Why The Left Is Wrong on the Environment

5 reasons why liberal Red Green and Blue commentators are wrong about the Republican’s record on the environment, and another 7 reasons why the Democrats have failed.

Describing Red Green and Blue as a web-site that “has the immediate appearance of hating people like me“, a Republican reader writes:

One look at it [Red Green and Blue] and it was clear that you suffer from the misconception that only liberals care about greenness therefore, we won’t mind your obvious political bias and childish slaps at people like me…

…..I’ve been a Republican since 1992 and can’t think of a single Republican I know that is anything less than concerned about this planet….

….Web sites like yours perpetuate the lie that Republicans have not been friendly to the environment.

Our reader goes on to provide 5 reasons why liberals, particularly those that write for Red Green and Blue, are wrong:

• The bipartisan effort of Congressman Wally Herger and Dianne Feinstein in far northern California was passed in 1998 and signed by Clinton.  This program has the full support of the Bush Administration, which has  made healthy forests a priority from his first days in office.   Environmental extremists including the Sierra Club have fought such measures, issuing denigrating statements about the efforts.  Environmentalist policies that have kept the forests unhealthy resulted in untold losses in California wildfires last summer and in other years.
• Drilling for oil in ANWR has consistently been stopped, mostly by liberals, and backed, mostly by conservatives and, regardless of party, the majority of residents of Alaska. Liberals look at the goal of drilling in ANWR as an environmental black eye for conservatives, even as we continue to import oil.   But at tremendous cost to themselves, oil companies have improved their technology to the point that the impact of extraction on the environment is a tiny fraction of what it once was. And of course, the caribou population which liberals claim would be damaged grew geometrically after the construction of the Alaskan pipeline which gave them a source of warmth.  It’s clear that no amount of technological improvement is enough for liberals to drop their partisanship.
• In northern California and across the country, the bee population is being decimated by disease (Colony Collapse Disorder).  I don’t consider this a partisan issue, but the leaders of the state beekeepers association and the major bee farms in far northern California are almost all Republicans.  They are leading the way to fixing the problem by working with U.C. Davis to increase research and provide specimens to fight the disease and rejuvenate the bee population. They have also proposed legislation to stiffen the penalties for hive destruction and theft. If you are not bothered by this, you should know that pollination affects 1/3 of our nation’s food supply, including ice cream.
• Also in California, the head of a local water district spent hours explaining to me how local Republican legislators have tried to preserve our water supply.   Grassroots watershed groups, mostly conservative farmers, donate untold amounts of time trying to preserve and protect the waterways.   Are they all Republicans?  Of course not.  But drive down the main road that is dotted with family farms  and in recent days, you see steam of McCain/Palin signs displayed near the road, and only a rare Obama/Biden sign.
• The 1990 Clean Air Amendments were signed by President George H.W. Bush that has undeniably resulted in significantly reduced air pollution, especially the acid rain control program. In its first phase, it reduced annual sulphur dioxide emissions by 50 percent bellowed allowable levels. Industries have been almost 100 percent compliant. In 2002, President George W. Bush signed the Clear Skies Initiative (with a Republican Congress) which, even media liberals called the most significant step this country has taken to reduce power plant emissions and reduce air pollution.

And another 7 good reasons why liberals have failed on the environment:

• In 2006, Ted Kennedy opposed the building of an environmentally friendly wind farm (CapeWind Project), about six miles from the coast of the Kennedy compound.  At the time it was thought he opposed it because the windmills could be seen from the Kennedy compound, but research showed it was Robert Kennedy Jr.  (huge proponent of alternative energy sources) because it would be in the path of the Kennedy family’s favourite yachting and sailing area.
• Al Gore, responsible for the Global Warming fiasco, uses twice as much energy in his home in one month as the average family uses in an entire year. His spokesperson, Kalee Kreider did not dispute the facts as reported.   Barbra Streisand  - self-appointed diva of the left - has similarly shameful statistics.  She lectured us on such niceties as only running our dishwashers when they are full and drying clothes on the clothesline… the lecture was delivered from her 10,000 square foot oceanfront home, with no clothesline.
• Gore pushed the Kyoto Treaty when he and Clinton were in the White House, but Clinton refused to sign it. Only Romania signed it at that point.
• Pennsylvania Democrats went after Republican Senator Rick Santorum, and one of the points they made was that he waited four years to get his dog neutered. Hello? No mention of how Clinton’s dog was hit and killed because it was running loose on the street near Hillary’s New York mansion.  No mention of those pictures of Lyndon Johnson picking his dogs up, by their ears, several feet off the ground.
• When Clinton was filmed dedicating the Grand Escalante Staircase National Monument in Utah, he ordered that thousands of trees that obscured the picture be destroyed.
• Environment extremists blocked the thinning of forests and the construction of roads into the forests for the purpose of clearing out dead and dying timber,  which would have removed fuel that feeds wildfires. Because of their constant interference, they are responsible for the wildfires that swept California last summer.
• Liberals have consistently blocked drilling in ANWR (claiming it takes ten years or more to get refined oil, yet dismissing the fact that they’ve been blocking drilling for at least 13 years), but on seeing the effect on gas prices in recent months, they rethought their opposition to drilling.   Of course, they do not take responsibility, but blame Bush.  They have even floated a theory that Bush is hoarding oil underground at his Texas ranch.

And a final closing remark:

I’m deeply sorry that you cannot see past your own political weaknesses. You’ve turned what could be a great forum for disseminating information into a childish rant.

What do you think?

Image credit: Chris Gin at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

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