Fox News reports the incoming Republican majority in the House has chosen to get rid of the Select Committee On Global Warming, an expensive relic of the Pelosi years. A spokesman for new Speaker John Boehner said, “we have pledged to save taxpayer money by reducing waste and duplication in Congress. The Select Committee on Global Warning – which was created to provide a political forum to promote Washington Democrats’ job-killing national energy tax – was a clear example, and it will not continue in the 112th Congress.”
This is the latest blow for the State religion of radical environmentalism, which took a long time to realize it had been disemboweled by the Climagate memo scandal. The international high priesthood is currently holding their annual meeting in Cancun, where a certain grim atmosphere hangs over the million-dollar extravaganza. The expensive food and drink doesn’t seem as posh as usual, the fleets of carbon-blasting private jets sit forlorn on the runways, and even the crackpot schemes seem lifeless. They’ve been talking about imposing a global limit on the use of electricity, with the customary exemptions for important socialist politicians and climate experts, of course. It was more fun when they got to kick around vaguely plausible plans to ban air conditioning.
The environmentalist movement was undone by a combination of overwhelming ambition and the increasing absurdity of its claims, an explosive mixture detonated by the discovery of its outright fraud. The idea that American politicians can still hold office after expressing support for such an obvious scam is remarkable, and infuriating, but the public is growing more impatient with their agenda, which always involves fabulous taxes and a regression of Western living standards. The objective of “cap and trade” legislation was pushing the American economy into a pre-industrial state. Primitive economies primarily require labor for the collection of food, and have little productive work for vast populations. It’s no coincidence that every item on the environmentalist wish-list is a vicious job killer.
The willingness of the House Republicans to completely scrap a committee on global warming – years after even the priesthood stopped calling it “global warming” – is an encouraging step in the direction of sanity. Real science does not co-exist with junk science - the latter steals funding and prestige from the former. Those who insist on clinging to fantasies are not well equipped to find rational solutions to real challenges.
Here is the simple, objectively demonstrable truth: nothing protects the environment better than wealth, because only prosperous people can develop and afford the technology for the job. Wealth and technology require energy. No program designed to punish or ration energy use is going to have a positive long-term effect on the environment. The real solutions to our energy needs, and improved stewardship of the natural world, will be found through industry and innovation. They will forever elude terrified worshippers huddled before shamans who scream about the fiery rage of the earth and sky gods, and demand expensive sacrifice in exchange for their benevolence.
