentalist movement in this country has gotten pretty extreme. Some of their causes, such as banning DDT worldwide and trying to stop industrialization in Third World countries, have left people in extreme poverty and even resulted in loss of life. Environmentalism is more than just a cause – it’s a religion for a lot of people. They worship Mother Earth, which they believe is eternal and is responsible for creating all life through the process of naturalistic evolution. For them, Mother Earth must be preserved in an untouched, pristine condition, no matter how many people must suffer as a consequence. Thus, they pass legislation that costs thousands of loggers their jobs because somewhere deep in the woods there may be a spotted owl somewhere that might have its habitat disrupted. Environmentalist concern for some obscure endangered species caused California to shut off the water supply to the central valley area of the state, one of the most fertile agricultural areas in the country, turning it into a dust bowl and costing thousands of farmers their livelihoods. Environmentalists are obsessed with global warming and are pushing for massive regulation to prevent it that will destroy industry and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs (the Kyoto Treaty for example), even though there is little or no evidence that human activity is causing global warming and even less evidence that scaling back on our activity will prevent it from occurring. (And recent Climategate email leaks have shown how much deception is present in the global warming alarmist camp.) Environmentalists are obsessed with the evils of fossil fuels and want to replace them with “renewable” energy sources, even though there are no such alternative energy sources that can come close to matching the usefulness and productivity of fossil fuels. I have no problem with researching to find better alternative energy sources, but in the meantime we have huge untapped supplies of fossil fuels that will sustain us for hundreds of years. Fossil fuels created the economic productivity that has given us so much wealth. I guess the earth was more pristine back in the days of the cavemen, but I don’t want to go back to that lifestyle just for the sake of being green. Environmentalists are obsessed with population growth and want to dramatically reduce the earth’s population. I watched a documentary on this, and in fact the earth is not overpopulated at all and dramatic reductions in the population would cause tremendous economic harm to our country and our world (and already has contributed to a lot of Japan and Europe’s economic problems).

That doesn’t mean that I don’t care about the environment and think we should just trash it. I don’t worship the earth and I don’t believe I owe my existence to it, but I still believe it is the good creation of God and as such we should seek to take care of it and protect it. A lot of environmental legislation from earlier in our history was good and necessary. It is good that companies are no longer allowed to dump raw sewage into the river. It is generally good that we are recycling. It is good that factories can’t pour out dangerous pollutants unrestricted. It is good that companies are responsible to clean up environmental damage they cause. It is good that littering is a crime. It is good that there are rules preventing the destruction of forests and wetlands. It is good that our national park system is preserving our most special natural landscapes for generations to come. I support all of those things and what they have done to preserve our environment. But the modern environmentalist movement has gone far beyond simple good stewardship and conservation. Now they want to regulate how much water I can have in my toilet and what kind of light bulbs I can use and how much fuel my auto uses. I think that the environmental movement cares more about a pristine earth than about the lives of people, and that's wrong.

I'm sick of all the group think and distortions when it comes to the environment. I want to protect the environment, but I refuse to buy into all the fashionable ideas currently on the market. I want our government to show the same concern for the truth and the facts.