Environmentalism

Impeachment at Home and Climate Hysteria Abroad

by Richard M. Ebeling October 3, 2019

Two events filled the television-news airwaves and social media as September 2019 was coming to an end: the decision of the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives to go forward with an impeachment investigation over President Donald Trump’s July 2019 telephone conversations with the president of Ukraine; and the public utterances of Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish poster ...

My Blowup at the Enviro Checkpoint

by James Bovard October 1, 2016

As I sat in a seemingly endless line of cars at the Maryland vehicle-emissions check-point, the engine in my 1999 Ford suddenly growled, shuddered, and conked out cold. Maybe it was karma for my decades of scoffing at harebrained government regulations? As I waited 90 minutes for a tow truck, I watched a stream of vehicles tarry up to half ...

Bill Gates, Climate Change and the Capitalist System

by Richard M. Ebeling November 9, 2015

Bill Gates of Microsoft is one of the wealthiest individuals in the world, so when he speaks it is not surprising that the world tends to listen. In a recent interview, Gates has said that capitalism is inherently unable to solve the problem of global warming, and instead there have to be world-encompassing government-business “partnerships” to save Planet Earth. In ...

How to Shrink the Government’s Carbon Footprint

by Laurence M. Vance April 6, 2015

Barack Obama wants to shrink the federal government’s “carbon footprint.” This is a wonderful idea that all limited government conservatives, constitutionalists, and above all, libertarians, should wholeheartedly support. Too bad Obama’s plan will hardly make a dent in the volume or the severity of the federal government’s noxious emissions. The federal government is the nation’s largest consumer of energy. It ...

Obama Wants to Close the Oceans. Privatize Instead!

by Wendy McElroy July 17, 2014

In June, President Obama made a video announcement at the Our Ocean 2014 Conference, sponsored by the Department of State. He declared, “Like Presidents Clinton and Bush before me, I’m going to use my authority as President to protect some of our most precious marine landscapes just as we do for our mountains and rivers and forests.… ...

Republicans and the EPA

by Laurence M. Vance June 11, 2014

Republicans are upset with Barack Obama — again. This time it is over the latest Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed regulations to limit carbon emissions from power plants. According to the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill, The EPA already regulates sulfur dioxide, nitrogen, mercury, and particle pollution from power plants, but not carbon emissions, which account for roughly one-third ...

Pickens Plan Is Based on Ignorance

by Sheldon Richman August 8, 2008

Can a person be a good businessman but a lousy economist? Yes. Take T. Boone Pickens, for example. Hes all over television touting his plan for wind power as a substitute for foreign oil, a plan that calls for massive government subsidies. This should immediately make us suspicious. If wind is so good, why does it need subsidies? In trying ...

Global Warming, Central Planning, and the Free Market

by Bart Frazier August 1, 2008

Global warming is a topic that can turn any gathering of friends into a shouting match quickly, and with good reason. If the direst predictions are true, our civilization is in for a rough ride down the road. But unfortunately, the debate over global warming has been framed in such a way that one of ...

Destroying the Everglades

by Bart Frazier June 1, 2007

When most people think of southern Florida, they conjure up images of Disney World and spring break. Yet further south than Mickey and Daytona International Speedway are the Florida Everglades, one of the most unusual ecosystems in the world and a true mecca for wildlife enthusiasts. Over the past half century, ...

Is “the Environment” a Collectivist Idea?

by Sheldon Richman February 1, 2006

No issue has been more prominent the last several decades than “the environment.” Almost every day a new environmental “threat” arises, spelling the end of life as we know it, if not literally. We are being poisoned by polluted water and air; man-made carcinogens hide in our food; our ozone protection from the sun is eroding. And then there’s ...

Environmentalist Terrorists Burn with Hypocrisy

by Scott McPherson December 9, 2005

Early in the morning of November 21, four unoccupied townhouses in Hagerstown, Maryland, were intentionally set on fire, causing approximately $300,000 in damage. An anonymous email to news organizations claimed the attack for the “Earth Liberation Front” (ELF) — to “defend what remains of the wild and the ...

Mr. Bush, Mind Your Own Business

by Sheldon Richman October 21, 2005

So President Bush wants us to conserve gasoline by driving less. Cut out the nonessential car trips, he says. It seems to me that the quintessential American response is simply this: With all due respect Mr. President, mind your own business. You see, in America (why doesn’t he know this?) ...